What would life be like for someone with Aphantasia, who cannot visualize? Can they dream? Can they remember their ex-lovers?
“Tell someone not to think of a pink elephant, and that person will never be able to forget that animal.” This quote is taken from the novel “City on the Sky” by German author Curt Siodmak, written in 1974.
Since then, this example has become a classic test used by doctors for their patients, those they suspect may be suffering from a peculiar condition known as “Aphantasia”, which translates to the inability to visualize.
Aphantasia is derived from the Greek word “phantasia“, meaning “imagination”. With the prefix “a”, Aphantasia means the opposite: “unable to imagine”.
As the name suggests, those with Aphantasia cannot visualize any images in their minds, be it a pink elephant, a memory they experienced, the face of a loved one, a parent, a spouse, or even their own reflection in the mirror.
Thus, if a typical person is asked not to think of a pink elephant, they will visualize a pink elephant because of the “Romeo and Juliet effect” – the phenomenon that makes a forbidden thought more prominent.
The reason is that when you are asked not to think about something, your mind remains alert to it, inadvertently making you think about it even more.
Psychological experiments show that when asked to think of a pink elephant, on average, one will visualize the image of a pink elephant once every minute after that. After five minutes, the frequency doubles.
Ironically, those instructed not to think of the pink elephant visualize it twice as much as those who are asked to think about it.
However, this applies to normal individuals. For those with Aphantasia, they simply cannot visualize a pink elephant at all.
But why is that?
Aphantasia has appeared in medical literature since the 19th century; it was described in a scientific paper in the journal Mind in 1880 but was subsequently forgotten for over a century.
It wasn’t until 2005 that a group of scientists led by Professor Adam Zeman, a British neurologist from the University of Exeter, revisited this phenomenon after accidentally discovering a patient who could not visualize images.
Professor Zeman is also credited with coining the term Aphantasia. Since then, research into this syndrome has progressed, helping scientists gradually unveil the mysteries surrounding one of the most peculiar syndromes on the planet, the lives of patients who cannot visualize images, and the causes of this condition.
Approximately 0.8% of the population currently has complete Aphantasia.
According to a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, around 0.8% of the population has complete Aphantasia, while 3.9% experience a milder form of Aphantasia, meaning they can still visualize images in their mind, but these images are faint and unclear.
The reason for this is believed to stem from the brains of those with Aphantasia lacking the ability to translate visual information, including the shape, color, and depth of objects they see into mental images.
They can still see everything like a normal person, but they cannot remember them visually. Instead, other characteristics of objects such as sounds, tastes, and sensations are recalled, allowing someone with Aphantasia to recognize the object.
Scientists still do not know exactly which mechanisms in the brain cause what they describe as “malfunctions of systematic processes across stages.” It is known that some individuals have had Aphantasia since birth, while others develop it after a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or as a side effect of certain medications.
What would life be like for someone who cannot visualize?
To understand this, we should ask them directly, the patients living with Aphantasia. Niel Kenmuir, a 48-year-old man from England, has had this condition since birth.
Kenmuir shares that he began to realize his condition as a child. His stepfather told him to imagine sheep jumping over a fence and count them to help him sleep. But he could not.
“I couldn’t see any sheep jumping over the fence. There was nothing to count“, Kenmuir said.
Sharing a similar experience, a woman named Serena Puang said: “When I was in elementary school, I sometimes had trouble sleeping, and people told me to count sheep. Although I had seen sheep jumping over a fence in cartoons, when I tried to visualize it, I never saw anything – just darkness. I quietly counted in the dark for years.“
Although Aphantasia may complicate counting sheep, it seems not to significantly affect the creativity or imagination of those who have it. Most people with Aphantasia live normal lives and may not even realize their differences compared to others.
For instance, Kenmuir works in a bookstore and can still remember where books are placed on the shelf without needing to visualize images of them.
How does one live without being able to visualize their spouse’s face?
Many may wonder how Kenmuir has lived with his wife without being able to visualize her face.
“That’s the hardest thing to describe, what goes through my mind when I think about everything. When I think about my fiancée, no image appears, but I know I’m thinking about her. I know today she has her hair up, and her hair is brown. But I don’t describe an image I’m seeing in my head; I’m just recalling her characteristics,” he said.
Niel Kenmuir, a 48-year-old man from England, has never visualized his wife’s face.
Psychologist Wilma Bainbridge at the University of Chicago explains that this may be because individuals with Aphantasia encode their memories entirely in words rather than images. For example, when Kenmuir thinks about his wife, he encodes her with words like “brown hair,” “blue eyes,” “tall,” or “today,” “hair up.”
Aphantasia means the inability to retrieve visual memories, but their memories of events, encoded in words, remain intact. However, sometimes the inability to recall images can present some challenges.
For instance, Serena Puang, another Aphantasia patient, began learning Chinese and said: “While my friend Shayley finds it easy, I asked her how she remembers the characters, and she told me she just ‘visualizes the characters.’“
To overcome this issue, she discussed her condition with her teacher, who drew the characters on the board, analyzing the differences between them in real time for Puang. Since then, her Chinese learning has been going smoothly.
So, can people with Aphantasia dream?
The answer is yes, but their dreams are quite different from those of normal individuals. People with Aphantasia can only dream of sounds, often when they are engaged in imagined conversations in their minds, like talking to people in the dark or making phone calls without seeing faces.
Dreams of people with Aphantasia often only have a black background, according to their descriptions. In these dreams, they may sense movement, hear footsteps, the sound of cars, the feeling of wind brushing against their skin, or blowing through windows…
Individuals with congenital aphantasia often perceive their experiences as completely normal dreams from a young age, believing that everyone dreams in a similar dark backdrop. It isn’t until they receive a diagnosis and understand the condition they are experiencing that they begin to feel disheartened, realizing that others can do things they cannot.
For instance, they long to dream of a vibrant world, similar to the real world they see, and to imagine characters while reading a book, or to visualize the image of a loved one when they are not present.
But Sometimes It’s Not All Bad
Studies indicate that individuals with aphantasia’s inability to recreate images in their minds means that they are also less likely to be traumatized by recalling haunting images or unpleasant memories from the past, such as a car accident or images of an ex-partner.
People with aphantasia cannot conjure images, thus they tend to have a higher resilience against intrusive thoughts. A classic example of this is the “Romeo and Juliet effect” — the phenomenon where the more something is forbidden or desired, the more one thinks about it.
This can bring a certain tranquility to the minds of individuals with aphantasia. This stands in stark contrast to a condition known as Hyperphantasia, where individuals possess the ability to vividly imagine mental images.
Individuals with this condition are also less traumatized by recalling haunting images.
While this allows them to experience mental games that typical individuals cannot, such as imagining themselves “traveling” for free at a luxurious resort with incredibly realistic feelings, envisioning flying through the air, wandering the city, or meeting real-life idols and politicians…
However, unlike the typically carefree worries of an aphantasic person, those with Hyperphantasia often find themselves tormented and haunted by more gruesome, horrifying, or sorrowful images than the average person.
Thus, everything has its two sides. Aphantasia isn’t necessarily bad, and the ability to hyper-imagine isn’t necessarily good. If you have aphantasia, try not to feel too down about it.
Instead of imagining a pink elephant, you might focus on thinking about something more practical. For instance, what to eat for dinner tonight.
