Dreams

Most people with aphantasia do still dream, though often less vivid and less frequent than typical dreamers. Some dream in images they can't recreate while awake.

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Dreams - Aphantasia Topics | Aphantasia Network

Research

2026

Vividness of mental imagery reflects a broad range of internally generated visual experiences

Schwarzkopf and colleagues · Royal Society Open Science

Vividness ratings robustly capture a wide range of subjective experiences, from internal mental depictions to externally projected imagery. This suggests aphantasia should be redefined to distinguish between faint imagery and a total lack of pictorial representation.

2025

Mental imagery, predictive processing, aphantasia, and the interaction between philosophy and cognitive science: Responses to Amy Kind, Christian Scholz, and Neil Van Leeuwen

Nanay · Mind & Language

This short reply to three commentaries on a 2023 book about mental imagery restates the book's view that aphantasia is not a single condition: many people with it still dream in images or have flashbacks but cannot call up images at will, which differs from having no conscious imagery at all. Most of the reply concerns other questions, chiefly how the book's idea that imagery forms part of everyday seeing differs from predictive processing theories, and how philosophy can work with the sciences of the mind. It reports no new data.

2024

Content determination in dreams supports the imagination theory

Gregory · Philosophical Studies

The paper argues that two features of dreams are better explained if dreaming is a kind of imagining than if it is hallucination plus belief. Things can be true in a dream without being shown, as when a dreamer on a beach simply is an accountant, and dreams can skip across long stretches of time the way films do. Both match how people settle what their waking imaginings stand for. The paper calls its arguments supportive but not conclusive and does not claim that dreams never involve hallucinations or beliefs.

2021

Aphantasia, imagination and dreaming

Whiteley · Philosophical Studies

This philosophy paper uses reports that most people with aphantasia still have visual dreams to test the view that dreams are a kind of imagining. The author argues this undercuts the version in which all imagery is something we actively do, but not a version in which dreams involve passive, involuntary imagination. The paper proposes testing whether people with aphantasia can learn lucid dreaming, in which dreamers know they are dreaming and can sometimes control the dream.

All 5 papers

Dreams

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Dreams

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Alexander of Aphrodisias: The Ancient Philosopher Who Mapped Mental Imagery

Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia: What We Know After a Decade of Research

Hypnopompia: Between Sleep and Awake Where Someone with Aphantasia May “See” Imagery

Blind in My Mind's Eye

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Why Don't We Hallucinate Our Mental Images?

Research

Vividness of mental imagery reflects a broad range of internally generated visual experiences

Mental imagery, predictive processing, aphantasia, and the interaction between philosophy and cognitive science: Responses to Amy Kind, Christian Scholz, and Neil Van Leeuwen

Content determination in dreams supports the imagination theory

Aphantasia, imagination and dreaming

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