I recently found out I have aphantasia, or more accurately, I found out that most people don't have aphantasia.
Close your eyes and picture a red apple. Can you describe it? In how much detail? How about on a scale of 1 to 5?
Image: Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0
I don't see anything. I never realized that people meant that they saw things in their heads. If I "picture" an apple, I am thinking about what an apple looks like. I can't picture anything. I can describe an apple because I know what an apple looks like, but I can't see it. When I close my eyes, all I see is black and grey. Sometimes when I am listening to music or on the verge of sleep, I see colors, but they are abstract, and I can't control them.
It would be an understatement to say this freaked me out. According to a study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, approximately 4% of people see nothing or only a dim image. Discovering something like this in middle age triggered a full-fledged existential crisis. The aphantasia subreddit is filled with people reacting just as I did. "Holy shit, you mean people actually SEE things in their heads?!?" Finding out that your brain is "different" is more manageable when others are similarly alarmed.
I take some comfort in knowing some well-known individuals with aphantasia, including Penn Gillette, author John Green, and neurologist Oliver Sacks. I also enjoyed learning the etymology of the word aphantasia.
When [neurologist Adam] Zeman consulted a classicist friend to come up with a name for it. The classicist suggested adapting Aristotle's word "phantasia," for "mind's eye," to describe the phenomenon, and the term "aphantasia" was born.
Quanta Magazine
An article on MentorCruise.com outlines a number of possible advantages to aphantasia, including enhanced verbal communication, reduced intrusive images, and reduced cognitive overload.
The Aphantasia Network offers various resources with a wealth of information to help you become better informed about aphantasia. They also sell t-shirts that say, "I can't picture it." Heh.
Previously: Inner voice missing? Your brain may be wired differently
