Picture this: a beautiful sunset. Your child’s face. A bouquet of roses. Most people don’t have a problem conjuring up these images in their mind, but some folks lack what’s colloquially known as “the mind’s eye,” or the ability to picture people, places, and things in your mind without much—if any—difficulty. There are those that live without it, though, experiencing a condition that was just given a name in mid-2015: Aphantasia.
An Online Test for Aphantasia Take the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) from the University of Exeter online. Remember, this test is for screening and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for a visit to a health care professional.
Named after the Greek word phantasia, which Aristotle used to describe imagination or visual imagery, aphantasia isn’t well-understood or even much-studied. Though the idea of a person not having a mind’s eye first showed up in the 1880s with scientist Francis Galton, it wasn’t studied in modern times or even named until a few years ago. Those who have it probably don’t even realize it. Typically, it’s something they’ve had their entire lives, though occasionally it first shows up after a medical event, such as a stroke.
Aphantasia doesn’t seem to stifle a person’s creativity. Like with other conditions that affect the brain, the affected person seems to find coping mechanisms, which may be part of the reason why it’s not quickly recognized. Besides, the ability to describe features of something isn’t necessarily impacted. For example, when asked to describe their spouse, someone with aphantasia can likely quickly rattle off their features: Tall. Brown hair. Green eyes. Broad shoulders. They’ve learned these features while looking at their spouse; they just cannot conjure them up in their brain when their spouse isn’t around.
What’s the big deal, then? Sometimes, understanding that there’s a name for the way your brain works and that it affects other people, too, is one of those coping mechanisms. Additionally, early research indicates there may be levels, or subgroups, of aphantasia diagnoses. Some people might also experience prosopagnosia, or the difficulty in recognizing faces of people they already know, or have an issue with remembering events in their life, referred to as autobiographical memory. For those people, a visit to a health professional might help them create coping mechanisms, so it doesn’t negatively impact their lives.
