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CLOSE YOUR EYES and picture a sunrise.
For most people, the ability to visualize images – such as a sunrise – seems straightforward, and can be accomplished with ease. However, for millions of people around the world, conjuring up an image in one’s mind’s eye is not possible and attempts to visualise images just bring up darkness.
Two years ago, scientists at the University of Exeter coined a name for the inability to see images in your mind – Aphantasia. They believe that 2% of the world’s population could unknowingly suffer from it.
Alan Kendle, from England, has never been able to visualize images.
He explained to TheJournal.ie: ”It’s an inability to visualise in your mind. It’s not that you can’t think of something, but the thing you think of doesn’t have any physical structure or form as an object in your head.”
Since the discovery of the condition, scientists have also come to understand that some people with Aphantasia can’t hear sounds in their mind.
“I don’t hear anything in my head, people say they can hear music in their head but I don’t hear anything,” Kendle said.
When I read a book, I don’t hear words. If I’m speaking to someone and they say something it doesn’t pop anything into my head, nothing at all.
A life without memories
A person’s ability to remember past events is deeply intertwined with the visual images that come along with them. This, of course, poses a problem for those that cannot visualize mental images.
People with Aphantasia can only remember events because they know that they happened, thus making many mundane events difficult to recall.
“I can’t recall an image and say we did that. I’m not recalling the image but just the knowledge that it happened,” Kendle said.
For example, Kendle remembers going to the US when he was 18 solely because he knows he travelled there, but he has no physical memory to look back on.
Most people may consider the inability to look back on major life events a negative, but Kendle admitted that it has its benefits – he doesn’t have to suffer any bad memories from traumatic events.
“When I was in my 20s I saw a boy who bled to death because he cut the artery in his leg accidentally with his bike frame. He died shortly afterwards but I don’t have a memory of that,” Kendle told TheJournal.ie.
I don’t have memories of my parents dying. I don’t have bad memories of them in the same way people have vivid memories of their parents’ last days.
On the flip side, Kendle has no visuals to accompany positive events in his life, but with the help of technology, he has discovered ways of helping him recall important moments.
“I rely more on technology now than I would’ve been able to do years ago. Google Photos is my best friend because it chronologically displays pictures in the order I upload them,” he said.
I’m 56, I’ve reached a point in my life where you just accept that you are who you are and you don’t think too negatively about your situation. You just accept who you are.
‘I just didn’t see it coming’
Kendle has lived with Dyslexia for his entire life. Before realising that he has Aphantasia, he never noticed that he might have a condition that prevented him from seeing mental images. He simply believed that his brain worked just like everyone else who has Dyslexia.
It was only when his wife was listening to BBC radio and heard an interview with someone with Aphantasia that she put two and two together that this could be what Kendle suffers from.
“I was surprised, I just didn’t see it coming. I thought it was just my Dyslexia, I didn’t think it would be a unique condition,” Kendle told TheJournal.ie.
“My wife heard about it on BBC and she told me about it. I downloaded the podcast, listened to it and understood that’s what was going on in my head.”
Before discovering his condition, Kendle, an engineer by day, had been working on a book about living with Dyslexia. Upon his discovery he scrapped his book about Dyslexia and began writing about Aphantasia. He soon bagged a deal with a publisher.
Because the discovery of Aphantasia came about through university research, most medical professions have no understanding or knowledge of the condition. When contacted by TheJournal.ie, the HSE confirmed that it had not heard of the condition.
Because of this, Kendle said that the book was important, to spread the message of the condition because, as noted above, up to 2% of the population could have it and be completely oblivious to that fact.
He told TheJournal.ie that he just wants to help those who may have the condition to understand it and be able to preserve memories they haven’t been able to.
He said that his conversations about Aphantasia have already made some of those around him realise they have the condition.
“I know of three or four other people in my work building of over 200 people who think they have it,” Kendle said.
“My colleague in work who found out he has it… something he started doing this year, which is something he doesn’t normally do, is taking more pictures.
“He said: ‘Well, I know now that they’re my memories.’
“What it meant was that he has changed what he does because of the knowledge he has and he’s able to have more memories now.”
Kendle’s book – Aphantasia: Experiences, Perceptions and Insights – was published on 7 December. It includes insights from contributors across the world, detailing their life and experiences with the condition.
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Having had Toto’s ‘Rosanna’ stuck in my head on a loop for the past week, this condition sounds like it might have some benefits.
@Karen Lord: …and there it is in mine. Thanks for that. :(
@Karen Lord: I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
@Chamillionaire: Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I guess I’m one of these 2%, but I only realized after reading a BBC article about it.
I can picture things ‘in the dark’, such as towns, houses, rooms and layouts by structuring some abstraction of it in my mind, but there is no actual image.
I picture people’s faces ‘in the dark’ by remembering expressions and movements, their peculiarities I suppose.
But I do ‘hear’ music (which helps since I’m a musician), but again, I hear this in silence but I do sort of think this is normal. However, I can remember and imagine music in great detail.
I tend to think my focus on music (didn’t say a word until four but I was always humming tunes) has sort of blocked mental imagery that’s apparently normal for most people. But I don’t really know, and I find it hard to imagine my mind is abnormal in this sense.
@Padjii: idiot
Well that escalated quickly!!
Mick Tobin : How sad ,I have my sheep doing gymnastic routines as they jump the fences at the RDS ,next event the parallel bars no wonder I can’t sleep.
I can remember being told about counting sheep when I was about seven and, for me I am floating about two metres above a field, near its hedge/boundary with another field. The other field is full of sheep, and they are hopping through a gap in the hedge to join other sheep who are behind my viewpoint. The gap in the hedge i only big enough for one sheep at a time, thus making them easy to count. It’s not particularly clear if they are real or cartoon-like, just that they are easy to count.
Ironically, in recent times, I’ve found that, when I’m having real trouble sleeping, the effort of imagining that scenario is too much and my mind wanders off to think of other things (which are the things that are keeping me awake in the first place), so now I simply count numbers with no images.
That’s fascinating actually, thanks. Like your mind adapts to the constraint of having to count them by narrowing the gap or else there’d be a bunch of ‘m jumping at the same time. It seems sort of abstract in your case in some way then, but tailored to the job at hand.
Anyone who sees or saw them clearer? Or perhaps saw mutton steaks jumping onto a plate after having been sent to bed without tea?
@Type17: I imagine myself floating off the ground, off into space. Get dizzy and freak out. Can’t help it sometimes. Creepy
Funny that counting sheep should be mentioned. Like any kid I’d hear my dad tell me to do this when I complained I couldn’t sleep.
However, I always thought this was not meant literally. I remember lying in bed, trying to conjure them up as images and failing – and supposing I was only meant to think about sheep.
I could think of them as a concept, and the concept of jumping. This then occurred in a rhythm I suppose, and before too long I’d have a tune of some sort in mind that’d dose me off.
But I would like to know from some of you here: what does this look like, counting sheep jumping over a fence as you lie in bed? Realistic as if one is there, like a film, cartoonish, or perhaps vague thingies hopping about? I’ve understood there are gradations as to the clarity with which people tend to imagine this.
And do they simply jump out of themselves or would you sort of be instructing them in your mind to do so? I’m really curious actually, now that I’ve understood this stuff is supposed to really be seen. :)
@Mick Tobin: Sorry, my comment above was a reply to your question about what others see.
My other half told me about this a few years back and we tested ourselves( as you do) and for the life of me I couldn’t figure our if I ‘saw’ the image of the object in my head or just ‘thought’ the object! lol. I don’t even know if I hear music in my head! aahhhhh. How can i know for sure!!! There’s no mention of this guy going through scientific tests to prove it, it seems to be a self diagnosis. Interesting though but I wouldn’t’ say it was something one ‘suffered’ from, rather it’s just an interesting quirk of the mind.
If you’re not sure, then I’d be inclined to say, welcome to the club.
The BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054) references a University of Exeter test (which I haven’t tried yet but I’ve a fair idea what it’d tell me) of which the first question is:
- “Conjure up an image of a friend or relative who you frequently see; how clearly can you see the contours of their face, head, shoulders and body?
1 No image at all
2 Vague and dim
3 Moderately clear
4 Reasonably clear
5 As vivid as real life”
Seemingly most people would be between 3 and 5 here, and they’d know they’re seeing it instead of just thinking.
I’m not sure it’s just a quirk actually. I suspect for one that the ability to conjure up images helps scientists and engineers to bring the stuff behind theories and formulas to life. But there’s a famous biologist, Craig Venter, who sequenced the human genome and who has aphantasia, so don’t despair. ;)
@Missyb211: I agree.
… well crap. Another thing I didn’t know I had
@Shannon Mcg: first the aids and now this
Padjii:Go to bed and sleep it off”What, can’t sleep,visualise the image of sheep jumping a fence ,count them ,you are 186 ,Goodnight Padjii
I have this condition and couldn’t recall the face of the guy who tried to rob my laptop and slash me with a knife.. Been very difficult giving details to the guards…..
Doesn’t sound so bad
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