aphantasia

I only ask because I can't make mental images at all which is pretty rare (aphantasia) though it also is rare to have mental imagery as vivid as real life (hyperphantasia).

I don't know if this may end up being an odd question, but I wanted to ask anyway. How well can you make mental images? I only ask because I can't make mental images at all which is pretty rare (aphantasia) though it also is rare to have mental imagery as vivid as real life (hyperphantasia). Most people fall somewhere in between. My aphantasia means I have a completely different experience with fiction than people who can. I was trying to see where the authors I like fall on that scale. 2019

But it wasn’t until 2003 that the University of Exeter’s Adam Zeman published the first case report on aphantasia, after meeting a 65-year-old who lost the ability to mentally visualize familiar people and places after a surgery.

I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual Shayla Love 2024

Lambert held a seminar on aphantasia—a term coined in 2015 by a British neurologist named Adam Zeman to describe an inability to call up visual images in the mind.

People Who Can’t Picture Sound in Their Minds Ajdina Halilovic 2024

Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences.

What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images | Quanta Magazine Yasemin Saplakoglu 2024

Though it was described more than 140 years ago, the term “aphantasia” was coined only in 2015.

What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images | Quanta Magazine Yasemin Saplakoglu 2024

The classicist suggested adapting Aristotle’s word “phantasia,” for “mind’s eye,” to describe the phenomenon, and the term “aphantasia” was born.

What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images | Quanta Magazine Yasemin Saplakoglu 2024

A lack of visual imagery is known as 'aphantasia'.

The silent inner world of anendophasia | BPS Emma Young 2024

When picturing that, some people will see every detail in high resolution, like a vivid inner movie (this is called hyperphantasia), while others will “see” nothing at all (aphantasia).

Could you ever know what it’s like to be someone else? David Eagleman 2025