Aaron S

This is a good article, thank you. I've been trying to understand the differences in how people experience their 'mind's eye' (or lack of it) for 30 years, and it's great to see this emerging as a mainstream topic. My search started when I was a late teenager, very hyperphantasiac as I am now, and I assumed that everyone had the same experience. Then when I described my internal visual experience while doing thinking tasks to one of my teachers, his response was to say, 'that's good... but in my case, I don't see anything at all.' I was kind of shocked, and didn't understand how that could be possible. So it's always been a deep question for me, to try to understand this difference. Your article mentions how people who have strong mental imagery tend to dislike excessive illustrations accompanying texts, and in my case this is definitely true. When reading a new science fiction book, for example, I'll always get a hardcover copy and the first thing I do is remove the dust jacket and put it away. Then there is nothing to influence or interfere with my imagination of the story.