Aphantasia and the Blind Imagination
Lucy Posner
Illustrations by Ayane Garrison
What does it mean to imagine? In 350 BC, Aristotle insisted that “whenever one contemplates, one necessarily at the same time contemplates in images” [1]. This ability to visualize people, places and events, to form mental pictures of that which may or may not exist in real life, was coined phantasia by the Greek philosopher. We’ve all been there: about to give a presentation in class, our stomach in knots, when someone tells us not to worry. “It’s no big deal,” we’re reassured, “just imagine everyone in their underwear!” For many of us, picturing a classroom full of our naked peers is neither difficult nor daunting. But for 3% of the global population, visualizing something as mundane and uniform as an uppercase ‘A,’ nevermind a sea of students in their underpants, is inconceivable [1]. In ancient Greece, phantasia, or imagination, was thought to be a strictly visual faculty. It wasn’t until the late 19th century, with a series of studies conducted by Francis Galton –– the problematic yet unavoidable architect of the eugenics movement –– that the previously held conception of the universal power to form mental images was disputed. Galton systematically investigated variations in the vividness of visual imagery. In 1880, Galton asked one hundred ‘men of science’ to rate “the illumination, definition and coloring of your breakfast table as you sat down to it this morning” [2]. When asked to call to mind a picture of what they had for breakfast, Galton found that for six of his participants, “the power of visualization was zero, ,” meaning they saw nothing when attempting to imagine their meals [2]. In 2015, the phenomena of the ‘blind imagination’ was finally given a name: aphantasia. We are only now beginning to understand these invisible differences in imaginative experience. The ways in which we do or do not visualize information affects everything from how we remember events to how we plan for our future, from the jobs we take to the things we’re afraid of. In becoming aware of our own imaginative processes and the imaginative processes of others, we can become better communicators and grow more in-tune with our own specific breed of thinking.
A Blinded Imagination?: Aphantasia and Brain Injuries
In 2009, a sixty-five year-old former surveyor, now referred to as ‘Patient MX,’ underwent a heart surgery [3]. Up until his procedure, MX, like many of us, had the habit of re-playing recent events in his mind before drifting off to sleep. As a surveyor, MX was accustomed to visualizing buildings and landscapes. An alarm sounded off in the medical field when, four days post-op, MX found he had lost the ability to visualize. The man’s imagination had become blind. He had no difficulty recognizing familiar or famous faces from photographs. He retained the ability to navigate his immediate environment. He could give descriptions of scenes and landmarks around his hometown of Edinburgh. But, when asked how he could do this he revealed, “I can remember visual details, but I can’t see them.” MX remained unable to summon visual imagery at will, or bring to mind the faces of relatives or close friends. He had become aphantasic.
Patient MX was subjected to a wide range of neuropsychological assessments. Despite insisting he was no longer capable of generating visual images, MX performed normally on standard tests of perception, visual imagery and visual memory. For example, when it came to recognizing famous faces, MX had no issue. When asked to imagine the face of a celebrity whose name was shown on screen, however, fMRIs suggested that MX utilized the front of his brain, namely the prefrontal cortex, when attempting visualization. The prefrontal cortex, much like a central computer, is responsible for our decision making and, in the case of MX, memory retrieval. During this experiment, MX lacked the ability to picture the face in his mind, so he resorted to recalling from memory who the person was instead of an image of that person’s face. When faced with the task of mental visualization, individuals without aphantasia frequently use regions of the brain that activate when receiving visual stimuli. Researchers have observed that when subjects are asked to picture faces, they display increased activation of the occipital lobe, the region of the brain directly attached to our eyes that is responsible for interpreting what we see. When imagining the likeness of something, non-aphantasic people quite literally “see” the object in their brains [3]. Therefore, MX can interpret visual stimuli while paradoxically remaining incapable of re-visualizing them.
MX’s aphantasia was brought on by a brain injury –– a side effect of his heart surgery [3]. People born with aphantasia, however, go their whole lives without experiencing visual imagery. They typically become aware of their condition in their teens when, through reading or conversation, they realize that expressions like ‘where do you see yourself in ten years?’ or ‘picture yourself in your happy place,’ refer to a real, quasi-visual experience they themselves do not possess. This, of course, does not mean that aphantasics cannot participate in these kinds of mental exercises. Someone with aphantasia may very well ‘see’ themselves as a practicing doctor in ten years. They won't, however, be able to summon an image of themselves wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck in their mind’s eye. MX was able to recall visual details but could not ‘see’ such details, because while he might have a memory of a specific building, he cannot access that memory in the form of an image. MX knows that the Statue of Liberty is green, that it depicts a woman with a crown lifting a torch, but he does not first picture the landmark in his own brain before describing it to someone else. Aphantasics may not be able to prime themselves with imagery of their own making, but they are nonetheless capable of solving visual tasks [4].
Remembering Without Visualizing: Non-Visual Problem Solving
A visualization exercise made rounds on Twitter last year. The tweet asked users to close their eyes, imagine an apple and select one of five images, each a different degree of vividness, that corresponded to what they saw in their mind’s eye. Image number one looked, more or less, like a photograph. Image five was completely black –– the absence of any mental picture. The tweet was shared forty-three thousand times. People were shocked when they realized that a select few twitter users were unable to conjure images with their imaginations. Mary, the woman who created the tweet, is an illustrator and an artist. She’s also aphantasic. Mary revealed that when she shuts her eyes and tries to imagine an apple, all she sees is black. Still, she is able to conceptualize the fruit in terms of its shape, size and color, despite not being able to effectively ‘see’ it. Mary cannot picture an apple, yet she can draw one with impressive detail. How is it that a person without the ability to visualize can represent objects artistically?
No one, aphantasic or not, would be able to draw an apple without having encountered one in life –– whether that be in the form of a photograph or the three-dimensional object at a grocery store. For Mary, all the memories, connections, and experiences she associates with apples exist in her brain, just not in a way that is visually accessible. Whereas a non-aphantasic might represent the fruit by first retrieving an image of the apple from memory, displaying it in their mind’s eye, someone like Mary relies on non-visual methods to illustrate and describe the fruit. Those without visual imagery show deficits in object-specific memory [5]. Although the memory of said object exists, aphantasics cannot recall an image of that object voluntarily. To compensate, they rely on verbal and spatial techniques when confronted with problems that the majority of people would use their visualization skills to solve [5].
Let’s say a friend asks Mary to draw an apple. Instead of an image of the fruit popping up in her head, the word ‘apple’ presents itself to her. While she does not ‘see’ the word ‘apple’ or the apple itself, the sound of biting into it might occur to her, or maybe an association with the name ‘Issac Newton’ or ‘New York City.’ Mary has a non-visual concept of how the object appears on paper. She knows the apple is ‘red’ and ‘round.’ She knows it has a ‘stem;’ perhaps a ‘sticker’ on the outside. In order to draw an ‘apple,’ Mary might search for reference images. She might google something along the lines of ‘red apple with a stem and sticker,’ after making a few sketches to determine where in space the apple should be depicted within her composition. Mary uses a primarily verbal strategy to approach the problem of representing an object from memory.
While the object-specific memory of aphantasics might be impaired, their spatial memory –– the brain’s capacity to retrieve information needed to locate objects –– is not [5]. In 2020, self-reporting aphantasics were asked to study a photograph of a room full of furniture and later draw that room from memory. While non-aphantasics approached this task by visualizing the room in their mind and using that mental picture as a basis for their drawing, those with aphantasia met the problem differently. Instead of remembering the appearances of the various objects in the room, aphantasics recalled the names of the objects as well as where those objects were placed in relation to one another. For example, if the photograph depicted a bedroom, the participant might map out the room on paper using words before drawing the objects themselves. They might write ‘bed’ in the upper left corner of the paper, ‘side-table’ on the upper right corner and ‘vase’ above ‘side-table.’ Then, based on associations they have with the word ‘bed,’ begin to draw a frame, mattress and pillows using a strategy similar to Mary’s in an effort to give the text visual form. Aphantasic participants remembered fewer objects than non-aphantasics. Their drawings were made largely with the help of labels and their interpretations of such words from their memory. Their spatial accuracy, however, was equivalent to that of non-aphantasics. Furthermore, those with aphantasia made significantly fewer memory errors than non-aphantasic counterparts [5]. Where non-aphantasics saw extra chairs, carpets that were never actually there, and vases on every table instead of just the side-table, people with aphantasia weren’t as privy to such false memories.
Aphantasia and Our Sense of Self
Who are we if not our memories? Before his life-changing procedure, Patient MX would visualize friends and family, recalling his past life experiences at bedtime. How many of us have been kept awake, haunted by that one, embarrassing moment on loop in our mind’s eye? What about the face of that one person we can’t stop thinking about from the moment we wake up? Aphantasia exists on a spectrum [2]. While many with the condition can dream in images, voluntary retrieval of visual memories is impossible [2]. Some aphantasics, though they do not have the capacity to visualize, can recall sounds, scents and tastes [6]. Others cannot recreate sensory experiences whatsoever. At the opposite end of this spectrum are the hyperphantasics –– people who can have extremely vivid mental imagery. Hyperphantasics tend to be highly visual lereners. When they close their eyes and think of an apple, hyperphantasics ‘see’ something similar to a photograph –– image number one on Mary’s scale. The way we think of ourselves as individuals is deeply connected to the ways we revisit our pasts and project our futures. Aphantasia is associated with self-reported impairment of autobiographical memory [7]. While aphantasics and non-aphantasics perform equally on standard memory tests and are able to retain new information, those with aphantasia often have difficulties recalling their personal history in detail [7]. In aphantasics, regions of the brain known to be associated with the retrieval of past personal experiences were less activated when examined with an fMRI. These areas included the medial portion of the prefrontal cortex, as well as within the temporal lobe, which functions in the fortification of memory. Aphantasia has also been linked to reduced activity in the precuneus, a portion of the occipital lobe relevant to mental imagery [6].
Nicholas W. Watkins, a renowned physicist at the London School of Economics, is aphantasic. Not all people with aphantasia report deficits in their autobiographical memory –– as the condition exists on a spectrum –– but Watkins does. “My [memory deficit] doesn’t seem to disconnect me from my past and future as much as one might expect,” he writes. “I am still very much a product of my own past, it’s just that I can’t subjectively go back there. A good example of what I do have is my experience of seeing Holst's St Paul's suite performed in London on a school outing in the early 1970s. I have no emotion-laden episodic memory of being there, but nonetheless somehow know that I found it joyous, and feel that it helped me towards a lifelong love of classical music [6].” Watkins experiences a lack of visceral emotion when revisiting the past or imagining the future.
If you can, picture this: you’re grocery shopping when a song plays through the PA system. Recalling the opening bars, you’re instantly transported back to that time you tripped on your dress and embarrassed yourself in front of everyone at that tenth grade dance. If you’re a non-aphantasic, this memory will likely be accompanied by a physical –– or, to use Watkins’ words, an ‘emotion-laden’ –– experience. You might feel your face flush; maybe your stomach drops. Perhaps you inadvertently palm your face in the produce aisle, reliving the experience as though it were yesterday. A proposed function of mental imagery, or the capacity for visualization, is to make our thoughts more emotionally evocative through sensory stimulation [8]. This can be helpful, of course, in planning for future events and in remembering the past; but, it can also be a hindrance. Our thoughts so often grow overwhelming and maladaptive, as is evident in certain anxiety disorders. Aphantasia has been associated with a flat-line physiological response to both reading and imagining frightening stories. While aphantasics had a visceral response when perpetually viewing scary images, they did not have the same response when asked to imagine these images on their own or with the help of a book [8]. Where non-aphantasics may fall victim to their own fearful, imagined-scenarios, those with aphantasia may find it easier to move through the world without the same kind of visceral dread that accompanies intrusive thoughts. Someone with aphantasia probably wouldn’t be distracted at the grocery store after hearing a song associated with an unpleasant memory. This is because they wouldn’t be prompted to visualize, and essentially re-live, the experience associated with that song.
The behavior signatures of aphantasia, or the lack thereof, may have some effect on the jobs we take, our relationship to the world, and the people we become. Aphantasia has been associated with more analytical occupations, whereas hyperphantasia has been linked to creative professions. That said, plenty of aphantasics, like Mary, become artists. Glen Keane, the animator who created The Little Mermaid, has aphantasia. So does co-founder of Pixar Ed Cattrall and world-famous magician Penn Jilette of Penn and Teller. While some evidence suggests aphantasia is linked to behavioral disorders like autism, hyperphantasia is thought to be related to afflictions like PTSD and schizophrenia [1]. Though aphantasics are limited when it comes to visualizing their pasts and may have difficulties imagining, those without the condition might be bogged down by upsetting memories or an intense fear of the future [8]. The bottom line is, there is no ‘correct’ way to have an inner life. Imagination exists on a spectrum. Creativity takes many forms. Many aphantasics assert that aphantasia is not a condition, it’s just a different way of thinking and perceiving. We are all programmed with unique minds that allow us to interpret the world in infinite ways. In learning about differences in imaginative experience as well as how our own imaginations work, we can lead more fulfilling lives and become more understanding people.
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