Thoughts On Being An Aphant
By: Mark Farrar
Tags: Minds Eye, Visualization, Aphantasia, Mental Imagery, Aphant

You may think the image at the top of this story, yes, that large black rectangle, is a problem with your web browser not rendering it correctly — but it’s probably not that.

Or you may think I’m just too lazy to find a suitable image or photo — or perhaps I plain forgot. But you’d be wrong again.

No, that black rectangle represents the result of hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of work on my part.

Work to do what, you may ask.

Well, work to create any sort of mental imagery.

The fact is, I’m an aphant. That means, since this is a relatively new and probably as-yet unofficial word, a person who suffers from aphantasia.

What Is Aphantasia?

And if you’ve not heard of that term either, aphantasia is a condition that has only been recognized within the past decade, and it describes the inability to create mental pictures.

It’s reckoned that it affects about 3% of people, and most of those people appear to have had it for as long as they can remember, which is the case with me and everybody else I personally know of who suffers from this condition.

However, it was first recognized, from a medical perspective, after a man had a stroke. When he recovered, he found he could no longer picture anything in his mind.

More recently, I read about somebody who underwent surgery and, again, when he came to, he had lost his visualization ability.

Some aphants can see blurry versions of things in their mind, others see just outlines, in varying shades of grey or black, but for me, I see nothing — hence the black rectangle above.

Another potentially confusing aspect to aphantasia is that many of us can still dream and see vivid, colourful pictures. What we cannot do is create those images on demand. Does this mean we have the ability but have lost or forgotten how to use it, or perhaps conscious visual imagery and dreaming use different parts of the brain, one of which is abnormal for aphants?

I first realized I couldn’t see anything in my mind’s eye when I started learning mnemonics at the age of about eight. (I’d swapped a handful of Penny Arrows — sweets that only British people over the age of 50 will likely remember — for a small book called Instant Memory by the magician Robert Harbin.)

Most memory training techniques require you to create images in your mind, linking or associating the items you wish to remember.

I sort of assumed that the instructions were metaphors, and never imagined that anybody could actually see things with their eyes closed, in their minds, as though they were really looking at them.

It wasn’t until I moved to the USA in 2005 and remarried that I discovered it wasn’t a metaphor at all. My wife had an incredibly visual brain, and she was as surprised that my mind’s eye was blind as I was that she could see things so clearly in her brain.

So, what is it like being an aphant? What are the advantages, and what are the disadvantages?

Advantages Of Aphantasia

One advantage, I think, is that I am less affected by what most people would consider disturbing images.

I soon learned not to show images of, for example, animals in distressing conditions, to my wife because once seen, she could not control when those images would come to mind again, in all their original detail and recreating the emotions and feelings that accompanied them.

For similar reasons, she didn’t like to talk about her childhood, because it evoked images that reminded her of how bad it had been. Even without talking about her past, she could not help some of those images from popping up, apparently out of nowhere.

Since I cannot recreate those images in my mind, I don’t have that same problem. This does not mean, of course, that when I first see such photos, I’m not upset by them, but for me, once seen, once forgotten as it were.

Another potential benefit of this condition is immunity to marketing tactics.

If this sounds unlikely, I would point you at the fascinating book, Tangled Mind, by Nick Kolenda. In it, he talks about how a lot of what drives us, perhaps subconsciously, such as with making decisions, is our ability to simulate taking that action.

However, with a faulty or non-existent visualization system, where it’s that much more difficult to simulate anything, is this why many of the examples in his book just don’t work for me the way he says they work for most people? And, by extension, would this be the case in real life too?

As an aside, Nick told me when I raised this point with him that simulation need not purely be visual, but I still think it’s likely the primary mechanism here.

Disadvantages Of Aphantasia

As I alluded to above, it makes mnemonics much harder for me than it does for “normal” people. I can use the techniques, but they do not come so easily, and the associations I create are nowhere near as vivid and they do not last as long.

Although my father often liked to say I had a good memory, I actually don’t think this is the case at all. My natural memory is below par, I would say. I struggle with comprehension and retention when reading or hearing something, and I am one of those people who can read the cooking instructions on a packet, throw it in the trash, and then need to retrieve it a couple of minutes later because I’ve forgotten what those instructions are already.

Of course, it’s possible my issue is not memory, because in other ways, I think I have a reasonably good brain with probably above average thinking skills. Maybe it’s impatience or a lack of concentration and focus, which I know are problems for me.

Surprisingly, perhaps, my wife found mnemonics confusing and unnecessary. I thought her ability would make memory training techniques easier, but I was wrong. She found they got in the way because her memory, largely thanks to her visualization skills, was up to the job that I clearly needed a crutch for.

Something else my wife was able to do, because of those visual talents of hers, was create a mental map of the house, and by that, I’m not talking about something as simple as a floor plan. For example, over a decade after moving to this house, she could still tell me in which box in which location in which room I would find items that she’d not yet unpacked.

As for me, I can lose something I only stored somewhere “safe” the previous day, maybe because I do not have that mapping ability.

It’s also possible that this is responsible for my general lack of imagination. I’m not that great at coming up with new ideas, or “seeing” how they might pan out — but once an idea has been suggested, I’m fine with taking it further.

Is this because of aphantasia, or does my upbringing have some bearing on the matter? I say this because almost all of my early toys and games were educational in nature, and the first book I recall being bought for me, before I could even read, was a set of children’s encyclopaedias. What I do not remember is any encouragement to do many of the activities most children seem to enjoy, such as painting or drawing, or anything even vaguely artistic.

Other Aspects Of Aphantasia

I think my aphantasia also makes it harder for me to succumb to hypnotism, although, to be fair, I have only ever tried hypnosis via pre-recorded audio, and never in person.

Having said that, the few hypnosis sessions I’ve listened to have all asked the listener to imagine something (e.g. a large, sweeping flight of stairs), and I cannot do that. By the time I’ve tried, in vain, the audio has moved on and I’ve lost the plot.

The same happens with guided meditation audios and videos — the imagery is simply not there.

I also wonder whether not being able to see anything mentally contributes to my general lack of emotion, such as sadness, grief, joy.

There is actually some research that suggests emotions can be created purely from visual imagery, so it may make sense that aphants are less emotional.

It’s difficult to say whether this is a pro or a con, but it probably depends on the situation. There are times, I think, when it would be good to let it all out, but then there are other times when being able to remain cool and collected are likely an advantage.

Another thought that occurred to me was the difficulty I experience in trying to understand and appreciate the imagery in poetry, including haiku, for example. I have long had a tendency to take things literally, and maybe aphantasia contribute to that.

Taking that a step further, is this why I find it so hard to get sucked into movies? For me, I am frequently jolted out of the story by all sorts of things, including plot holes, stuff that makes no sense, goofs, incorrect use of English, and technical questions such as how they created certain effects? The realization that these are simply actors playing roles is almost impossible for me to ignore.

Of course, some of these aspects I’ve mentioned may be a case of me trying to take the effects of aphantasia too far. The problem is, with the condition only being recognized recently, there is not much research on it yet.

Do I Wish I Didn’t Have Aphantasia?

There are undoubtedly some benefits to being able to visualize. I’ve mentioned a couple, but looking at the broader picture, if 97% of people have this ability, then it seems reasonable to assume that it has evolved, in humans at least, because it provides some sort of long-term survival benefit.

Some people do claim to have cured their aphantasia, although it’s not something I have personally tried.

And that’s because, on balance, I am content to live out my life with this condition. I’ve learned to live with it, and my fear is that, were I suddenly able to see things in that mind’s eye people talk about, I might feel overwhelmed. Besides which, I don’t believe in having regrets. Yes, if I’d had an ability to visualize, my life might have turned out to be different — but would that life have been better or worse? The truth is, nobody can say.

I realize that for many reading this story, it may come as a total shock that there are people with this condition. And it’s just as difficult for you to imagine what it must be like as it is for people like me to imagine what having a working mind’s eye is like.

And that just goes to reinforce that people are different — not better, not worse — and not always in ways that are visible or obvious. After all, it took me about 40 years to realize aphantasia was the exception, not the norm.