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.

New here? Get started

What is Aphantasia?

Do I Have Aphantasia?

I Want to Learn More

Research Library

Read Articles & Stories

Join the Discussions

Watch Videos

Find Support

Latest Aphantasia Activity

Therapy and Aphantasia

2025-07-05 04:06:04

Aphantasia and Dreams

Hi everyone,

I have discovered i have Aphantasia, but i have very vivid lucid dreams. For many years, when i was younger my lucid dreams were in the darkness but i read something somewhere in my 20's which told me to do 'vision on' as a command in my dream.

2025-07-02 11:11:43

Aphantasia and Body Dysmorphia

I'm new to the community so I apologize if this overlaps another discussion!

Growing up I have always grappled with body dysmorphia -- the image of my body has never existed as one thing to me and I have alwasy struggled with "seeing" myself as I really am or as others

What Living Without Mental Imagery Has Taught Me

I live without mental imagery—no pictures, no imagined sounds. But my world is rich in emotion, intuition, and presence. I parent, create, and heal by tuning into what I feel, not what I see. It’s a different way of experiencing life—and it’s deeply meaningful in its own quiet, grounded way.

on 2025-07-02 10:13:34

Diversity makes the richness of humanity: The emergence and persistence of mental imagery after self-reported psilocybin truffles intake in an autistic woman with “blind imagination” (aphantasia): A 33-month retrospective case report

Rebecchi, K. (2025). “Diversity makes the richness of humanity”: The emergence and persistence of mental imagery after self-reported psilocybin truffles intake in an autistic woman with “blind imagination” (aphantasia): A 33-month retrospective case report. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. doi:10.1556/2054.2025.00320

This case study follows a 34-year-old autistic woman with lifelong aphantasia who experienced vivid mental imagery for the first time after consuming psilocybin truffles. Before taking psilocybin, she scored 16 on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (the minimum score indicating no mental imagery). Immediately after her first psilocybin experience, her score jumped to 80 (the maximum), and importantly, the effects persisted long after the psychedelic wore off. Twelve months later, her score was 59, and at 33 months it had increased to 68, which is above the general population average. She reported being able to manipulate images in her mind, zoom in and out, and break down colors - experiences that were completely new to her. The research suggests psilocybin may work by altering brain connectivity patterns, particularly between visual processing areas and regions involved in conscious awareness. While this is just one person's experience and needs much more research, it raises questions about how we understand and classify aphantasia. The participant emphasized that she never felt disabled by her aphantasia, viewing it instead as a different way of experiencing the world rather than a deficit. She developed effective strategies and describes herself as methodical and creative. This perspective challenges the idea that aphantasia needs to be "cured" and suggests we should focus on understanding cognitive diversity rather than pathologizing different ways of thinking.

Charlotte Engelke

2025-06-10 04:36:56

Aphantasia & Design – Looking for Guest Speaker (Paid)

Hi everyone!
I’m a product design student at the AMD Academy of Fashion and Design in Hamburg, currently taking part in the Innovationlab module. I´m working on a project that focus on the topic Aphantasia to help people by imagination.

I’m looking for someone with Aphantasia w

Aphantasia as a functional disconnection

Liu, J., & Bartolomeo, P. (2025). Aphantasia as a functional disconnection. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.012

Recent brain imaging research helps explain how people with aphantasia can remember what things look like without being able to picture them mentally. Scientists used brain scans to study what happens when people with aphantasia try to form mental images. They found that the visual parts of the brain still activate normally, but there's less communication between a key visual area (the fusiform imagery node) and the brain regions responsible for conscious awareness in the front of the brain. This reduced connection may be the neural basis for aphantasia. The researchers suggest this disconnection explains a puzzling aspect of aphantasia: how people can have accurate memories for what objects look like and recognize them perfectly well, even though they can't consciously experience mental images. Essentially, the visual information is being processed and stored properly in the brain, but it's not reaching the areas that create conscious visual experiences. This research builds on work showing that the left prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in visual awareness, suggesting that when this area doesn't communicate effectively with visual processing regions, you get the aphantasia experience—intact visual memory without the subjective experience of "seeing" in your mind's eye.

Digvijay Naruka

2025-06-04 08:42:06

Acquired Hypohantasia: My “Shadow Visualization” and Atlantis‐Style Imagery

The Accident That Changed Everything

I am 17 years old, and I have acquired hypohantasia. To explain my condition, I need to go back to that iniquitous day when I was five years old. It was a splendid rainy afternoon. My family and some neighbors were out enjoying the weather

I’m an Author With Aphantasia: You, Too, Have the Power to Do Anything You Set Your Mind To

For years, I thought something was wrong with me. While others “pictured” scenes in their minds, I saw nothing. I couldn’t visualize characters or settings, and it left me feeling disconnected—until I learned I had aphantasia.

on 2025-06-03 06:00:00

Impoverished recall of sensory details along infrequently travelled routes in aphantasia

Li, A., Arrieta, M., Levine, B., & Rosenbaum, R. S. (2025). Impoverished recall of sensory details along infrequently travelled routes in aphantasia. Memory (Hove, England), 1–13. doi:10.1080/09658211.2025.2507948

Research shows how people with aphantasia remember and navigate familiar environments. Scientists studied over 220 participants, comparing those with aphantasia to those with typical mental imagery, using questionnaires about navigation skills and detailed interviews about routes they travel regularly. The results challenge assumptions about aphantasia and memory. People with aphantasia performed just as well as others when describing familiar routes they travel frequently—recalling the same amount of spatial details (like distances and directions), landmarks, and even sensory information (sounds, smells, textures). They also reported similar confidence in their overall navigation abilities and used comparable strategies for getting around. A difference showed up with less familiar routes. When describing places they rarely visit, people with aphantasia recalled fewer sensory details compared to those with typical imagery. This suggests they may rely on different memory strategies for frequently traveled routes—possibly converting visual experiences into verbal or factual memories rather than storing them as mental images. These findings offer reassurance to people with aphantasia: your spatial memory works well, especially for familiar environments. The research suggests that while you may process and store spatial information differently, you develop effective compensatory strategies that allow you to navigate successfully. This adds to growing evidence that aphantasia doesn't mean impaired memory—just different ways of remembering and experiencing the world around you.

2025-05-26 23:44:16

No mind's eye? What about a mind's nose?

Hello! I'm new here. My name is Sam, and I'm an artist with aphantasia. I did not understand this about myself until a couple years ago, and always thought the language of visualization was metaphorical. I've always been an artist, crafting, drawing, painting, sculpting, any visual me

Aphantasia does not affect veridical and false memory: Evidence from the DRM paradigm

Pauly-Takacs, K., Younus, S., Sigala, N., & Pfeifer, G. (2025). Aphantasia does not affect veridical and false memory: Evidence from the DRM paradigm. Consciousness and Cognition, 133(103888), 103888. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2025.103888

Researchers at Leeds Beckett University conducted a intriguing study comparing how people with aphantasia and typical imagers remember word lists, using a well-known psychology experiment called the DRM paradigm where 198 participants heard lists of related words (like "door," "glass," "pane" for the theme "window") and were specifically told to visualize each word as they heard it. The researchers expected that people with aphantasia would perform worse since they can't create mental images, and that they might be less susceptible to "false memories" – remembering words that weren't actually presented but were related to the theme. Surprisingly, the results showed no significant differences between aphantasic and typical participants in either accurate recall or false memory generation, with both groups remembering about 57% of the actual words and falsely recalling about 40% of the theme words that were never presented. However, when looking at individual differences across all participants, those with more vivid imagery did show slightly better memory for real words but also made more memory errors. This research suggests that people with aphantasia may use alternative strategies to compensate for their lack of visual imagery, achieving similar memory performance through different cognitive pathways, challenging assumptions about how mental imagery affects memory and highlighting the remarkable adaptability of the aphantasic mind.

2025-05-20 13:55:01

Aphantasia and eye contact

I am in my 80's and only a few years ago discovered aphantasia. After getting over the idea that "the Mind's Eye" is more than a poetic metaphor and realizing that my near total lack of visual images was unusual, I became fascinated by the relationship to memory, my biographical

Diverse Minds: Exploring Individual Differences in Visual Imagery and Special Cases

DeKock, K. (2025). Diverse minds: Exploring individual differences in visual imagery and special cases. The Confluence, 4(1). doi:10.62608/2150-2633.1069

This study explores the wide range of human experiences with visual imagery—from no imagery at all (aphantasia) to extremely vivid imagery (hyperphantasia). Visual imagery refers to the ability to picture things in the “mind’s eye,” and while most people can do this to some degree, the intensity varies greatly. Researchers examined how mental imagery connects to memory, learning, creativity, and emotion. People with hyperphantasia often have highly detailed mental pictures that can enhance creativity but may also increase emotional sensitivity or distress, especially when recalling negative experiences. On the other end, individuals with aphantasia tend to rely more on logic and facts than mental pictures. This can make emotional recall or visualization-based learning more difficult, but many adapt well and excel in fields like science or math. To study these differences, researchers used self-report questionnaires (where participants describe their own imagery experiences) and performance tasks. While self-reporting has limitations, it remains one of the best tools available for now. The study also highlighted that personality, gender, and brain structure might all play a role in how vivid someone's imagery is. Understanding these individual differences helps researchers, educators, and clinicians better support people across the imagery spectrum. The paper calls for more research, especially on hyperphantasia and the “in-between” experiences, to better understand how our inner worlds shape our outer lives.

True Range of Imagery

Mental imagery through the lens of aphantasia

Scholz, C. O. (2025). Mental imagery through the lens of aphantasia. Mind & Language. doi:10.1111/mila.12560

A debate has emerged in aphantasia research: could people who can't consciously visualize actually have "unconscious" mental imagery happening in their brains? Philosopher Bence Nanay proposed this possibility, suggesting that aphantasics might still generate visual representations without being aware of them. To test this theory, researchers used brain imaging technology to observe the minds of people with aphantasia and typical visualizers during imagery tasks. They looked for "shared representations"—matching brain patterns between imagination and actual seeing. In typical visualizers, these patterns overlapped significantly, like two puzzle pieces fitting together. However, in people with aphantasia, the brain patterns were completely different between seeing and imagining, even though their brains were still active during imagery attempts. The research also explored whether aphantasics might have unconscious imagery triggered by sounds or other senses. While some brain activity occurred, it didn’t show the same signature patterns as conscious visual processing. Interestingly, when researchers tested the Stroop effect (where reading color words interferes with naming ink colors), people with aphantasia showed a reduced effect, supporting the idea that mental imagery normally plays a role in this task. The conclusion challenges Nanay’s theory: people with aphantasia don’t appear to have unconscious visual imagery. Instead, they likely use entirely different cognitive strategies, such as verbal or spatial reasoning, to accomplish tasks that others solve through mental pictures.

The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination - A Conversation with Dr. Adam Zeman

In this conversation, Adam Zeman discusses his book on a new science of imagination and how the discovery of aphantasia reveals the diversity of human consciousness, challenging our existing understanding of imagination.

Interoception, insula, and agency: a predictive coding account of aphantasia

Silvanto, J. (2025). Interoception, insula, and agency: a predictive coding account of aphantasia. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1564251. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1564251

Researchers have proposed a new explanation for aphantasia—the inability to voluntarily create mental images—suggesting it may result from how our brain processes internal bodily signals (called interoception) through a brain region called the insula. The theory has two key components: individuals with aphantasia may struggle to integrate bodily sensations with mental processes, which normally gives imagery its "embodied" quality, and they may experience reduced "sense of agency" over generating mental images. Using a "predictive coding" framework, researchers suggest our brain normally creates mental imagery through top-down predictions from higher brain regions to sensory areas, but in aphantasia, these predictions don't receive enough amplification due to reduced precision of interoceptive signals, preventing imagery from reaching conscious awareness. Interestingly, many people with aphantasia can still experience visual dreams, suggesting the issue isn't with visual processing itself but with voluntary image creation, and the theory also explains why people with aphantasia often have difficulties integrating information across different senses.

2025-05-06 07:53:20

i cant memorize anything, but i can create 15 different dimentions with their own unique.

i have never in my life succeeded at exams, it might cuz of the Hyperphantasia mixed with ADHD, and a dash of personality disorder.

now what im asking please someone tell me how to succeed i dont want to fail theres alot of bulidings i have yet to design and bulid.
the only t

2025-05-02 11:23:41

foveated thinking

Human vision is "foveated". This means we only have high visual acuity in a tiny portion of our field of view, with really crappy acuity just a few degrees off of our line of sight. The reason we don't perceive the world as fuzzy in the periphery is that we constantly scan our &quot