![]() I cannot conceptualize the taste of my favorite meal or the feeling of a hug, but have a strong inner voice and can hear and remember songs in my mind. For example, I am unable to imagine most senses. ![]() People who experience a lack of mental imagery can have a reduced capacity to access other mental senses (imagining sound, movement, smell, taste, and touch). The sensory information is all in the brain hard to use that information to produce a visual experience in the absence of the item.”Īphantasia is often described as a visual condition, but it’s actually multisensory. ![]() “We know that, in a certain sense, must have a very detailed knowledge of how things look because can recognize them. “People say that they feel that the imagery is there but they just can’t get to it,” Zeman says. The experience of having aphantasia is difficult to describe because it varies from person to person and there is no conscious equivalent. People are realizing that we don’t know much about it, and we should,” says Joel Pearson, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Now, however, “It’s been embraced by scientists of all types now because we can measure it. Mental imagery, as a research topic, was considered taboo in the second half of the 20th century because of behaviorism, which rejected introspection as a way to understand behavior. Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of Exeter in the U.K., in 2015. Even though knowledge of these invisible differences in cognition dates back to 340 B.C., both terms were only named by Dr. Aphantasia indicates the absence of mental imagery, but about 10% to 15% of people are at the other end of the spectrum with extremely vivid imagery or photographic memories, which is called hyperphantasia. The concept of aphantasia traces back to Aristotle, who described a sixth sense of visual imagination called phantasia. At first, it was hard to not see this as a loss, but over time, I’ve developed a new appreciation and interest in how I learn and experience the world. Aphantasia is familial, with research showing that if you have congenital aphantasia, there is a 21% chance that your first-degree relative (parent, sibling, or child) will also have it. I couldn’t imagine what mental imagery would feel like.Īfter telling my family, we discovered that my mom has it too. I had always assumed that daydreaming, counting sheep, and picturing myself on a beach were metaphors. Suddenly, I realized that I saw the world differently. She animatedly spoke about an article she had read on aphantasia and how she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like. I only realized when I was 21, sitting at a coffee shop with my best friend. Four percent of people are estimated to experience aphantasia, but we can go our whole lives without knowing we have it. ![]() I hold all the projector slides and have all the information, but can’t see the actual picture. When I think of a memory, I can conceptually understand and answer questions about it, but cannot project it into my mind or imagine myself in it. I can see clearly with my eyes but not in my mind. I have a condition called aphantasia, mind blindness. I don’t need to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming, because my dreams never resemble reality. My dreams are tangles of thoughts, but when I try to remember them, I can’t actually see anything. When you close your eyes, what do you see? For me, it’s always been a black screen, sometimes with the static of a crackling TV.
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