I Thought “Imagine” Was Just a Figure of Speech My Entire Life
3 min readByFatimah Alnaji
Discovering that I have aphantasia has been one of the most shocking experiences of my life because it completely changed how I understand my own mind.
For almost my entire life, I believed that words like “imagine,” “picture this,” or “see it in your mind” were simply expressions. I honestly thought everyone meant “think about it.” I never imagined that most people literally experience mental images.
Looking back, I can suddenly explain so many moments from my childhood. I remember teachers asking the class to close our eyes and imagine the sun or a peaceful place. I would close my eyes, see absolutely nothing, and assume everyone else was just pretending or using their imagination in a figurative way.
The same thing happened with motivational videos. I remember listening to someone telling viewers to close their eyes and picture their future in great detail. I followed the instructions exactly, but nothing happened. I became bored because I was simply sitting there in darkness while listening to someone describe scenes I couldn’t experience. At the time, I thought I was doing the exercise correctly and that everyone else was having the same experience.
One of the biggest surprises after discovering aphantasia was realizing how many everyday expressions people actually mean literally. When someone says they can “see” a memory, “picture” someone’s face, or “visualize” their future, many people truly experience images. That realization completely changed how I interpret conversations, books, movies, and even advice that I had heard my whole life.
I have also become fascinated by how aphantasia may influence memory and emotions. I don’t replay visual scenes from my past because there are no visual scenes to replay. I usually remember what happened, what people said, and how I felt, but not what I saw. Because of this, I sometimes wonder whether I move on from many experiences more easily simply because I only experience them once in real life, rather than mentally replaying them over and over again.
At the same time, I have noticed that meaningful events can still stay with me. Even without mental imagery, experiences that affect my identity, self-image, or how I understand myself seem to remain much longer than ordinary events. This makes me think that emotional memory can exist independently from visual imagery.
Something else that surprised me is that I dream normally. While I cannot voluntarily create mental images when I am awake, my dreams are vivid and visual. This makes me wonder what changes in the brain between dreaming and wakefulness.
I have also wondered whether my inability to visualize has affected the way I study, remember information, process emotional experiences, or understand language. Since learning about aphantasia, I keep finding situations from my past that suddenly make sense because I now realize my brain was processing them differently all along.
More than anything, I hope researchers continue studying aphantasia because I still have so many unanswered questions. I don’t necessarily want to change the way my mind works—I simply want to understand it. Every time I learn something new about aphantasia, it explains another part of my life that had never made sense before.
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