About two years ago I was really concerned about the way I handled relationships. When I'm not with someone I don't feel the same as when I'm with them. There are terms out there like psychopath and sociopath that often have negative connotations and I was worried. I was like: "Well, what is it?" "What is wrong with me?" I was always told when I was younger I looked like my mother. She never thought she could have children and then she had three, and it changed her world. My mother passed away in August of 2019. It was an incredibly difficult time for me. But I dealt with it differently than the rest of my family because I could move on quite quickly. and I felt that was questioned by my brothers who were dealing with it in a very different way. Hey there, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, how are you? I'm well. So Alex, tell me a little bit about yourself, how did you find out about aphantasia? I found out I had aphantasia from
a TV show on Netflix The example they gave was, "imagine Ronald McDonald riding on
a surfboard, can you picture it?" He said, "well I can't, I have aphantasia." I paused the show. My god. What? I bounded down the stairs and said to my dad, "can you see things in your mind?" and he said, "of course I can, can't you?" and I said, "well, no." So my name is Adam Zeman, I'm a professor of cognitive
and behavioral neurology at the University of Exeter medical school and visual imagery and its disorders has been a long-standing research interest. Aphantasia is the inability to call images to the mind's eye. The first person to recognise there are people who are unable to visualise was Francis Galton, but he didn't focus on it and very little close attention was paid to it over the next 100 years or so. It wasn't until 2003 that a patient was referred to me with the inability to visualise, over the next 20 years, 15,000 people have got in touch saying that they have never been able to visualise. When we published a description of these cases we coined the term aphantasia to describe the phenomenon. I'm Amy, an all-around creative person. I'm especially drawn to character-driven concept designs but I also do Youtube stuff. My channel blew up because of the aphantasia thing. The video I made talked through my experiences of discovering it and it's still my most popular video to this day. "The realisation of what I'm missing out on has left me feeling... a little empty to be honest." The way I remember things is quite different. Comparing it to a computer is interesting with the way data works. Think of all the components that make up a computer and what it takes to run it. The motherboard, the hard drives, the fans, the outer casing, the keyboards, the mouse. Everything is there, everything's ready to be used, everything can be navigated. But that screen is turned off. The computer still has all of the files, it's still running. It's just operating in the dark. So, I'd like to have a go at persuading you to visualise, see where we get to. So, let me give you one or two examples from the test which we use to measure imagery vividness. Call to mind an apple. So you're thinking about an apple... If I asked you what colour the apple you're thinking about was, could there be an answer? Could you tell me anything about the skin? Could you tell me anything about what that would feel like? Would you be able to imagine that, feel that, see that? Do you have any image at all? It's just black. I live my life in facts. It's entirely knowledge based. I still create concepts in my mind and I still have ideas. In the same way that I might know the start and end of the second world war, I also know that I did this on this day. Occasionally, aphantasia results from brain injury or psychiatric disorder. But the great majority of people who've been in touch with us have lifelong aphantasia and have lived with it very successfully and contentedly and productively. The frequency of aphantasia is around one percent. I found out about two years ago. When I first found out it was a shock. I always considered myself as being a little bit different. I don't have a visual component to my imagination. I'm empty inside my head. Even if O close my eyes I see black. The memory is not in pictorial form. I never knew people saw differently. So you might assume that aphantasia is disadvantageous, there are also strengths. People with aphantasia can be a little more present and they're less prone to regret, longing and craving. In keeping with that I don't think aphantasia is a disorder or a condition it's more of an intriguing
variation in human experience. I don't feel as though it inhibits my everyday life. It's just how my brain works. I've never known any different. There are some examples of highly productive people for whom aphantasia has been no obstacle. Craig Venter, the first person to decode the human genome. Oliver Sacks, a well-known author a wonderful writer. Ed Catmull, the recently retired president of Pixar Disney. We know that people with aphantasia are somewhat more likely to work in science, maths, lT. So we were very surprised and intrigued when artists with aphantasia
began to get in touch. Creativity isn't tied to seeing images in your head, it can come from so many other places. Glenn Keane's always been an inspiration of mine. An animation artist that has worked on classic Disney films. He's the only person I know in creative industry that has aphantasia Seeing how he captures emotions and character is similar to the way I translate it from my mind to page. Because I can't visualise it I tangibly feel the character. It's about understanding how your brain works so that you can be better equipped to deal with everyday stuff. Do you think there would ever be a time where you could say actually there is a test that isn't
based on human experience? An interesting technique which has been developed
over the last decade or so is resting state imaging, where you ask someone to lie in a scanner and simply rest. It turns out that even in the resting brain there is continuing activity and using mathematical techniques it's possible to identify closely interconnected regions. It turns out that people who have vivid imagery have stronger connections between areas at the front of the brain, involved in decision making, and visual areas at the back of the brain which are involved in vision and visualisation. That would explain why thoughts turn into images in people with vivid imagery whereas in people with aphantasia those connections were weaker, suggesting that they don't have the capacity to summon imagery. Just for interest, do you feel that it's a little easier for you to move on than for some other people? I really do. Something that I struggled
with after my mum's death was that I felt like I
could move on quite quickly. It's not that those emotions weren't there, because they were there. But I can talk about it to
you now quite clinically and I don't have any response emotionally, which made me feel like there was something wrong with me. So out of sight out of mind to some extent? Yeah. Okay that all makes a lot of sense, and that's very much what people with aphantasia tend to say. It isn't that people like
aphantasia don't have emotions, but they don't create the image. If you show people with aphantasia pictures they have the perfectly normal response. With that in mind, there might be some protection from problems like PTSD. Wow. Now I have this slight, surface level
understanding of what aphantasia is, it's given me something. I might not spend day after day missing my mum, feeling sad. But I know I love my mum. I will always love my mum. What I struggle with sometimes is when am I going to feel that again? When am I going to feel the same way I felt when I'm with her? Because I can't be with her. We all, of course, take our own experience to be the norm. Aphantasia reminds us that there are major invisible differences between people's inner lives. A keener appreciation of individual differences helps us to appreciate the richness of human diversity and increases our sensitivity towards one another. It isn't a disability, I actually like some of the traits of it. I can't imagine getting caught up in the past because it's not something I can get caught up in. I think I easily get over things because I don't have the images to remind me of them all. Having no sensory awareness in my mind has probably protected me in many, many ways. You're never going to be able to do everything as well as other people, and it might hinder you in some way, but that doesn't mean you have to change anything about yourself. Take the time to understand what your aphantasia is. Take the time to understand yourself.
The first time I heard people could literally see things with their mind I was blown away. I started asking friends and family, I couldn’t believe it. For me it’s not entirely black, but it’s very faint. In the Apple example from the documentary, I can form a shape in my head that prob resembles an apple, but it only lasts a split second, and there is no color or texture. It’s mostly darkness. I imagine a lot of people have this and don’t even know about it.
Woohoo I'm finally in the 1%.
Hardest part of Aphantasia is trying to explain it to others, tbh.
This documentary was nauseatingly overdramatic. Not the subjects, just the editing. Fascinating stuff though.
What I find most fascinating is the correlation between the naming of this “discovery” and the increase in people recognizing that they experience the world in this way. Is there a branch of philosophy that would offer thoughts on this?
I'm struggling to understand how you can learn and do basic things without being able to picture things in your mind.
Y’all, when you’re eyes are closed you don’t actually “see” the things you think about in the blackness of your vision right? You just…imagine it…right?
I watched this while stoned and I think it was a bad idea haha. I’m pretty sure my imagination works, but this has me second guessing.
Interesting stuff. I wonder:
I'm sure I've gotten it wrong and don't intend to offend anyone but having some sort of protection against our visualizations of the past as (guilt, etc.) and not picturing a problematic future (anxiety) sounds like a super power to me (during a pandemic... ) .
It's been hard work protecting myself against my brain.
Picture this...
I can't even...