How did you first discover aphantasia?
5 min readByBarbara Borowske
I guess, in hindsight, the first time I realized I couldn't visualize was in the early mid 70's when I was 18 or 19. I took an intro class to speed reading. The main thing they were encouraging us to do was to make pictures in our head while we read. I got so frustrated (and felt belligerent about how someone could make pictures of the many college text books I was reading, chemistry, calculus, words like bravery or honesty… but maybe some folks do) that I got up and left. I felt that their approach to reading was absurd and it didn't occur to me that some of the students might have been finding it easy to make pictures.
In 1977 the animated movie of The Hobbit came out. Many of my friends exclaimed that that was not how they had pictured a hobbit or Gollum. I felt that the characters didn't look like what I might have drawn had I drawn them from the book's description but I didn't already have a picture of what I thought the characters looked like. I just agreed that that wasn't what I thought hobbits looked like either. I didn't realize that my friends were actually seeing images in their mind, even movies for some of them, as they read the book.
I have always had a hard time recognizing someone I haven't seen for a long time or someone I see out of context. Today my husband and I were at a store when a guy walked in that I recognized and said hi to. But I couldn't place him or figure out who he was. Later my husband started talking with him, I joined and by listening to them catch up I realized who he was. My husband knew right off. He remembers faces and names very well. He also visualizes. But I think a lot of visualizers don't really think about it. He doesn't, he says, yeah, I can see images but it's not like they are always there.
In the early 2000's I got interested in how the brain works and how to help kids who struggled with reading and math. I began working at an elementary school helping these kids. I knew from literature I was reading that many folks visualize and that can help them with reading and math. I could encourage kids who could visualize (which in my experience was most of them) to develop this skill. I remember the first time I talked to a group about visualizing. They were 9 year olds. I asked them to picture a triangle could they make it be green, purple… could they make it be big and many of them would say woah, and act as though they were dogging something. I couldn't relate and wondered if they were really seeing pictures or just being goofy. But, I would use it for things like common but difficult to spell words (I strongly believe in phonics for teaching reading but visual memory has its place too). I would write a word such as “because” on a card in colors, ask them to look at the word until they could picture it in their mind, then ask them to read the letters they saw from left to right and right to left. The latter was just to reinforce to them that they could call this word up in their mind and see how to spell it. I would always check with them a couple of weeks later and they always remembered how to spell the word. I cannot see words in my mind and the older I get the more I forget how to spell some less phonetic words.
I've read books like In the Mind's Eye by Thomas West and I've worked with students who have dyslexia or dyscalculia and recognize that brains work differently. Mine doesn't make pictures. I sometimes feel as though I have a fleeting image of what I am thinking of but I can't hold it. I'm not really picturing it but I am remembering it. I am mildly curious about what it would be like to see in my mind's eye, to make pictures but I'm not bothered that I can't. I have my way of thinking and remembering and I'm fine the way I am (although I do wish I could recognize people and place how I knew them more easily but I've gotten more comfortable just asking their name. Once I learn who they are memories come flooding back.) I remember more events that happened in the past than my husband and I remember feelings associated with those memories. He'll recognize the faces.
I found myself trying to visualize the objects in the survey to the point where my brain began to feel tired and I just wanted to be done with the questions. I don't visualize, but I do a lot of other wonderful things with my brain. I first learned the word aphantasia from an IG post. The sugarcoatedsisters posted a song May 28, 2025 about their dad who has aphantasia. I enjoy the song and it led me to looking up the word aphantasia and more recently finding this site from comments people had made under their most recent song about aphantasia. One commenter said: “Visually I see nothing but I know what I am supposed to be imagining so I can picture it there without really seeing it.” This is exactly how I feel. I know what my kitchen, for example, looks like and I can describe it but I can't see it but I sort of picture it while describing it. I am a little in awe of people who can visualize objects well enough to move them around in their mind but I'm also in awe of musicians and artists.