About the network

Tom Ebeyer was among the first 21 reported cases of ‘congenital aphantasia’ mentioned in the original scientific paper by Dr. Adam Zeman in 2015. The paper was picked up by media outlets, including the New York Times, which led to an outpouring of new discoverers who also identified with having aphantasia.

Tom quickly realized there was no available support or information for people with a ‘blind mind’s eye,’ so he began building the foundations for a network. Tom’s story was picked up by CBC’s Doc Project in 2019, and the episode Think of a Horse produced by the network’s Creative Director, Paul Aflalo, aired several times across Canada on CBC Radio.

In January of 2019, interest in the extremes of human imagination (aphantasia and it’s opposite, hyper-vivid imagination or “hyperphantasia”) grew considerably when Ed Catmull, founder and former CEO of Pixar, was profiled on BBC News as also being ‘blind in the mind’s eye’. In a surprising survey of his former employees, Catmull discovered so too do some of the world’s best Disney animators – including Glen Keane, creator of The Little Mermaid. Since the discovery of the condition, media attention has been steadily growing and Dr. Zemans’ paper now scores in the top 5% of research interests on Altmetric.

It became apparent to co-founders of the Aphantasia Network, Tom and Jennifer McDougall that people across the spectrum of imagination needed a place to discover and learn about aphantasia. The pair began building the ‘Aphantasia Network’ in Sept 2019.

Aphantasia Network is the #1 network for people discovering aphantasia — a place to ask questions, share perspectives and connect with many minds to discover new insight into how we think, create, and dream with blind imagination.