Discover Aphantasia.

Think of a horse. Does some kind of image of a horse come to mind?

Try comparing the image of a horse in your head with how you know it looks in real life. Is the image you imagine equally vivid to its real-world counterpart, a little less vivid, somewhat vivid, not very vivid at all, or completely absent?

If you cannot conjure even the faintest image of a horse in your mind then it’s likely you may experience aphantasia.

You can also take the VVIQ, the go-to psychometric for identifying aphantasia.

It’s no secret that our conscious thoughts are private, and evaluating the vividness of our own internally generated experiences can be challenging. On the one hand, it can be challenging to determine the precise details of the mental images in our mind’s eye and even sometimes tell whether we have formed a mental picture at all.

But, as it turns out, you may know your thoughts better than you think you do! Research has provided a growing body of behavioural and neuroimaging evidence suggesting we have a pretty good metacognitive understanding of our mental imagery capabilities.

You can read more about evaluating your mind’s eye here.

People have taken objective tests in a lab like measuring pupil response when asked to imagine a beam of light, fear-based responses using skin-conductance levels (SCL) when presented with scary stories, among other notable research experiments.

Researchers have observed that people who report vivid imagery have very different physiological and behavioural responses to these tests than people with aphantasia.

Although this doesn’t let us know definitively that they’re vividly seeing an image, it all points to the fact that something is truly different between people who claim to see vividly and those who don’t.

We can also observe in neuro-imaging studies an activation in the visual cortex, the area of the brain that processes images from the eyes, which further suggests actual visualization.

You can find interesting science articles or browse some of the latest research.

Aphantasia impacts our inner sense of sight, and can impact other senses in your imagination.

If you think of your favorite meal, can you almost smell or taste it? These dimensions of our sensory imagination are called olfactory and gustatory imagery.

Some people with aphantasia cannot hear sounds, imagine smells, tastes, movements or touch using their imagination. Current estimates are that ~26% of aphantasics experience multisensory, or “total aphantasia.”

Our new digital assessment and discovery platform, the Imagination Spectrum, measures your sensory imagination, and the result is called your Imagery Profile (IP). Unlike other assessments, Imagination Spectrum directly examines how you imagine (not your IQ or personality). Upgrade for only $19.99 to view personalized real-time results and reports on the impacts of your Imagery Profile. Support the future development of the platform.

No, it does not. While this may seem puzzling at first glance, on reflection, imagination is a much richer and more complex capacity than the ability to visualize.

Visualization enables most of us to picture things to some degree in our mind’s eye: imagination allows us to represent, reshape and reconceive things in their absence.  

Aphantasia illustrates the wide variety of types of ‘representation’ available to human minds and brains: visual imagery is by no means the only option.

Absolutely! Aphantasics can still be creative, we just go about the creative process, differently. 

In fact, many aphantasics are brilliant creatives, inventors, authors, musicians, scientists, entrepreneurs and more. Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Craig Venter, the biologist who first sequenced the Human Genome. Blake Ross, creator of Mozilla Firefox. Glen Keane, Disney Animator and Creator of The Little Mermaid. Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller. The artists and authors who exhibited at Extreme Imagination. All have aphantasia. 

Check out these articles on how to write, draw and create art with aphantasia.

Aphantasia is not a disability, disorder, nor defect. It is a variation in human experience, and an intriguing one. People with aphantasia, however, will experience a unique set of cognitive strengths and challenges associated with the condition. How we learn, create, dream, remember and more may be impacted by our experience of aphantasia.

The opposite of aphantasia is known as hyperphantasia, or extremely vivid sensory imagination. For someone with hyperphantasia, visualizing can be as vivid as real seeing.

Aphantasia was first given a name in 2015, but knowledge of our invisible differences can be found dating back to 340 BC. Aristotle stands at the beginning of this history when aphantasia was not an established topic of discussion yet.

Aristotle coins the term phantasia in De Amina (On the Soul), Part III to describe a distinct capacity between perception and thought — a sort of ‘sixth sense.’

Phantasia is commonly translated to imagination, or as Aristotle describes “that in virtue of which an image occurs in us”— in thoughts, dreams, and memories. His account of phantasia includes mental imagery, dreams, and even hallucinations.

During this period, however, it was generally believed that thoughts required images. That is, “whenever one contemplates, one necessarily at the same time contemplates in images” (De Anima Part III 8).

Aphantasia, or image-free thinking, is proof Aristotle may have been wrong about that.

Fast forward to 2009, Dr. Adam Zeman a neurologist from Exeter University receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known affectionately among the aphantasia community as patient MX.

Patient MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. News of patient MX’s experience attracted media attention which led to many new discoverers who could relate to a similar experience, only they had been “blind in their mind’s eye” since birth. Zeman coins the term aphantasia to describe the inability to visualize in 2015. The “a” in a-phantasia denotes its absence.

Read more about aphantasia history.

Aphantasia is both a congenital and developmental condition. The majority of people have aphantasia since birth, sometimes referred to as “lifelong aphantasia.” Rarely can it result from a stroke or head injury. It may also occur as a result of an episode of depression. For more information about probable cause of aphantasia, check out these shocking insights.

Researchers do have evidence that aphantasia is hereditary. If you have aphantasia, then it’s likely your first-degree relatives may also have aphantasia. Indicating a possible genetic or hereditary link. Watch this video with Dr. Adam Zeman.

For most, aphantasia is a congenital condition. Meaning, from birth. It is, however, occasionally a symptom of other disorders. For example, aphantasia can, rarely, result from a stroke, head injury or an episode of depression. So if someone who has previously had imagery loses it suddenly, it’s reasonable to ask and attempt to learn why. Here’s a resource on therapy and aphantasia.

For those with congenital aphantasia, there is no known “cure”. Some people with acquired aphantasia, however, have described experiences of regaining imagery abilities through various kinds of interventions. Important to note, aphantasia is not a disability but rather a unique variation in human experience. Many people with congenital aphantasia don’t want “a cure”.

There’s been research into aphantasia spanning many disciples from neuroscience to psychology, cognitive science, and more. And interest is growing! The original scientific paper coining the term aphantasia scores in the top percentile of new research interest on Altmetric. Check out our research library for all the latest aphantasia research. 

Visit our research participation page to learn more about how you can participate in some of the ongoing aphantasia and extreme imagery research.