![]() ![]() It wasn’t until the early aughts that pioneering researchers like Zeman started diving into why this cognitive condition even occurred.Īfter his original study on patient MX, who lost the ability to visualize after an angioplasty, was published in Discover magazine in 2010, Zeman began to receive messages from people with similar experiences. While records of people having no mind’s eye date as far back as the 19th Century, research and interest in aphantasia are still relatively new. ![]() The r/aphantasia subreddit alone has more than 57,000 members, making it one of Reddit’s largest communities. Today, a quick search for the term “aphantasia” on Facebook yields several active groups that offer varying levels of support and awareness for this relatively understudied cognitive phenomenon. ![]() Many people with aphantasia can also lack in other senses, including the mind’s ear and the mind’s fingertip. One of the first to describe the phenomenon of having no mind’s eye was Sir Francis Galton in 1880, who, during a statistical study on mental imagery, discovered that not everybody could conjure up mental images.įast forward to more than a century later and research now indicates that people with aphantasia, known as aphants, make up approximately three to four percent of the population - and Zeman has spoken to more than 17,000 of them.Īphantasia doesn’t also just apply to visual imagery Zeman explains that for some people, it can be a multisensory experience as well. But people who have aphantasia can’t do that they are unable to summon imagery to mind in that kind of deliberate fashion.” They’ll have an experience that is somewhat visual. Zeman continued: “When most people think of an apple, for example, they will be able to call to mind the appearance of an apple. “It’s a kind of absence of wakeful imagery, both deliberate and involuntary,” he said. Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the Univeristy of Exeter in the United Kingdom, has studied aphantasia extensively in the last two decades. This lack of mental visual imagery is a cognitive condition known as aphantasia. My mind’s eye has remained an impenetrable black void, unable to create the vibrant mental images that seem so natural to others.Īnd, as it turns out, I’m not the only one. I tried to follow his instructions, but all I could perceive was a disconcerting darkness.ĭespite repeated attempts at visualization and subsequently listening to various guided imagery exercises on Headspace, I’ve continued to meditate in pitch blackness. He urged us to visualize each limb relaxing, beginning at the feet and slowly working our way up the body, towards the neck and head. Lying down on my mat in savasana, with my eyes closed, I listened intently to my teacher’s gentle voice guiding the class through its final meditation of the day. The first time I realized that the way I visualized was different from other people, I was 27 years old and taking part in a month-long yoga teacher training in south India. ![]()
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