Aphantasia is a condition some people experience related to how their mind and imagination function. Having it indicates you don’t have a visual imagination, keeping you from imagining things in your mind. People often don’t recognize they have it, and it’s not a disability or medical condition.
What Does a Person With Aphantasia See?
If you have aphantasia, you may be incapable of visualizing any type of picture in your head. Aphantasia is considered to be rare, affecting a calculated 1% to 4% of the population.1 These people have no “mind’s eye,” or their vision is essentially blind. This capacity to visualize events and pictures often plays an important part in people’s lives.
We often imagine scenes, people, knowledge, imaginings, objects, and planned events, among other things. When you consider a friend, for instance, you might immediately imagine their face inside your mind. People with aphantasia are incapable of visualizing such a mental image.
If you were to request a person with aphantasia to imagine something, they could likely tell the object, define the concept, and rattle off truths that they know about the thing. But they would not be capable of experiencing any sort of mental picture to accompany this knowledge. For those without aphantasia, this may be difficult to understand.
What is aphantasia?
Aphantasia is when your brain doesn’t form or use mental pictures as part of your thought or imagination. Professionals don’t define aphantasia as a medical disease, disorder or disability. Rather, it’s a condition, much like which hand you naturally utilize to write. Available research implies it’s simply a distinction in how your mind operates.
Imagination is how your brain “acts” something based on knowledge or experience. For most individuals, imagination can take many forms (things you can see, hear, taste, etc.). Some people have more powerful imagination capabilities than others.
Consider of visual imagination like a television. Some people have black-and-white TVs. Others have color TVs. An incredibly vivid imagination is like having an ultra-high-definition digital television.
Bearing aphantasia is like your mind not having a TV because it wouldn’t operate it. Because your “mind’s eye” doesn’t work like that, your vision works in other ways.
Forms of aphantasia
There are two conditions of aphantasia:
- Congenital. This is aphantasia you have your whole life. People who have this may not understand they have it because they’re clueless that not having mental imagery is weird.
- Acquired. This is a form of aphantasia that develops later in life. Acquired aphantasia almost always occurs because of an injury, illness, or mental health condition.
How familiar is aphantasia?
The available research implies that aphantasia is weird overall. Specialists estimate between 2% and 4% of people have it. However, research on this condition — including how many people have it — is restricted.
It’s also challenging to decide who has it because many people with aphantasia don’t recognize they consider in a way that’s distinct from most people. People with aphantasia may not recognize that most people can “see” pictures they develop in their minds. Some with aphantasia say they thought utilizing the word “see” in that context was an analogy. Because of this, aphantasia may be more common than research presently shows.
Symptoms of Aphantasia
Do you feel you might have aphantasia? View the following queries:
- Think of a buddy or family member. Attempt to conjure a picture of their face in your mind. How undoubtedly can you see their elements, face, hair, and shape?
- How clearly can you imagine their characteristic gestures and motions?
- How vividly can you imagine that person’s clothing?
If you struggle with your answers to these queries, you might have some degree of aphantasia.
Research on Aphantasia
This absence of mental imagery was defined as early the late 1800s, yet it has remained a relatively unstudied sensation. Francis Galton first told the occurrence in a paper on mental imagery printed in 1880. In addition to stating that people experience different degrees of vividness when representing their mental visual imagery, he also said that some people experienced no visual imagery at all.
The situation is still largely unstudied and remains poorly comprehended, although additional research is underway.
Much of the general information stems from a few small studies and anecdotal accounts from people who have expressed their signs.
It was not until the publication of additional studies that appealed has developed in the topic. A 2015 study presented the first use of the term aphantasia and has led to a continued interest in the phenomenon.2 The writers of the groundbreaking study were approached by a patient who had just lost his ability to imagine details following minor surgery.
Early Reports
In 2005, a retired 65-year-old man dwelled neurologist Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter Medical School. The man, directed to in the literature as MX, had experienced a minor surgery, after which he acknowledged that he could no longer imagine images in his mind. Zeman’s search of the medical literature turned up little to describe why the man could no longer develop visual images within his “mind’s eye.”
Researchers have long discussed exactly how this ability to imagine inside the mind works and the position that it may play in planning and memory. While the patient was encountering almost no imagery, his performance on tests of perception, visual imagery, and visual memory were all routine.
Another study led by investigators from the University of New South Wales studied the query of whether people with aphantasia were unable to form mental pictures or if they just had poor recall of these images.4
Utilizing a strategy called “binocular rivalry,” the researchers told participants to visualize an image. Two separate images were then shown to the participants through a 3D headset. One eye noticed one image, while the other eye saw a different image.
When advised to imagine one of these images beforehand, people without aphantasia are more likely to see the picture they had previously visualized. There was no such correlation between the imagined picture and the dominant picture people saw. These findings indicate that it is not that those with aphantasia have poor recall of their imaginings—they have no such visual imaginings to start with.
Latest Research
A 2020 study looked at differences between people with aphantasia and those with hyperphantasia, which involves experiencing vivid mental imagery. Those with aphantasia reported more difficulty with autobiographical memory and facial recognition and were more likely to work in careers that involve math and science.
Another 2020 study found that people with aphantasia also report decreased imagery in other sensory domains, including less vivid autobiographical memories. They also have less frequent and less visual dreams.
However, the study also found that these deficits had no impact on spatial ability. The lack of visual imagery also appeared to offer no protection against symptoms of trauma in response to stressful life events.
What causes aphantasia?
Experts don’t know why exactly congenital aphantasia happens. There are some possible explanations, but for now, these are unconfirmed.
Congenital aphantasia
Congenital aphantasia may be genetic. People with aphantasia are much more likely to have a close biological family member who also has it, so it may run in families.
Congenital aphantasia may also be a form of neurodiversity. Being neurodivergent means your brain developed or works differently from the brains of people whose brains developed or work as expected (the term for that is “neurotypical”).
Conditions like autism spectrum disorder fall under the umbrella of neurodiversity, and autism has a genetic link. People with aphantasia are also more likely to have autism-like traits. However, more research is necessary before experts know what role genetics and neurodiversity play in developing congenital aphantasia.
Acquired aphantasia
Some — but not all — cases of acquired aphantasia have causes experts can find. In rare cases, it can be a symptom of injuries or illnesses that affect your brain. Aphantasia can happen due to damage to certain areas of your brain, especially your occipital lobe.
Some examples of conditions or circumstances that can cause acquired aphantasia include:
- Head injuries (such as concussion or traumatic brain injury).
- Stroke.
- Nonmedical drug use.
Even rarer, aphantasia can happen with (or maybe because of) mental health conditions like mood disorders or depersonalization/derealization disorder. People with this kind of aphantasia usually can still have mental imagery, but they can’t form the images intentionally. Experts aren’t sure how or why aphantasia can happen with mental health conditions or why it may only affect deliberate attempts to form mental images.
Care and Treatment
How is aphantasia diagnosed?
Most people with congenital aphantasia don’t realize they have it until they’re teenagers or adults. Because they don’t “see” how other people form (or don’t form) mental images, many assume everyone thinks the same way they do. People with congenital aphantasia rarely need a formal diagnosis because that’s how their mind has worked their entire life.
Acquired aphantasia is something that generally needs diagnosis. Experts can use a combination of imaging and diagnostic tests and specific questionnaires that measure how strongly you experience mental imagery.
Diagnostic and imaging scans can include:
- Computed tomography (CT) scans.
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
- Electroencephalogram (EET).
The most common questionnaire experts use to “score” mental imagery abilities is the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) or a variation of it. The original VVIQ consists of 16 questions divided into four groups. Each question can have a score of 1 to 5.
How is aphantasia treated?
Aphantasia isn’t a medical or mental health condition, so it doesn’t need treatment.
Acquired aphantasia due to another condition affecting your brain isn’t curable or directly treatable. Healthcare providers generally treat the underlying condition or issue causing your aphantasia. Those treatments can vary widely. Your healthcare provider is the best person to explain treatment options and offer recommendations if you have acquired aphantasia.
