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Not everyone with aphantasia perceives the world in exactly the same way. Zeman also came up with the term hyperphantasia for people who can create particularly realistic mental imagery. He called their condition “aphantasia” - combining the Greek words “a,” meaning “without,” and “phantasia,” meaning imagination, or the capacity to form mental images. After Zeman published a case study on the patient in 2010, others came forward to say they had lacked a mind’s eye their whole lives. The man had likely suffered a minor stroke during an operation on his heart. Zeman became fascinated with the condition after a 65-year-old patient came to him in 2003 to complain that he had lost his ability to visualize. The scientific term for a blind mind was coined just a few years ago, in research published in 2015 by Adam Zeman, a professor of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology at the University of Exeter Medical School in England. People would insist that I just had a weak imagination, but, no, I really can’t picture anything.ĭespite this revelation during the Victorian era, the phenomenon went largely unstudied. Each time I talked to someone about my blank mind, we would stare incredulously at each other, each struggling to believe the other exists as a functioning human being. I set about quizzing family, friends and coworkers and was shocked to learn that most people have a vivid visible world inside their heads. He also mentioned that people can see things in their minds.Īfter reading this, I was still convinced the author was using a metaphor. Hurlburt explained that not everyone conducts inner speech. In it, University of Nevada psychology professor Russell T. I may never have realized I see the world differently had I not happened upon a Psychology Today blog post about different forms of inner experience. Mostly I remember feelings and sensations from dreams - like weightlessness in a dream about flight, or fear from a nightmare. I just sort of become aware of odd situations and feel like they have taken place. I also can’t picture anything while I’m reading - though I can still form a strong opinion about what the characters look like.Įven my dreams don’t contain images - nor any sort of narration. I always found those exercises boring and pointless.Īsk me to picture myself on a beach with crystal clear water and my inner voice will say: “I’m on a beach with crystal clear water. It was usually in a gymnasium or a religion class. I don’t recall precisely the first time I was told to close my eyes and imagine something - that I was in a room, or on a beach, or doing some peaceful thing. Photo by National Post Photo Illustration
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There is only the dark void, which I’m assured all of you experience when you close your eyes, if only for a moment before your mind conjures something up. Now I can finally make sense of the words and phrases that I always assumed were just metaphors for an indescribable inner experience, including mind’s eye, picture this, daydream, visualize and “counting sheep.” When my eyes are open, I see only whatever is around me.
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