Aphantasia is the inability to visualize images in the mind. While most people can close their eyes and picture familiar objects like a sunset, a loved one’s face, or their childhood home, those with aphantasia experience only darkness. Their “mind’s eye” is blank, making mental imagery something they hear about but never actually experience.      

I first learned that I had aphantasia during my senior year of high school in AP Psychology. My teacher conducted an experiment where we were asked to visualize different objects and describe them. As my classmates shared details about these objects such as the vivid colors and the shapes I sat there confused. I couldn’t see anything. I had always assumed that picturing something in your mind was just a metaphor and not a literal experience.

Later, I brought it up with friends expecting them to say they were just speaking figuratively. Instead, they confirmed that they could actually “see” images in their heads. Some could even manipulate those images like rotating a cube, changing colors, or zooming in on details. To me, that sounded like a superpower. I had spent my whole life never knowing I had been missing out on an entire way of experiencing the world.

This realization changed the way I thought about memory and creativity. It also made me wonder how aphantasia affects the way we process information and imagine the future.

As I’ve explored aphantasia further, I found it fascinating that there are others like me and some researchers have even studied these differences in mental imagery. In one research study, conducted with over 3500 participants across multiple experiments, they sought to examine how people with and without visual aphantasia differ in their ability to imagine and recall sensory experiences across visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery. The study included individuals who self-reported having aphantasia as well as those with typical mental imagery, and tested them on their ability to generate sensory images in their minds.

The study used cluster analysis to categorize individuals based on their imagery profiles. For instance, in the aphantasia group, some participants struggled with visual imagery across everything, while others had vivid experiences in non-visual sensory areas like sound or touch. These findings resonate with my own experiences because while I cannot picture something in my mind’s eye, I’ve realized I can still form mental representations through auditory or verbal thinking. This aligns with the cluster analysis in the study, which revealed that the lack of visual imagery in aphantasia doesn’t necessarily translate to an absence in other senses.

The study also highlighted how people with aphantasia often show lower z-scores in sensory imagery. What stood out to me is that even though I don’t have a mind’s eye, I still rely heavily on other senses to form my understanding of the world. For instance, my strongest memories are often tied to sounds or feelings rather than images, which is similar to the study’s findings that aphantasia is a complex phenomenon affecting multiple cognitive functions beyond just visual imagery.

This research deepened my understanding of how cognitive styles such as verbalizers versus visualizers contribute to how people process information. As the study revealed, individuals who scored higher as visualizers had more vivid visual imagery, while verbalizers, like myself, may rely more on language-based thinking. I’ve noticed that I tend to work through problems or ideas by verbalizing them in my mind rather than picturing them. In fact, I believe that this could be why I have trouble visualizing what is happening when I read a book because I can’t use that same language-based thinking.

This also made me reconsider how aphantasia has shaped my creativity. The research suggests that cognitive styles can vary widely between individuals with aphantasia and some individuals even develop unique ways to compensate for their lack of visual imagery. I’ve noticed that in my own life, I often focus more on the logical structure or the verbal narrative of a concept rather than trying to picture it.  For instance, as shown in the picture above, I tend to utilize this in my everyday life. Typically, I like to place 3-4 post-it notes above my desk with reminders of upcoming assignments or tests. This serves as a constant reminder to me of what I have going on rather than simply trying to memorize it.

Sources:

CSE Reference: Takahashi J, Saito G, Omura K, Yasunaga D, Sugimura S, Sakamoto S, Horikawa T, Gyoba J. 2023. Diversity of aphantasia revealed by multiple assessments of visual imagery, multisensory imagery, and cognitive style. Front. Psychol. 14:1174873. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1174873.