What Even Is Aphantasia
Season One: Episode Six: What Even Is Aphantasia
Released: August 15, 2023
Transcript:
**Upbeat Music** Welcome to Hyperfixing with Cate. I’m your host, Cate North. Join me today as we dive into yet another amazing hyperfixation. **Upbeat Music**
Hello and welcome! I'm so glad you could make it to Hyperfixing with Cate today. I'm your host Cate North.
Today I thought we'd start off with a visualization. I thought we'd take a walk. Would you like to go on a walk with me? I know this cute little path we can take. As we're walking down the winding path we're walking side by side. The path is winding so we can't quite see what's ahead of us. As we are walking we begin to notice little flowers popping up along the side of the path. As we keep walking we begin to notice more details. There are butterflies flitting from flower to flower, we can hear the birds singing in the background. We can feel the wind brushing across our skin. The warmth of the sun kisses our skin as well. We close our eyes and take in the beautiful feeling all around us. When we open our eyes, a chipmunk skitters across the path. We chuckle to ourselves as we keep on strolling. Finally we come to the end of the path where we find a beautiful meadow filled with the most vibrant flowers. We bend over and pick a flower and bring it to our nose. It smells heavenly. We take a closer look, making sure to get all of the details about the flower.
Now, from what you remember of the details, I want you to tell me about the flower. What kind of flower is it? What color is the flower? Describe the flower as best as you can. Does it have leaves? Are the leaves soft and fuzzy, waxy, or even prickly? What is the shape of the flower? Is it more of an outline, two dimensional, or three dimensional object? Is it cartoonish, or vividly realistic? Is it a solid color or does it have many shades with a wide breadth of colors. There is no right or wrong answer. (PS I would totally love to hear about your flower in the comment section.)
So for me, I have always thought that I had a really good imagination. I know what a flower looks like and could tell you details about the flower. Or so I thought. The first time this exercise was given to me it was to imagine an apple, and this is most often what people are told to imagine so I decided to switch it up a bit. Anyway, I closed my eyes and imagined an apple. Then I was asked what I saw and I said an apple. Then, I was told to give a description of the apple, just like I asked you to give me a description of a flower. And I thought to myself it looked like an apple. How do you describe what an apple looks like? Then I was given some questions, what color was the apple, was it floating in the air or sitting in a bowl or on a table. Did the apple look like a 3D realistic apple or was it more of a drawing or cartoon apple. Or…was there nothing really there, almost like a shadow or faint outline of the apple. At first when the questions were asked I went back to my imagination and decided(?) on the answers. I had simply thought of an apple. And then when I got to the question and realized that while I could conceptualize an apple in my head, visually in my mind's eye there wasn’t actually a picture. There was nothing there to see, sometimes if I thought really hard I could maybe see changes in light. Maybe if I concentrated really hard I could see a faint outline. But realistically there isn’t actually anything there. Is that true for you? I’m genuinely curious because I definitely don’t know how to explain it and can’t comprehend how it is in other people’s minds. So where am I going with this? Well, according to some research, not an official diagnosis because who has time for that, I potentially have what is called aphantasia. Have you ever heard of this? I certainly didn’t until a couple of months ago. Apparently it’s rare, it is believed that only 2-3 percent of the population have it. Like everything else in the world there is a spectrum.
So what is aphantasia? The most basic definition is, it is the inability to create a mental image, voluntarily. So when I asked you to visualize the situation before, some of you might have felt it or seemed as if you were really there, or were going through a memory. For others, it might have felt vague, dim or incomplete. The visuals might have popped up vibrantly or they may have taken a while to develop if at all. As with most things that I seem to learn about and get excited about, there isn’t much known about aphantasia. It is a phenomenon that is “relatively unstudied”. Imagine that! Ha, I’m hilarious.
A little about the history of aphantasia. It was originally described by Francis Galton in the 1880’s. However, it wasn’t given an actual name until 2015. Francis was a British polymath. Which just means that he had a wide breadth of knowledge in many subjects. IN 1897, Theodule-Armand Ribot reported on a “typographical visual type”. This essentially meant that people saw words instead of imagines when asked to imagine something. After that this was basically left unstudied until 2005. Professor Adam Zeman was approached by someone who had lost their ability to visualize after undergoing surgery. When Professor Zeman published his case in 2010, he was approached by several people who had never been able to visualize. He then went on to publish a study where he called it congenital aphantasia. It was given this name because phantasia means imagination and a means without. Which feels pretty brutal because I still have an imagination, it’s just different. And less vivid. But it’s still there.
According to the Aphantasia Network, aphantasia can also affect other sensory recall as well. For example, were you able to smell the flowers? Hear the birds chirping? Could you feel the flower in your hand? Sadly that’s a big fat no for me on all of those. The absence of all imagery in all senses is called multisensory aphantasia. Again as the Aphantasia Network states, quote the surprising fact that some people can’t, questions the pervasive belief in media, education, mental health care that everyone visualizes. It challenges ancient knowledge that “thoughts require images” end quote.
As with many things in life there are pros and cons to everything. According to WebMd, those with aphantasia might struggle with things like remembering/reliving life events, they might have a hard time imagining the future or hypothetical events, they may even dream less. Surprisingly having aphantasia does not seem to affect your ability to dream. On the flip side those with aphantasia don’t “need” vivid mental pictures to excel at certain things. For example, those with aphantasia often excel in fields like science, math, and engineering. But for those that are creative, don’t worry aphantasia doesn’t have to hold you back. Imagination isn’t just our ability to visualize. Imagination can also show creativity and inventiveness. We can use conceptual imagination to think about abstract ideas or concepts. Some believe that it allows us to think outside the box because we don’t have a box to begin with. (PS this is my interpretation of words that were used to describe thought processes of those with aphantasia.) The bottom line is there is so much more that needs to be studied and learned about aphantasia. People have lots of questions regarding aphantasia and quite frankly we don’t have answers to those questions yet.
Just in case you are feeling sorry for yourself because you think you might have aphantasia, here are some famous people that also have aphantasia. Me? Hahaha, sorry, I had to put it out there. We all know I’m not famous but who knows what the future brings. Ok, a real list:
Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar
Laura Kate Dale, writer and activist
James Harkin, British podcaster and television writer
Glen Keane, animator, author and illustrator
Laura Lexx, comedian
Blake Ross, co-creator of Mozilla Firefox
Matthew Yglesias, journalist and co-founder of Vox
Well, that is about all I have for today. I hope I have given you enough information to get people motivated to learn more about aphantasia. Especially if you are the type of person that can get more studies done. I hope you enjoyed this rendition on my hyperfixation. And until next time friends.
**Upbeat Music** Thank you for joining me today on Hyperfixing with Cate. I hope to see you again next week where we explore the delectable world of yet another hyperfixation. If you enjoyed today’s show I would love it if you subscribed to the podcast. Don’t forget to check out the links and resources in the show notes. Today’s music was brought to you by Sound Gallery by Dimitri Taras. And until next time don’t forget to keep your heart and mind open. **Upbeat Music**
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