What The Research Says About Aphantasia + A Neuroscientist-Approved Test

If you ask most of the world's population to picture a person, place, or thing, they have no problem conjuring a mental image in their mind's eye. But for a small percentage of the population (estimates range anywhere from 1 to 5%), visualizing or imagining images is impossible.

While aphantasia has been acknowledged in medicine since the 1800s, the mechanisms behind it have never been fully explained.

When someone with aphantasia does try to imagine something, they simply can't and instead see a void of darkness. Neuroscientist and author of The Source Tara Swart, M.D., Ph.D., explains that aphantasia is complex, and its effect on people can vary.

For example, she says it can also manifest as the inability to recognize faces, form visual memories, or imagine something new that you haven't seen before. It differs from prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize familiar faces, which often happens as the result of a stroke or traumatic brain injury.

Swart adds that the condition has "no bearing on intelligence or any other neurological syndrome."

One explanation for why aphantasia might occur has to do with childbirth and brain development, Swart says. "During the process of childbirth, when the brain is very undifferentiated [...] babies actually have a series of mini-strokes."

Thanks to neuroplasticity, she explains, a baby's brain is usually able to adapt and build more neurons in this developmental stage. But in the case of aphantasia, "That tiny little pathway that's related to visual imagery or visualization just doesn't work."

The only way to be "sure" you have aphantasia would be to see a neurologist and potentially get fMRI brain imaging done, to look at what's happening in your brain when you try to visualize, Swart explains.

That said, there is a simple and helpful test that can give you a clue into whether you may have it: Close your eyes and try to imagine an apple, seeing it mentally in your mind's eye. If you can see anything (anything at all—even a blurry outline), you do not have aphantasia. If you see a void of complete darkness, you might have aphantasia.

Interestingly, yes, some people with aphantasia do dream in images, according to Swart, but others don't. As one study explains, "The majority of our [participants with aphantasia], in fact, had some experience of visual imagery1 from visual dreams or from involuntary 'flashes' of imagery occurring."

Swart adds that many people with aphantasia can still have visual memory recall. However, she's heard of many people with aphantasia report less "rich" dreams, memories, and imagined future scenarios.

While many people are born with aphantasia, there are reports that it can be induced, either after surgery or an injury or even as a result of a mental pathology such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD.

"The existing literature points to a range of pathological and pharmacological factors that can influence vividness," reads a 2016 paper in Cortex1. "Psychological and psychiatric factors should be taken into account in the assessment of a person complaining of aphantasia." With that being said, the authors of that study remain doubtful that mental illness plays "a major role among people reporting lifelong aphantasia."