Aphantasia: Do You Count Sheep . . . and Actually See Them?

By Lilah Nick, Blog Staff Writer

Is your mind’s eye awake? In this blog written by Lilah Nick, she talks about the wild phenomenon in which people are unable to see or visualize things in their minds. — Editor Oliver Martinez

Aphantasia is the natural phenomenon where people are unable to visualize things in their head or their “mind’s eye.” While most people are able to think about different images in their head, about 2% to 5% of people can not.

If I tell you to close your eyes and think about the beach, you’ll picture a beautiful sunset, warm golden sand, and bright blue waves crashing against the shore. If I ask you to think about a bright red apple, the image will pop right into your head. And, when I ask for your family’s faces, of course you’ll see them. You may experience this differently of course. Some people will see something that looks like a photo; other people will see a dimly lit cartoon style; others only see a beach they have visited. 

I don’t. I’ve never been able to visualize anything. If you asked me what my mom looked like, my bedroom, or the cover page of the book I’m currently reading, I wouldn’t be able to “see” it. When people told me to count sheep or to close my eyes and imagine myself on the beach, I had always thought it was a metaphor. If you were to ask me to imagine a beach, I would think about all the different details. I can tell you that there are waves, sand, sea creatures, and people. I know the concept of it, and I could go on and on with details. It is like stringing together a bunch of different details like a puzzle.

Although I could list details about a beach, I have no visual, audio or any sensory experience. I can only imagine ideas, not images. I also remember what things look like because I understand conceptually how things look and most of my “visual” components in my head are just from recalling past experiences. 

This is how I thought it was for you and everyone else in the world until I watched the TV show Space Force with Steve Carell. In one episode, a character named Duncan was talking to his love interest, and he mentioned that he had something called aphantasia. He went on to explain it, and I was so confused. I thought that it was some joke. When he said, “I don’t have an imagination,” I immediately looked up what aphantasia was, and I was shocked. I jumped out of bed and ran to my mom’s room and asked her if she could see images in her head; of course she said yes. I then ran to my brother and asked a few of my friends. I was completely and utterly shocked. I had no idea that I was a part of the 2% of the population who couldn’t “see” anything in my mind. 

In 2005, a 65-year-old man was unable to see mental images after a surgery. Neurologists at the University of Exeter in England showed the man a photo of Tony Blair, and his brain scans showed the visual parts of his brain lighting up (prospectornow.com). Then they took the photo of Tony Blair away. The man knew the characteristics of him like his eye color, hair color, etc., but he said he couldn’t “see” him in his head (vox.com). His brain scans this time show that the visual parts did not light up at all. The neurologists also took other men and showed them the same photo, and both times the right part of their brains lit up (exeter.ac.uk).

The neurologists gave this rare phenomenon a name. They used the prefix “a,” which means “absence of” and “phantasia,” a Greek word meaning fantasy. So, together, the word means absence of fantasy.

If you’re wondering how I dream, so am I. Explaining aphantasia to people without it is like trying to prove you have a conscience. When most people ask me how I dream, they usually think that it is like reading a book. The best way I can describe it is like my inner dialogue suddenly has different voices and they are put to faces. I never dream about people I’ve never seen before or places I have never been.  

If you’re reading this and suddenly thinking that you might have aphantasia, the graphic below is a spectrum example for aphantasia. If I say “apple,” and you envision an apple as vibrant as that seen in Head #1, congratulations!!! You have a really good “mind’s eye.” If you seen nothing, like in Head #5, you may have aphantasia–just like me.