The Body-Mind Disconnect: How Your Autonomic Nervous System Shapes Mental Imagery

When Dr. Juha Silvanto asks people with aphantasia to describe their internal experiences, he's not just listening to what they say about their missing mental images. He's paying attention to something deeper: how they experience their own bodies.

In a recent presentation to the Aphantasia Network, the cognitive neuroscientist revealed research that challenges our fundamental understanding of mental imagery. The key insight? Aphantasia may not primarily be a problem with the brain's visual systems—it may be rooted in how the brain processes signals from the body itself.

"Mental imagery is a multimodal experience where sensory components are deeply intertwined with our emotions and physiological states," Dr. Silvanto explains. This integration between mind and body isn't just a nice theoretical concept—it appears to be essential for creating mental images.

The Missing Link: Interoception

At the heart of Dr. Silvanto's theory is interoception—our ability to sense internal bodily signals like heartbeat, breathing, hunger, and tension. While most people take this internal awareness for granted, Dr. Silvanto's research suggests it plays a crucial role in mental imagery.

"Interoception is really the link between our body and our conscious experience," he notes. When we recall a memory or imagine a scene, we don't just reconstruct visual details—we re-enter the physiological state we experienced during the original event.

Think about imagining a stressful presentation or remembering a relaxing vacation. Your heart rate shifts, your breathing changes, your muscles tense or relax. These bodily responses aren't side effects of imagery—according to Dr. Silvanto's model, they're fundamental to the process itself.

Two Paths to Aphantasia

Perhaps most intriguingly, Dr. Silvanto's research reveals that congenital aphantasia (present from birth) and acquired aphantasia (developed later in life) appear to have opposite autonomic profiles.

In a study of 307 people with congenital aphantasia, his team found that "individuals with congenital aphantasia have significantly lower levels of heart symptoms compared to controls." These individuals show reduced autonomic reactivity—their bodies produce weaker physiological signals.

In contrast, acquired aphantasia shows the opposite pattern: heightened autonomic reactivity.

"We actually observe increased reactivity," Dr. Silvanto explains. "We basically find that in acquired aphantasia, there's a heightened autonomic reactivity, which is the opposite pattern that we observed in congenital aphantasia."

How can opposite physiological patterns lead to the same outcome—the loss of mental imagery?

Dr. Silvanto proposes that in both cases, the connection between body and mind is disrupted, just in different ways:

In congenital aphantasia: Weak bodily signals mean there's insufficient physiological feedback to support the creation of mental images. "The interoceptive system is suboptimal," Dr. Silvanto explains, leading to "a weak link between bodily states and mental representations."

In acquired aphantasia: Overwhelming bodily signals—often triggered by trauma or mental health conditions—cause individuals to distance themselves from their physical sensations as a protective mechanism. "You kind of distance yourself from your bodily feedback as a protective mechanism and consequently then you lose your ability to generate mental images."

The Sense of Agency Problem

One of the most elegant aspects of Dr. Silvanto's theory addresses a puzzle that has long fascinated aphantasia researchers: why do approximately 50% of people with aphantasia experience visual dreams while being unable to create voluntary mental images?

The answer, he suggests, lies in the concept of "sense of agency"—our feeling that we are in control of our actions and thoughts.

"When I decide to move my hand, my brain makes a prediction of the outcome of that movement," Dr. Silvanto explains. When the movement occurs, feedback from the body confirms: "Yes, I initiated this." Without that bodily feedback, the brain concludes the action wasn't self-generated.

The same principle applies to mental imagery.

"When we initiate a mental image, we are unable to get feedback from the interoceptive system. So the brain concludes that basically I did not initiate this event and then it becomes suppressed."

Dreams, however, occur during sleep when "our interoceptive system is shut down." They don't require the same voluntary control or bodily feedback loop. This explains why the distinction between voluntary and involuntary imagery is so fundamental to understanding aphantasia.

The Developmental Picture

Dr. Silvanto's research also reveals important developmental factors. His team found elevated rates of childhood trauma, particularly emotional abuse and neglect, in people with acquired aphantasia. They also identified higher prevalence of neurodevelopmental traits like ADHD and autism—conditions known to affect autonomic nervous system function.

"There are developmental risk factors which make you more likely to experience autonomic dysregulation," Dr. Silvanto explains. These factors may act as "predisposing" elements. "If you have a traumatic event or a mental health condition later in life, you're more likely to have a stronger effect on your autonomic nervous system."

Regarding congenital aphantasia, when asked about origins in the womb versus early postnatal experiences, Dr. Silvanto leans toward prenatal factors:

"Interoception develops so early in life—when you're born, you start using interoceptive signals. So it's likely to be something that you're born with and it's something that is either genetic or something happens during gestation."

The Comorbidity Pattern

The interoceptive model also helps explain the puzzling pattern of conditions that frequently co-occur with aphantasia—what Dr. Silvanto calls "interoceptive conditions."

"We find this comorbidity with alexithymia, which is the inability to understand your emotions. That's an interoceptive condition," he notes. The research also shows elevated rates of autism and ADHD traits, as well as higher anxiety levels in acquired aphantasia.

"All this suggests that imagery is a symptom alongside things like alexithymia and autism ADHD, and the major theme is interoceptive issues," Dr. Silvanto argues. Rather than aphantasia causing these conditions or vice versa, they may all stem from a common root: differences in how the brain processes bodily signals.

Hope Through Mindfulness

Perhaps the most exciting implication of this research is therapeutic. If aphantasia is rooted in interoceptive processing, can improving interoceptive abilities enhance mental imagery?

"Things like mindfulness training, things like body scan—they've been shown to improve function of the insula," Dr. Silvanto explains, referring to the brain region central to interoception. "They've been shown to increase gray matter and improve your confidence and your ability to engage in those processes."

His team is about to launch a trial testing whether mindfulness training can improve imagery in people with aphantasia. "If you do mindfulness training for a long time, that might actually improve your imagery because it improves your interoceptive system."

The key, he emphasizes, is that "things like mindfulness, meditation are important because they connect—they help to connect your mind and your body. And that's the key, I think, here."

Beyond Visual Explanations

During the presentation, audience members raised thoughtful questions that highlighted the complexity of the relationship between imagery and interoception. When asked about the "chicken and egg problem"—whether poor interoception causes aphantasia or vice versa—Dr. Silvanto pointed to developmental timing.

"The first thing that really comes is interoception, signals from your body. As a young child you learn when you're hungry, when you need to go to the toilet. That's really the foundation. Then come your emotions and mental imagery develops much later."

He also addressed questions about intuition and "gut feelings." "If by intuition you mean gut feeling, it definitely is," he confirmed. "When we need to make a decision, we often get a gut feeling of what we think we should do. We can't really consciously verbalize it, but we just feel that this is what we need to do."

This prompted reflection from audience members about their own experiences, with some people with aphantasia reporting strong intuitive feelings—though interestingly, often experienced through inner speech rather than imagery.

A New Framework

Dr. Silvanto's work represents a fundamental shift in how we think about aphantasia and mental imagery more broadly. "We should move beyond sensory explanations of aphantasia and think about it more globally as reflecting differences in how the brain processes bodily signals," he urges.

Rather than viewing mental imagery as simply an "internal parallel of visual perception" arising from visual brain areas, this interoceptive model sees imagery as an embodied process—one that requires the seamless integration of sensory information with emotional states and physiological feedback.

"Aphantasia refers to a failure to embody or emotionally ground the imagined content in your body," Dr. Silvanto concludes.

This framework not only offers new hope for potential interventions but also deepens our understanding of what mental imagery truly is: not just pictures in the mind, but a rich, embodied experience where body and brain work together to recreate the texture of lived experience.

For people with aphantasia, understanding this body-mind connection may be the first step toward reconnecting with it.

For those seeking mental health support, our Aphantasia Specialist Directory connects people with aphantasia to professionals who understand the unique aspects of this neurological difference.