All About Aphantasia
What is it?
Aphantasia is the inability to visualize. It’s also known as having a blind mind’s eye. Aphants like me are unable to imagine a sunset, or a beach, or the faces of loved ones. (Many of us also cannot revisit events from our past, a related condition known as SDAM.)
Is it curable?
Aphantasia is not a disorder, it’s just the result of a brain that’s wired a little differently than normal. In my case, my prefrontal lobe is poorly connected with lower level perceptual areas. That means when I try to imagine something, the parts of my brain that actually generate that image either don’t get the message, or they simply ignore it. My brain is sort of like a company with a very “hands off” CEO.
It may be possible for aphants to learn to visualize, but so far, there’s no objective evidence of anyone succeeding.
Are you sure you aren’t visualizing? Maybe you don’t know what visualizing means?
You don’t have to take our word for it. There’s objective evidence that self-reported aphants really are not visualizing. if you put us in a fMRI machine, our vision processing areas do not light up when we try to visualize. (Neurotypical folks’ brains do.) If you ask us to read about a shark attack, we won’t have much of an emotional reaction. (Meanwhile, visualizers get stressed out and sweaty).
We are also not affected by priming before a binocular rivalry test. It’s a little complicated, but basically if you ask a neurotypical person to imagine an apple, and then flash two different images, one per eye, they are more likely to consciously register seeing the apple versus the other object.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that people who say they can’t visualize really can’t visualize!
How do I get diagnosed?
Aphantasia is not a disorder or an illness. It’s just unusual, like being left-handed. And like being left handed, a self diagnosis is all you need. Just ask yourself: Can I conjure up images in my mind’s eye? If the answer is nope, then you have aphantasia. (Or you can take this test.)
How did I not realize that other people can/can’t visualize?!
It’s sort of mind blowing, right? I blame the ambiguity of language. Aphants like me will hear things like, “you can’t unsee that,” and we just assume that other people are being dramatic or metaphorical. Most of us had no idea that “counting sheep” to get to sleep and “undressing someone with your eyes” are things that other people actually do.
This whole situation opened up my eyes to the fact that there’s a ton of hidden diversity in peoples’ conscious experience. If you could beam into my brain, you’d probably be astonished at how different my world (inner and outer) is from yours, even though we both inhabit the same objective reality. And don’t even get me started on how different other animals’ conscious experience may be. Suffice to say: If your cat poops on your bed, he is not doing it to piss you off. Your cat may not even understand causality like we humans do, much less theory of mind.
How does aphantasia affect your life?
According to the guy who named the disorder, having aphantasia has very little effect on your life. Many aphants can do things that would seem to require visualization, like playing high-level chess, or sketching detailed layouts of their homes. The rest of us have workarounds that work well enough, or we just avoid chess and interior design. (I’m in the latter group.)
That said, we do seem to be a little impaired in terms of visual memory, and we are slightly more likely to go into STEM fields. Aphants, as a group, are quite heterogeneous, and there are probably subtypes. There are also lots of open questions, like: Are we somewhat protected from PTSD? Can we tap into the power of visualization anyway, for instance, to calm ourselves, imagine the future, or practice dance moves? And what, exactly is the relationship between aphantasia and SDAM.
What about dreams and drugs?
Most aphants have visual dream, and we can also hallucinate on drugs. Our brains are capable of visual imagery, what we can’t do is conjure it up voluntarily.
Where can I meet my fellow aphants?
Which illustration is closest to what you see in your mind’s eye?