Aphantasia and Mental Imagery with Prof Joel Pearson 

I am a newly discovered full blown Aphantasiac and I am overwhelmed by my past on a daily basis, especially bad things and traumatic things and I am hit with an extremely high level of anxiety so, I don't think that having Aphantasia makes you less prone to PTSD and anxiety, I believe that the only difference is, is that we don't have visualizations with it.

I would absolutely love to have visual imagery, no need to be able to turn it off. Brain stimulation itself is scary though.

I will also add that I absolutely would not want to be able to visualize if I could not turn it off.

I recently discovered my lack of being able to visualize and like Mike Ross, in all my life (+60!), I thought "Counting sheep" was a metaphore :-). However, I do not agree with everyone saying: this is a gift or something to be proud of. I feel sad about not being able to "see" things when i close my eyes. I also think that the term Aphantasia is a misleading word for this condition. I find myself having a vivid imagination and I am very creative.

I only discovered I have aphantasia this weekend . . . at 57. I had no idea that people could really visualize images. Mine is across the senses. I am unable to visualize or conjure up smells or tastes. I had no idea that was a thing either. I do have a constant inner monologue that I wish I could turn off. I've always felt it took me longer to learn things than others, but without a diagnosable learning disability it always just made me feel stupid or crazy. Once I do learn something it sticks but I have to do everything hands on. I do love to read and I can get completely immersed in a story but there is no imagery...its more conceptualization and feelings for me. I am a highly empathetic person and I feel emotions very deeply. I have severe anxiety if I'm not on meds. As far as memory, it's not great unless there is a strong emotion associated. For example I can still remember the circumstances and people involved when I had my first panic attack 46 years ago, and can still "feel" the panic if I think about it today. But I can't see the faces of the people who were involved or see the room where it happened. I can't do math in my head. I can't draw although everyone in my family can. I've always had a sense of being different and wonder if my aphantasia is why. As far as dreaming, I only remember that I had a nightmare because it made me anxious but I don't know the details. I've been told I have a great imagination but no "images" are involved. I'm utterly fascinated by this. But this is so new to me that I'm still processing the grief of missing out on a basic human experience and feeling "less than". I know this is "normal" for me but feels like it's not "normal" if 98% of the population have an ability that I don't.

If the ability go from aphantasia to be able to have a mind's eye (see images) or even hyperphantasia were possible, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I recently just found out About aphantasia and that I have it, I’m only 20 but knowing that a lot of people i know are able to do it brings me down wishing I was able to visualize my family or to be able to visualize my own room with color would be amazing. Just feels like I’ve been missing out on so much.

Very educational. I look forward to the research that is to come!!

22:15 I'm a kinetic learner. So if I do something and/or write it down, then I've got a handle on it. If someone shows me how to do something on the computer, I won't remember, but if I do it while they guide me, I'm good. That's why I can't watch any RU-vid tutorials where I have to watch and listen. I'd rather read about the essential principles, write them out in my own words and/or try it myself. Experiential learner is probably another way to put it. Is this how many of you also learn best?

I acquired aphantasia after my stoke 14 yrs ago. I love hearing the answers to the questions I’ve always had. Thank you!

Do we think Aphantasia leads to addictions or repetition of behaviours - because people cannot imagine an experience, they may be more prone to seek it out and repeat it? I am aware that I have for many years taken a lot of photographs, photographs of everything I see and like or places I am in, and it is a wonderful memory resource - but I think one of the reasons I feel a need to document the experience pictorially is perhaps because I am unable to recall the memory visually in my mind. That led me to wonder whether Aphantasiacs tend to be more likely to be drawn to repetitive or addictive behaviours.

There must be a difference between visual recall and visualization. In other words, I can't visualize things, but I know what things look like and can describe them. If there was no difference between them, wouldn't I be unable to recognize people and things?

Thank you for putting this on. I discovered I was fully aphantasic like yourself Tom some time around 2010, before I had even heard the term Aphantasia. It’s amazing that all of the aphantasics writing in questions are all the things I’ve had on my mind: emotions, personalities, etc. I want to remind other aphantasics that we shouldn’t let this condition stop us from wanting to achieve things that would involve emotion, higher learning, or other things that we feel we are lacking in. Tom, thanks for starting the aphantasia network!

BTW, I am a professional dance teacher. I am the 2016 Argentine US Tango Champion. I have taught tango for the dance clubs at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Northeastern, and the Beijing Dance Academy. I am fully aphantasic and people ask me all the time how am I come up with the dance that I want to do (tango is fully “on the fly,” we don’t have preset patterns, it’s more like a language, free form within a set of rules). I find that the “muscle memory” portion of my brain can remember movements, I have excellent rhythm, I am coordinated, have good balance, I even know the parts of the music that are coming up (think about knowing the words to a song, or knowing your favorite guitar riff) but all that being said I can not hear the music that is about to come up, I can not picture the moves I want to do in the immediate future as I dance, and one of the hardest parts is feeling the emotion that you’re “supposed” to feel when you dance tango with someone else. For many Argentines tango is passion, for me it’s logic and reason meets music and physical connection.

adhd involves executive functions, one of which is hindsight. And aphantasia impacts hindsight as you are not able to re-experience past events. So it stands to reason that the hindsight of people with both adhd and aphantasia is significantly impacted. Being one of those people, I can anecdotally confirm.

@Lisa Cole, and others who see advantages in aphantasia; I have some good ammunition for you. My first wife was a talented pianist, among other things, and taught piano for a number of years. She is not aphantasic. One year she wanted to perform for her students' recital, the Chopin "Fantaisie-Impromptu", appropriately enough; a well known "show-off" piece; very fast, very diffidult. She easily had the skill levels necessary, and I overheard her playing it just fine multiple times - but; she definitely was suffering from "performance-anxiety" on this occasion, and she would consistently "lose it" in the fast runs - if she knew I was watching. I was teaching fencing at the local college at the time, and had been trained by a Master. One thing I'd been taught to do was to practice hitting a wall target - with my eyes shut, the entire time. You tend to think it's impossible, but on the contrary - much of the movement of the tip of your sword is too fast to see- trying to guide it with your eyes will make you slower. This experience and realization had led me into looking at some mental aspects of musical performance; and very, VERY clearly very rapid instrumental performance is NOT done using visual feedback . Watch any professional musician, they are commonly either looking away from their fingers, or have their eyes closed during very rapid bits. So I talked my wife into playing the piece blindfolded; so she could not look - at her fingers, or me. She was convinced it was impossible, of course, but gradually she found I was correct, relaxed - and was free to just let the music flow. It worked. Worked just fine. Punch line; she was too embarrassed to wear the blindfold during the actual performance- thinking people would really think she was showing off - so - she flubbed it. I will add another reinforcement- I once owned a vinyl recording of koto music- which commented on the jacket that the performer was astonishing in Japan because - he was male - and NOT blind. All great koto players prior had been female - and always blind. Point being - we KNOW - some very valuable things do NOT need visualization; and in fact it may mess them up. It's a fact. We don't know a lot of details- but; here we are.

To answer your question on whether I would love to have imagery the answer is definitely yes...

i have hyper ultra super fantasia, and extremely strong memory, i can visualize anything, smell, touch, taste, sound, emotion, everything very vividly in my head, i even remember most of my dream. All my life (im 51 years old) i only ever puke my guts out twice, and both of them because of food poisoning, first time was when i was 5 years old, eating something called cendol, the second was eating chicken porridge from a certain restaurant ten years ago. I still remember both of those evil food till today, the taste the texture the smell, the bile when its forcibly ejected to my throat, its traumatize me greatly, so i would never ever dare to eat those food ever again, just thinking about it now kind of making me gag, and it was from memory of 46 years ago. i am easily traumatize, every horrible things that happen to me keep getting replay in my mind from time to time , down right to their gritty details, so my question is to people with aphantasia do you guys never experience trauma, i meant since you cant imagine things how can you be afraid of previous memory ?

I can see the benefit of not having strong mental imagery. I actually have false memories that I imagined when I was young that impact me today. I have an unreasonable fear of needles ( many people do) that I think is based on my a false memory of a nail piercing my palm. This never actually happened to me. I imagined it, and for many years, had thought it was true.

I'd be very interested to see what lights up when I try to visualise. I don't have any sensual recall but I have the feeling it still pops up just the signal doesn't get through. I would prefer to have sensual recall I'd side towards turning it on for good. However i do have depression so it may not be a good thing. I've always been curious about what would I see under the effects of dmt or lsd but never tried it personally

Yes, I would like to treat my aphantasia condition, and gain the mind's eye.

For teachers: I still need the imagery to remember- the way I store images in a file I need to see it because I can’t create the image in my head without it. Ps: please look into the dyslexia link- which is highly misdiagnosed. Many with ADD don’t realize they are actually dyslexic and now I’ve discovered I have aphantasia. It seems related.

Thanks for putting this on youtube. Overhere multiple ( 10+) types of Synesthesia and Hyperphantasia.. and a very spontaneous way of Prophantasia as well, in combination with beeing an HSP/HSS.. Many questions about it. This kinda video's is very helpful to get things cleared, even though there's only a small part of information about Hyp. and Pro. Do you know if there are specialists in case of Hyperphantasia or about Prophantasia as well? And where I could find more information about it.

Just got to the part on the question, if you can have something that would allow me to turn on the visualization, would you do it? I would do it in a heartbeat. And I'm one of those who can't do any other senses either. I'd love for all of them to show up.

Is there a test (ideally via a VR headset app that can be downloaded) to try at home, re: binocular rivalry? (Green square in one eye, red circle in another, etc.)

Is there any correlation between aphantasia and self visualisation envisioning ones future self? I have aphantasia I cant visualize my future self! I also have body dismorphia, just another study idea

Anyone else here with aphantasia that is also rh negative blood type?

I am an Aphantasic and have CPTSD and PTSD.

How do you practice visualization when you've never visualized before? With his example of speaking another language, you already know how to speak and the stimulation just helps you make different sounds and maybe understand it better. How do you teach someone to visualize that's never done it before and has reference on how to do it?

I'm confused. I can imagine stuff in detail, draw a map of a location from memory, but what I imagine is nothing like seeing. I have had a few lucid dreams and they were amazing. I was blown away with what my mind could simulate. These were very visual experiences. Are people claiming they can actually see stuff in their mind while awake or am I misunderstanding what people are calling imagery?

I just found out about Aphantasia a few months ago. Thought I was a lone not being able to see anything. It get frustrating when most things done in art/mediation side of things is visualization. This has brought up something very interesting. Aphantasia affecting more than just visual. If I'm asked to imagine anything....visual, auditory, smell, taste, feeling.....nothing fires off. Dreams, I typically can't remember them. I can remember that there was a dream, but the contents of the dream are gone. Very very rarely there are dreams that are so vivid I can describe them very easily not sure why some are easy and the majority are non existent. If I'm trying to remember something, I do a trick one of my friends taught me....I just start running through the alphabet trying to remember what I'm looking for. But on a learning side, I'm highly visual and hands on. I hate reading, I get sleepy and bored. Here is the funny thing, if I combine audio book with a physical book I can get through the book very easily. But I have to have the physical book for me to full get the audio book. I love to draw, do art, creativity things of any type. But for as long as I can remember, and memory is another story for me, I've never been able to visual anything when I close my eyes. I'm going to have to watch this a couple of times, it gives me a new view on this. Thank you for this video!!

Consider Aphantasia heightening other interior senses the same way blindness can have an affect on hearing/smell/touch .

I have total aphantasia (all senses) and would not change it if I could. It has made me stronger in so many other areas. If I was given the option, my answer is emphatically no.

if a person has aphantasia, do you suppose they would not be able to successfully have any past life regressions? The sessions that I’ve listened to always have the subject being asked to describe what they see in order to describe what place or time period they’re in.

i have aphantasia all my life and would be a good guinea pig for the test. just to get mental imagery even in the smallest form???

I thought I was psychotic or didn’t care. The truth is, I don’t think about the past, hardly at all. If someone is not in my perimeter, I don’t miss them. I don’t mourn the dead. I don’t have hard break ups.

I used to be able to imagine everything. I would play out my favourite movies and. Shows in my head as a child, at about 10 years old suddenly i was just unable to see images in my. Mind.. I don't see images at all anymore I just hear the thought and already know what it should or does look like I only see blackness but still ultimately know what I'm thinking about looks and feels like. I can see full images and scenes very vividly in my dreams and also the state of falling asleep... I am rh negative of Egyptian and Austrian decent 34 yr old f

it just occurred to me that Aphantasia when I close my eyes all i see is black. But if I put extremely bright light in front of shut eyes i see the light coming through. So it seem like some how I can't seem to disconnect from my optical eyes and switch it off when I close my eyes and imagine a mental image.

as someone with aphantasia who had severe PTSD I can say using visuals to process was nearly non productive, not how my brain worked. The images I did see were barley there ghost images, more of a distraction then a help. I would never trade my spatial for visuals, never, but maybe for music.

Is there any Chance that there will be a cure in the future?

A schoolboy walks past a notice board in his boarding house. As he passes he glances at the board with its pinned-on sheets of paper. Although he doesn’t pay it any conscious attention, somewhere in his head it’s recognised as a familiar landmark; its colour, texture, general appearance and geographical location relative to this and that other feature of the corridor is reconfirmed. His memory registers the notice board, as so many times before, as an autobiographical semantic memory. It is “autobiographical” because, unlike the Gulf of Bothnia, the notice board is part of the context of his life, his autobiography. As the boy walks on along the corridor a prefect stops him and asks what was posted on the board. The boy cannot retrieve any episodic memory since none was registered; he knows, upon reflection, that he walked past the notice board, but he doesn’t actually remember walking past it, has no idea what he saw when his gaze ran blankly over it, or what new rule he has transgressed. An Estonian-born Canadian experimental psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist called Endel Tuvling introduced the world to the concepts of episodic and semantic memory in 1972. In 1985 he introduced the matching ideas of autonoetic and noetic consciousness. According to him, autonoetic consciousness, expressed in mental time travel and in the recall of personal experiences, is a defining property of episodic memory. If autonoetic consciousness is remembering, then noetic consciousness, knowing, is expressed without self-recollection but simply in awareness that something is familiar. I just know that “the Gulf of Bothnia is the northern reach of the Baltic Sea”, but have no recollection of learning that fact, and don’t know how I know it. Following Tuvling, it became common practice - almost dogma - in the psychological literature to regard episodic (remember/know) recall as subjective or “first-person”, and semantic (recognition) recall as objective or “third-person”. Tulving went on to hypothesise that if you register an event only minimally, it may only be stored in semantic memory. And if you only stored the memory semantically, there will be no episodic memory to retrieve. No matter how you try, you cannot squeeze autonoetic awareness out of a memory that has only been encoded into the semantic system. If you register an event more consciously, however, it may also be encoded into episodic memory. Once in the episodic system, you may retrieve a memory of the event from either the semantic or episodic system, or both. The Wikipedia article on autonoetic consciousness is bad. It starts with three unrelated declarations and continues with further statements whose consequence is unexplained. Wikipedia: For a coherent and meaningful life, conscious self-representation is mandatory. Autonoetic consciousness is thought to emerge by retrieval of memory of personally experienced events (episodic memory). Without the ability to reflect on our past experiences, we would be stuck in a state of constant awakening, without a past and therefore unable to prepare for the future. … Autobiographical memories can be retrieved from either the first person perspective, in which individuals see the event through their own eyes, or from the third person perspective, in which individuals see themselves and the event from the perspective of an external observer. A growing body of research suggests that the visual perspective from which a memory is retrieved has important implications for a person's thoughts, feelings, and goals, and is integrally related to a host of self-evaluative processes. Someone with severely deficient autobiographical memory (let’s say an essdammer) has very little in the way of episodic memory, though their semantic memory (and even their autobiographical semantic memory) may be much like that of anyone else. “Personally experienced events”, for essdammers, are as rare as invisible pink unicorns. If autonoetic consciousness emerges from the retrieval of unicorns, have essdammers only a feeble, moribund autonoetic consciousness? In my own memory, there are plenty of semantic memories that I can use to place myself here and there in the past. They give me much more than a rudimentary self-representation. I lived here, I went to school there, they did this to punish us, the beach looked like this, my friend was called Colin. But I have very little ability to “reflect on my experiences”, since I don’t have many to reflect on. Furthermore, those experiences that I recall seem so haphazard and partial that it’s hard for me to see what they contribute to my “conscious self-representation”. The idea that I, without the ability to reflect on experience, am “stuck in a state of constant awakening, without a past and therefore unable to prepare for the future” is interesting, but bears very little resemblance to my own perception of my life. There is much, much more crosstalk between personally experienced events and personally experienced context than seems to be admitted in this Wikipedia article, or in Tuvling’s binary universe. I can tell you a great deal about, say, my schools, or my relationship with my father, without the need to recall incidents or events or episodes. So frankly, that opening paragraph in the Wikipedia article? Landfill. The idea that episodic memories can be retrieved from either the first-person perspective or from the third-person perspective is, as this Wikipedia article seems to confirm, deeply ingrained in the literature of memory. Like the laws of physics that fail as we approach the singularity in a black hole, however, it fails to account for people with aphantasia. If you cannot picture an event in your mind’s eye because your mind’s eye is absent, then what to do about perspective? Since many essdammers are also aphantasic, we have to cope with people whose few and faint episodic memories are accessed from no perspective at all, since they are not pictured, but simply known. It is, of course, perfectly true to say that aphantasic essdammers do not have first-person perspectives on their rare episodic memories. It is also perfectly true to say that the invisible pink unicorns standing waiting outside Lidl are not wearing horseshoes on their wheels. True, because you can truthfully answer “no” to the question “are the unicorns outside Lidl wearing horseshoes on their wheels?”, even though the question is senseless. You can answer “no” to the question “do people with SDAM have a first-person perspective on their episodic memories”, even though the question is senseless. Landfill, gently smoking landfill.

If you can turn on imagery I would say do it.

My man TE

I became aphantasic when I was changed to Lamictal for complex partial seizure disorder. I used to think in pictures.

Have you tried using hypnosis for people with aphantasia?

I can't agree that it isn't a disability (minute 47). The inability to recall sounds, smells, touch, taste, being cold or hot, is a genuine cause for sadness. Not to be able to recall the face of my daughter who because of Covid I haven't seen for 2 years, or that of my partner who is sitting across the room from me - not even to be able to visualise the colour of her eyes when I was only looking at them an hour ago - these things, it seems to me, are a sign that I am disabled with respect to people who have a full capacity to visualise. It's true in professional life, too, when the inability to visualise can make certain tasks difficult, and be a source of embarrassment and give rise to social anxiety. Yes, we find workarounds for some of these things, but that's like finding a workaround for being hard of hearing. I don't feel that anyone - even another aphant - can tell me that what I experience is not disabling, unless that person can live as me for a day. I took the first dozen definitions Google gave me. Aphantasia is the inability to visualize images voluntarily Aphantasia is a phenomenon in which people are unable to visualize imagery. We define aphantasia as the inability to properly visualize images a neurological condition in which a person cannot visualize images in their mind Aphantasia is a term for the inability to form mental images Aphantasia is the name given to the inability to call an image to mind. Aphantasia describes when people can't conjure visualizations in their mind's eye. Aphantasia describes the inability to experience certain senses in your mind. Aphantasia describes a condition in which a person is unable to recall images in their mind. The inability to visualize images in one's head is known as aphantasia. aphantasia means you either can't form visual imagery at all, or you have only rare flashes of images. Aphantasia is a medically diagnosed condition in which an individual is unable to intentionally produce a mental image. Aphantasia is the inability to imagine mental imagery. Every one of them defines the condition as an inability, something the person cannot do or is unable to do, or cannot do properly. If you substitute "speak", "walk", "read", "see" or "conceptualise" for "visualise" or "call to mind" in any one of these definitions, it would clearly be describing a disability. How is a blind mind's eye something we can dismiss so lightly as "not a disability"?

I can imagine driving down a road and seeing those famous McDonald's arches, we all know what they look like. But I don't see a literal image of them. I just KNOW what it looks like. Are you guys saying you forget what the Nike symbol looks like if you aren't looking directly at it? When people talk about the Mona Lisa it's just intellectual until you see it again and you're like "oh there she is, yeh"? You really can't recall what these things look like right now if you try? I'm genuinely fascinated.

You can not use a conscious person with Aphantasia to your advantage by attempting to manipulate them, the more you think your achieving your aim the more aware of your ways they are becoming. We generally only make our true position known once we have exhausted all other options, by that time our mind is made up and you have no hope of regaining the respect you once had.

Hello, Do you drive a car with aphantasia?

I’m highly emotional…so I don’t agree that you have less emotions because you can’t see it. I use feeling more. So I may not see it but I “feel” the traumatic response. I can’t instantly take myself back to the feeling in my body. doesn’t it make sense that we would have heightened other senses?

How about psychedelic drugs and Aphantasia?

Aphantasia - the visual type - is probably why I can almost never feel daunted by the future or past, as I can't remember or think of anything visually. I'm stuck on the present at all times, just aware in the moment. It's makes you feel quite, well, comfortable with life. Though having a "visual fantasy adventure" by closing my eyes, feels quite epic in my viewpoint. I wouldn't want to "imagine anything" if I'd lose out on aphantasia forever though. As I don't see aphantasia to be "negative" in any sort of way. As for me aphantasia - atleast as far as I'm aware - is why I feel positive about life. Also I quite like fantasy novels, even though I can't visualize anything, I don't think it affects us (those that have aphantasia) by much. Also one thing I have noticed quite a bit about myself that seems to be different from everyone else is that, I can't remember much about anything at all. I forget everything that happens almost about 2 weeks after those events happen. (also again I don't see this to be negative). As I can force myself to remember something by writing it down (though if I don't, I would forget about it right after as I can't seem to keep in my conscious active memory).

What if you used adhd drugs to stimulate the brain, while using practice? Is there a potential that it could work?

What?.. people can smell and taste in their mind as well?

Question...I have Aphantasia. I have been on my spiritual journey and I recently found out this was a thing of no mind's eye. I close my eyes, all I can make out if anything are micro small shimmers of light. I believe; it may be trauma-induced or a coping mechanism; I take. With my eyes closed, I have only seen color while meditating. I mean PURE COLOR and PURE PERFECT SHAPES. Do you think our mind's ability to visualize shapes is the thing? Later I said to myself. I want to see what an ocean looks like. The word ocean appeared. Not the image. the word. So maybe we don't have the ability to recreate shapes with our own mind so the mind uses its energy elsewhere. I don't know these are hunches. But to date, I have only seen. Purple and Green. and of course BLACK. But colors only when meditating. A normal day is all blackness. Well, I found a cheap trick that anyone can do and all they need is something they can get from a local drug store. No drugs or etc. So let's talk if you wish. This is new to me I've questioned many people and out of all the people that I know only four have this ability. One can recreate shapes but only if he has seen them he can alter them but he can't create one in his mind. Well, this has calmed my fears, if I were to go physically blind I can still see color. This means with more hard work I can maybe recreate an image. But I am here My name is Michael (All rights reserved)

I would not switch on imagery if it couldn’t be turned off. It seems to me that it would be very distracting.

私もアファンタジアです！私の妻もアファンタジアです。何か治療方法あれば教えてください☆

Is aphantasia link to PTSD ?

I need to find later research because I don't agree with some of these assumptions

My comment vanished. I just wanted to say thank you but please don't try to fix us. Aphantasia is a gift. I have the source code without the clutter of images so I can work on multiple projects at once. I'm a designer, known for being innovative.

私もアファンタジアです！妻もアファンタジアです！ 何か情報有れば教えてください☆

This reminds me of something that like a powerful hallucinogenic. DMT, LSD etc

I'm Australian and I couldn't understand the Aussie for a second, I listen to too many North American accents on RU-vid haha

Are you color-hungry?

I hate to say it but it's absolutely frustrating having to visualize your ex wife. Its been like two weeks ago

It seems to me that it is methodologically incorrect to begin the study of an unknown area from the position of studying an absent object, i.e. from aphantasia, while it would be more useful to first study the object from the other end - hyperphantasy. because at least in it there is a phenomenon of study - visual images generated in consciousness.