Discover the World of Aphantasia

Can You Picture This?

Imagine a world where up to 4% of people can't create mental images. That's the reality of aphantasia, a fascinating variation in human cognition discovered in 2015. Aphantasia Network is your hub for understanding, exploring, and embracing life without a mind's eye.

Joining Aphantasia Network has changed my life! I really thought aphantasia was holding me back, but now I understand that image-free thinking is my superpower.

Liana M Scott

Empowering Minds, Building Connections, & Embracing Possibilities.

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Latest Aphantasia Activity

Creating with Conceptual Thinking: The Art of Not Seeing

As an artist with aphantasia, I create without mental images, relying on conceptual thinking and tactile exploration. My process transforms abstract ideas into tangible works, using recycled materials and collage to bring concepts to life. Without visual preconceptions, I embrace discovery, letting the journey shape my art and reimagining creativity as a dialogue with the world around me.

Onofrio Passariello

on 2025-02-10 09:00:00

Djonathan Krause

2025-02-05 06:24:31

Can you see ghosts?

I was conversing with a group of friends, and they all shared at least one "supernatural" experience, such as encountering ghosts or witnessing strange lights.

As a skeptic, I firmly believe that these experiences are merely products of their imagination.

Howe

Cheryl Stapleton

2025-02-03 17:34:09

Dyslexia and Aphantasia

I'm on here because my 17 year old daughter is aphantasic. She is also dyslexic. It's very frustrating when everyone automatically thinks "if she's dyslexic then she must be really creative, as dyslexics are known to use imaginative creativity to overcome the challenges of expres

2025-02-02 21:26:26

Is this aphantasia?

Hello! Could you please tell me if I have aphantasia or not? I was researching meditation techniques, and people mentioned being able to visualize entire rooms—like imagining a chair, table, carpet, and so on. Do they actually "see" these things as if in a video game?

After

2025-02-02 03:57:33

Hallucinigenic Induced Aphantasia?

When I was young, I could imagine images vividly. I created escapist worlds before I fell asleep at times. I still dream in images. I did have a pretty good amount of childhood trauma and bad nightmares, but that also led towards drug use in my late teen years. This included hallucinigenics. (this

2025-01-27 19:34:44

Hoffman Process

Curious if anyone in this network has done the Hoffman Process, an intense personal development, self-help 7-day retreat that uses, in part, visual meditations. More at hoffmaninstitute.org

Stage 2 Registered Report: Propositional Thought Is Sufficient for Imaginal Extinction as Shown by Contrasting Participants With Aphantasia, Simulated Aphantasia, and Controls

Monzel, M., Agren, T., Tengler, M., Karneboge, J., & Reuter, M. (2025). Stage 2 registered report: Propositional thought is sufficient for imaginal extinction as shown by contrasting participants with aphantasia, simulated aphantasia, and controls. Psychophysiology, 62(1), e14756. doi:10.1111/psyp.14756

This study investigated whether people with aphantasia can benefit from imaginal exposure therapy - a common treatment for anxiety disorders that typically involves visualizing feared situations. The research team compared three groups: people with aphantasia, people without aphantasia, and a "simulated aphantasia" group who had their visualization abilities temporarily disrupted. The findings were remarkably promising. People with aphantasia can successfully benefit from imaginal exposure therapy, even without being able to visualize, and the therapy was equally effective across all groups. This suggests that "thinking about" rather than "seeing" the feared situation is sufficient for the treatment to work. Interestingly, people with aphantasia reported feeling less subjective fear throughout the experiment, despite showing similar physical stress responses. This reduced emotional distress might actually be beneficial, as it could make therapy less overwhelming and reduce dropout rates. The researchers used a fear conditioning experiment where participants learned to associate certain images with mild electric shocks. They then underwent "extinction training" (similar to exposure therapy) where they had to think about the images without any shocks. Their fear responses were measured through skin conductance (sweat response) and self-reported anxiety. This research challenges previous assumptions about the need for mental imagery in exposure therapy and opens up new possibilities for customizing treatment approaches. Most importantly, it suggests that people with aphantasia can fully benefit from visualization-based therapies, though they may experience them differently.

2025-01-22 11:17:20

On the verge of sleep

Hello all,

I've only recently learned about aphantasia and that it's an actual condition. I always thought that when people spoke of picturing things in their heads, they meant it as some type of metaphor. Not that they could actually see it in their minds. Now learning t

Joshua Copeland

2025-01-22 06:34:27

Afterimages

Hi, so I need to ask everyone. How well can you see afterimages? If you don't know what those are, it's when you see an image and quickly look away, your brain still sends signals of the image you looked away from... in theory.
I read a paper that suggested this effect could be eit

Expanding Aphantasia Definition: Researchers Propose New Boundaries

Researchers expand aphantasia definition beyond "inability to visualize." This broader framework impacts how we understand and identify with the condition.

on 2025-01-18 11:31:00

Jennifer McDougall

2025-01-17 10:37:51

Have you ever felt like your mind holds images you can't quite "see"?

One of the most common experiences shared in our community is the challenge of explaining to others how people with aphantasia (who can't consciously visualize) can "know" what something looks like without being able to "see" it in our minds. Many can instantly recognize our car in a parking lot, na

Imageless imagery in aphantasia revealed by early visual cortex decoding

Chang, S., Zhang, X., Cao, Y., Pearson, J., & Meng, M. (2025). Imageless imagery in aphantasia revealed by early visual cortex decoding. Current Biology: CB. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.012

Scientists have traditionally believed that activity in the primary visual cortex directly relates to conscious visual experiences, including mental imagery. This study examined this relationship in people with aphantasia - who cannot voluntarily create mental images - by measuring brain activity patterns during both perception and attempted imagery. The research revealed several surprising findings: While both aphantasic and non-aphantasic individuals showed decodable brain activity during imagery attempts, people with aphantasia displayed distinctly different neural patterns. Their brain activity during imagery appeared on the opposite side than expected and couldn't be matched to their patterns during actual perception. Additionally, aphantasic individuals showed reduced brain response when physically viewing things compared to people without aphantasia. These results suggest that people with aphantasia do maintain some form of imagery-related representation in their visual cortex, but it contains transformed rather than absent sensory information. This challenges our fundamental understanding of how activity in the visual cortex relates to conscious visual experiences, indicating the relationship is more complex than previously thought.

MICHAEL DORFMAN

2025-01-08 22:10:26

Do you know what you look like?

As I learn more about Aphantasia from all your posts I have new questions. So a few days ago I wondered if I'd be able to picture my face after staring at it in a mirror. I already know I've never been able to picture my loved ones and best friends but what about an image of my own face?<b

2024-12-26 18:30:40

The difference in genius? Разница гениальности?

Good day to everyone!
Всем добрый день!

The languages I speak are Russian, English, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Arabic, Kazakh, and Japanese.
Языки, на которых я разговариваю, — русский, английский, французский, китайский, немецкий, итальянский, арабский, казахский

2024-12-22 22:11:23

Lets talk MUSIC!

IF you are of a singer/songwriter, and also at a performer level, can you VISUALIZE the written song you have composed WHILE YOU PLAY OR SING IT?

Objective priming from pre-imagining inputs before binocular rivalry presentations does not predict individual differences in the subjective intensity of imagined experiences

Bouyer, L. N., Schwarzkopf, D. S., Saurels, B. W., & Arnold, D. H. (2024). Objective priming from pre-imagining inputs before binocular rivalry presentations does not predict individual differences in the subjective intensity of imagined experiences. Cognition, 256(106048), 106048. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106048

Researchers investigated whether binocular rivalry (BR) - where different images are shown to each eye - could provide an objective way to measure individual differences in mental imagery strength. Previous studies suggested that imagining an image before viewing competing images might influence what people see, but it wasn't clear if this effect reliably indicated how vividly someone could visualize. The study tested 77 participants using three methods: a standard questionnaire (VVIQ2) asking people to rate their visualization abilities, having people imagine specific patterns before showing different images to each eye, and testing how accurately people could spot small changes in images after imagining them. While imagining an image beforehand did influence what people reported seeing overall, this effect wasn't stronger in people who reported more vivid mental imagery. The ability to detect small changes in images after imagining them wasn't clearly linked to self-reported visualization strength. People's ratings of their visualization abilities were more consistent than the other measurements. The researchers conclude that while mental imagery can influence what we see, current binocular rivalry tests don't reliably measure individual differences in visualization ability. This highlights the ongoing challenge of developing objective ways to measure aphantasia and imagery strength. More research is needed to develop better measurement tools that could help tailor visualization-based therapies and techniques to different people's abilities.

2024-12-05 11:25:57

Vitreal detachment - request for your experiences.

Vitreal detachment is a common event as one ages, particularly those with myopia (nearsightedness). It usually is associated with visual changes, typically flashing lights.
MY experience with a vitreal detachment was atypical, in that experienced "flashing blackness" rather than a

Erin Chien-Szegedy

2024-12-04 13:08:35

Eating Disorders & Aphantasia

Hi all! I'm Erin and I'm new to the network!

I have aphantasia, autism, ADHD, and ARFID (along with a few other fun acronyms that aren't super relevant right now) and I've been speaking with providers about my aphantasia for a long time. I've found that it&#0

Content determination in dreams supports the imagination theory

Gregory, D. (2024). Content determination in dreams supports the imagination theory. Philosophical Studies. doi:10.1007/s11098-024-02250-3

A 2024 paper by Gregory explores fundamental theories about how dreams work, though it wasn't directly studying aphantasia or hyperphantasia. The research examines two competing theories about dreaming that may have implications for understanding these conditions. The "orthodox" theory suggests dreams involve hallucinations (false perceptual experiences) combined with actual beliefs. The alternative "imagination" theory proposes dreams involve sensory imagining and propositional imagining (the ability to imagine that something is true without any sensory representation, like understanding a fictional fact). Gregory provides two features of dreams that support the imagination theory. First, in dreams we often "know" things that aren't shown through sensory experience - like knowing you're a doctor without seeing or experiencing anything that indicates this. This suggests propositional imagining rather than actual beliefs. Second, dreams can skip through time in ways real experiences cannot. A dream might include climbing three mountains in different countries, showing only key moments while skipping the travel between. This temporal segmentation supports sensory imagining rather than hallucination, since actual perception (whether true or false) must be continuous. While this paper wasn't designed to study aphantasia or hyperphantasia, its theoretical examination of how dreams work could inform future research into these conditions. Gregory notes they aren't claiming dreams never involve hallucinations or beliefs, but rather that certain features of dreams are better explained by the imagination theory.

Describing What You Cannot See—A Horror Writer With Aphantasia Explains His Process

As a horror writer with aphantasia, I can’t visualize the creepy skulls I write about. Yet, I still describe vivid scenes by focusing on sounds, smells, and emotions. My imagination doesn’t need visuals to create gripping stories—character depth and atmosphere are my strengths.

on 2024-10-31 07:00:00