Aphantasia: the blind mind or live without mental images

Aphantasia: the blind mind or live without mental images

A small part of the population lives without knowing what it is to dream of images. Nor can they recall in their memory the face of that person they love or the house where they grew up. Aphantasia or blind mind is a type of neurological deficit as striking as curious

Aphantasia affects 3% of the population and, who suffers it, does not know what visual imagination is. They are people who live in a void without form, in a blind mind where there are no images, faces or scenarios. These men and women do not know what it is to dream, they have never mentally escaped to a peace scenario were to calm stress or were to lose themselves in parallel universes in which the possibilities are endless.

This condition may seem strange to us. However, beyond the particular is dramatic or at least, the sad. People who suffer from it cannot remember what that deceased father was like or that significant being that they have not seen for a long time. We could say, however, that whoever was born with this particular characteristic cannot miss something he has never known.

However, living in a captive mind of aphantasia places them in a corner where they feel strangers continuously. From an early age, the child with this neurological deficiency knows that something is happening, because he does not know what it is to dream or have nightmares. They cannot visually remember things that they have seen, that afternoon in the park, that day on the beach does not exist visually in their minds and something like that makes them strange to notice that others can.

We are facing a reality as particular as it is interesting that it is worth deepening.

Aphantasia: what is it and why does it happen?

Neurologists define aphantasia as a type of mental blindness. This term, of course, impresses us. However ... how is the life of someone with this condition? Does it look very limited? What's more, what is its origin? We are facing a neurological alteration that has begun to be studied more comprehensively since 2016.

We knew of its existence since 1840, when Sir Francis Galton, the renowned British psychologist, anthropologist, explorer, and geneticist, described several cases, even providing statistical analysis. Already at that time, he estimated that between 2 or 3% of the population could lack that mental eye, that ability to create mental images.

We had to wait until 2016 for the scientific community to become interested again in aphantasia, and it was done by Dr. Adam Zeman, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Exeter, who finally coined this term. That same year, Blake Ross, co-creator of Firefox, published an essay describing his own experience with this new neurological condition. Following his work, aphantasia began to virtualize on social networks and attract the interest of more experts.

What is the origin of aphantasia?

Imagine two apples, one green, and one bright red. When reading this, 97% of us (according to statistical data) will visualize that image almost instantly. However, those people suffering from aphantasia will be unable to originate this neurological process because their minds do not see because in their brain universe there is no image.

This could be due, according to the researchers, to a failure to create patterns on everything we see. Thus, each visual stimulus generates an impact on our brain, an imprint that originates a type of pattern, a sequence, a form. In this way, when we remember something, it is common that these same patterns almost instantly create mental images.

People with aphantasia do not create visual patterns, there is, therefore, a flaw in that process. Everything they see or have ever seen does not generate any image in the brain. It is like suffering from partial blindness, one where our inner eyes do not capture what is outside and cannot turn it inside.

How are people suffering from this neurological condition?

Life with aphantasia is not limited. You can relate, be autonomous in every aspect of your life, work and succeed like any other. However, these people know that something is wrong with them.

Moreover, something pointed out by Dr. Adam Zeman himself is the positive reaction of those who, finally, receive a name and an explanation of what they have been suffering since forever and who do not know very well how to define.

Thus, who suffers aphantasia what he experiences basically is the inability to remember in images. They cannot evoke faces, and that usually causes them discomfort.

While most of us spend much of our time immersed in our thoughts imagining, moving from one image to another, they can't even dream of images.

Those who suffer most from this condition are people suffering from acquired aphantasia. That is to say, it is very common that as a result of an accident or a brain injury, they end up developing this deficit, in which case, the reality is more complex.

On the other hand, it has been found that this neurological deficit is also related to prosopagnosia (difficulty in recognizing faces) and also with orientation problems.

Today, there is no treatment for aphantasia. While it is true that living with her does not limit in basically any aspect of everyday life, it is curious to know that those diagnosed say they feel different and be aware that there is something that fails and that they are missing. After all, nothing is as free and comforting as thinking of images, as imagining ...