I fear that, as I get older, my memories will fade completely, and I’ll be rendered with an informal form of amnesia. When I think of this lack, I become scared.
I’m unable to visually summon the appearances of people I know and places I’ve been. My ability to recall memories is diminished. It’s like missing a sense, akin to sight or hearing.Īphantasia presents some difficulties. I felt saddened, because I am essentially missing out on such a basic human experience. As much as I had no understanding for an active mind’s eye, they had no understanding of my darkness. My experience seemed alien to them, and some reported that their capacity for visualising was a big part of their understanding of life. When I described my darkness, people were utterly shocked. Once I discovered my aphantasia, I proceeded to tell friends and family about my condition. I dream in words, ideas, feelings and verbal knowledge of circumstances. Yet I also experience darkness while I sleep. Note that most people with aphantasia are still able to dream with visual imagery. When told to ‘count sheep’ while falling asleep, we don’t realise that people can actually see sheep jumping over a fence. When told to ‘imagine a beach’, we assume that it merely means to imagine the concept of a beach. This lack of knowledge is largely rooted in our use of language as a substitute. Many of us with aphantasia don’t realise that we have this condition. I disclosed my experience on AVEN, and members started talking about aphantasia. Over the years, I have experienced a lot of confusion about sexuality, given that it’s highly rooted in the capacity to visually summon arousing images in the mind. I found out about my aphantasia while browsing message boards on the Asexuality Visibility Education Network (AVEN). The condition is estimated to affect 2 per cent of people. A study by the psychologists Rebecca Keogh and Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales in Sydney showed that unaffected persons have more activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain in comparison to those with aphantasia.
For most of us, aphantasia is a congenital condition, but others develop it following a brain injury. In his writings, Zeman explains that voluntary imagery is generated in fronto-parietal and in posterior brain regions, ascribing vividness to biological differences from one person to the next.
The term ‘aphantasia’ itself was coined only recently, in 2015, by Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology at the University of Exeter. I have no sensory experience.Īphantasia has likely existed throughout our evolution, but it wasn’t documented until 1880, when Francis Galton asked people to imagine a breakfast table and, based on their reports, noted that the vividness of the scene in the mind’s eye occurred on a spectrum. When I close my eyes, I experience only darkness. While most people are able to ‘see’ images associated with stories and thoughts when their eyes are closed, I have never had this gift. I have aphantasia, a neurological condition that leaves me with a ‘blind mind’s eye’: the inability to mentally visualise my thoughts. It’s like missing a sense, and only imagination can compensate With aphantasia, my mind’s eye sees only darkness, not images.
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