Aphantasia: Develop Your Memory Even If You Cannot See Mental Images

Aphantasia.

Sounds like a magic word a magician would say before conjuring a rabbit from his hat, doesn’t it?

But let me ask you this as you click play and listen to the audio version of this page:

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Can you visualize the magician pulling out the rabbit by his ears?

For most of us, it will be easy to recall images inside our head, using our mind’s eye.

However, if you could NOT see any image in your mind’s eye – no colors, no sounds, no smells, no textures, no flavors, nothing at all – you may have a condition called aphantasia or a blind mental eye.

Don’t freak out, though. Many people have aphantasia, even magicians.

Familiar with Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame)?

He is a famous magician and entertainer, and he is an aphantasic(!).

By his own admission, Penn says he cannot conjure a mental image of a person or a place to save his life.

What Exactly is Aphantasia? A Detailed Definition

The term ‘aphantasia’ comes from the Greek words a, meaning “without”, and phantasia, meaning “a capacity to form mental images”.

The phenomenon was first described by the controversial psychologist Francis Galton – one of the pioneers of eugenics – in 1880.

The interest in the phenomenon was renewed after the publication of a study conducted by a team led by Dr. Adam Zeman, a professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology, at the University of Exeter.

Zeman’s team published a paper in 2015 on what they termed “congenital aphantasia”, now known simply as aphantasia.

For Firefox co-creator Blake Ross it was a surprise revelation that other people could visualize things in the mind’s eye while he couldn’t. “I can’t ‘see’ my father’s face or a bouncing blue ball, my childhood bedroom or the run I went on ten minutes ago,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

According to Craig Venter, the biologist who created the first synthetic organism: “It’s like having a computer store the information, but you don’t have a screen attached to the computer.”

Is Aphantasia a Common Phenomena?

While research on the subject is still in its nascent stages, neurologists believe approximately one in 50 people or 2-5% of the population are non-visual-imagers.

Sounds like a big number?

Don’t be surprised. Being an aphantasic is nearly as common as having a food allergy.

Neuroimaging has shown that mental imagery, although strongly associated with the left temporal lobe, requires the use of large networks of brain pathways. This means that aphantasia could potentially occur in different ways in different individuals.

The Two Likely Causes Of Aphantasia

However, the exact cause of aphantasia is still unknown. According to Dr. Zeman heredity and environment both are likely to be relevant causes.

Interestingly, an aphantasic may have a visual memory which means they may be able to describe in detail about how things looked – the cat had blue eyes, the umbrella was pink and matched the skirt – even though they cannot see these very images in their mind’s eye.

Moreover, many people who cannot visualize in mental images can think in sounds, while others can remember physical sensations.

Penn says, when he dreams, he’s not sure if he sees images but has the sensation of knowing that “ideas wash over me”.

Want to Take The Aphantasia Test?

It is not possible to “see” what someone else is picturing inside their head unless they describe it to you.

So how do we check what your mind’s eye is seeing?

You can answer the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, which is what psychologists use to rate different mental images of an individual, to test the strength of his mind’s eye.

Although you don’t get any results, you’re helping a good cause by completing the survey and the questions themselves will tell you a lot about your imaginary visual style.

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