Aphantasia: Why 'Blind Imagination' Could Be the Key to Understanding Consciousness

People with aphantasia can't make mental images. This condition could be the key to understanding consciousness in the brain. Dr. Hakwan Lau explains how aphantasia can help researchers in the field solve a problem that undermines most consciousness research, how it is a real-world example of the "hard problem" of consciousness, and why Global Neuronal Workspace Theory might collapse if tested properly.

Corrections/clarifications:
- People use different strategies for mental rotation, whether or not they have aphantasia. It's not always visual rotation of the image. Some people use more analytic strategies. For Hakwan 's hypothesis to be viable, there only needs to be a subset of aphantasic people who rotate images using unconscious mental imagery.

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction: Aphantasia Test
0:44 Mental Rotation and Consciousness Research
2:43 Defining Consciousness (The Right Way)
5:14 Aphantasia
8:31 Mental Rotation in Aphantasia
10:40 Bad Consciousness Research
11:23 Back to the Hard Problem
12:45 Testing Theories of Consciousness
15:06 Problems With Consciousness Research (Global Workspace Theory)

Images:

Music:
Blue Dream by Cheel, from YouTube Creator Music

[NovemberNinja]

I knew some people doing research on aphantasia in a lab I was a part of in my undergrad. Some of the things that stuck out to me:
- Many people with aphantasia report having vivid dreams, suggesting that there must be something about being awake that inhibits that process of visual imagery
- This is very clearly a spectrum. Some people have no imagery, some see vague shapes or shadowery imagery, and others have very vivid images.
- The object rotation test may not be a very good measure of phantasia as it is possible that other sensory modalities are being used to solve it (some people have described solving that problem through a very vivid somatosensory/proprioceptive imagination).

[Anne_Onymous]

I have no ability to visualize things in my head.
I'm so envious of everyone else!
I used to think the term "picturing something in your mind" was just a hypothetical saying.

[jozincarnate]

So i have mind blind aphantasia, .I just want to let other people know if you also have it, to make sure you have lots of photos of those close to you. I recently lost my parents and I struggle to picture their faces, which I felt ashamed and frustrated about for some time until I found good photos of them both. Good luck

[poogissploogis]

Honestly as a hyperphantasic, I find aphantasia just as fascinating and hard to understand. Like y'all can conceptualize all of these things about an object without picturing it? That's amazing! I cannot separate the two in my head at all

[lukaz]

I found out during a therapy session that I had aphantasia. My therapist told me to imagine something, and I got frustrated over people always saying that as if I'm meant to see pictures in my goddamn head. Turns out that's exactly what some people do. We ended up doing the apple test as well, which colour it was, what kind of table was it, what happens when it hits the ground. I visualised nothing.

As an avid reader, it absolutely ruined me for a few weeks, knowing that people had the ability to visualise the story they're being told, the locations and the people that inhabit them. It's truly surreal. I made my peace with it not long after, realising my inner monologue would do more heavy lifting. I'd have to describe scenarios or things in excrutiating detail to "visualise" it, but it would still be words inside my head, and not pictures. I think it has helped me develop a more logical way of thinking over the years, although I would love to try the grass on the other side.

Another tidbit that may be entirely personal and/or unrelated, but psychedelics (mushrooms especially) provide me with no visual hallucinations. I've never seen distortions, colour shifts or any of the funky stuff you'd expect alongside a trip.

[DatFishGuppy]

I have aphantasia, and the way he's describing it is close to how I feel. He mentioned often times we can do the task and just not be aware of it. I've described my memories as a weird two party hive-mind where anytime I need to recall something, the memory guy goes and watches it, and I inherently know everything about it - but I never see the memory. I can only tell you im thinking about it. I know it's there.

To expand on this, I feel like it's an autopilot adaptation. I don't often need really think about the task... I just stare at it and then an answer appears. It's so bizaare to put into words.

[Argrouk]

Your comments on rotating the object 01:58 are not how I do it at all. I do not rotate the object, I compare the relationships of parts of the object to get the answer. If anything I'm trying to create a new image, not manipulate the old one, which may account for the delay. I'm not 100% blind in mind, I have a large memory store, I can think about things I have seen, but creating something new is extremely difficult.

[bucko]

When asked to visualize an apple, my mind sees no apple. My mind remembers that there are red apples, green apples etc. Maybe someone took a bite out of it, maybe there is a worm sticking out of it. All scenarios that I have looked at previously and remembered. I can invent any kind of apple I want using descriptors that I have memorized, but I can't see it.

[bnzbeavis]

I acquired aphantasia after an instense and awesome hallucingenic experience when I was 19yo. Last year I tried a meditation technique where you sit in front of a lighted candle and observe it briefly, then close your eyes and try to visualise it. As soon as you can no longer picture the candle (even a very fuzzy and non-detailed picture) you open your eyes and look at the candle again.

After about 80 hours of practice over three months (40 minutes per day, every day), I went from a 2/10 visualiser to about 3-4/10. Not great but now able to create fuzzy images and briefly hold them in my mind. About six months later and it's gotten even better, up to about 6/10 now. Now when I'm playing fast-paced action video games, my mind is even showing my visual images of what might happen in the near future. It's pretty sick tbh, I love it haha.

No idea if this will work for people born with aphantasia, but after having aphantasia for 25 years and then improving, I think this technique is worth trying out. I had to slow down a lot and start with very small details of the candle, often it was more like imagining the feel of the candle, rather than actually seeing it. Also, when eyes were open, very slowly scanning in the various details of the candle, then trying to replicate the slow scanning with eyes closed.

Anyway, hope this might help someone out there. I was at peace with having aphantasia, but always wondered if maybe some day I would be able to visualise again. So I completely understand the frustration with hearing people that say 'just try x' and you can fix it. But at the same time, what have you got to lose by trying this technique?

[JustSomeJoe-dprp]

I have aphantasia, yet have had a successful career as a visual artist. When I close my eyes, I see nothing at all. When I'm designing something, it starts as a verbal description in my head that gets more and more elaborate the more intricate or detailed it gets. I do have vivid, visual dreams though, and an incessant inner dialogue. I envy that some can see things in their minds visually, even if I can't begin to imagine what that must be like!

[pigeonx]

I realized I have aphantasia mid-last year. The way he said "I think these people don't lack mental imagery, they lack the conscious experience of mental imagery" REALLY resonated with me. "Mental blindness" I think is an appropriate description of this condition. The way I've described it to others is that it's similar to the movie Inception, and the concept it establishes of dreaming in layers. It's almost like I'm thinking about visualizing. My thoughts all feel a layer deep, below this mental blindness. When I try to visualize something, an activity I have to do daily for work, it's like I'm thinking about the concept of visualizing. Like the visualization is happening and I am aware that it is happening, but I can't see it, I just know the resulting data. In the same way that those who are visually blind have their other senses heightened, I feel almost like I perceive these visualizations through other mental senses if that makes any sense. It's like complex thoughts, visualizations, and forms come to me through knowing and not through seeing. This does mean however that "mental noise" and distraction can get in the way at times. If I'm going through something, have anxiety, or I'm in an environment that makes me unable to focus it takes me longer to get this data or could possibly prevent me from getting it at all.

I've also realized, if anyone else has aphantasia and is reading this, that these "mental senses" can be trained through practice. Certain types of meditation have helped a lot.

[AlexReynard]

Around 12:30 he starts getting into that thing scientists do where he dismisses imagination/intuition. This is a serious flaw. Let's show this metaphorically: You come into a room where there's a bunch of puzzle pieces spread all over the floor. You and a friend try to put them together. After a while, you intuit that you're missing a lot of pieces, and you get this feeling because you can imagine, from the pieces you've seen, what the total image is. Your friend says, "No, that's not scientific. We have to derive an answer from these pieces here, which we know exist. We can't rely on hypothetical 'other' pieces."

[jmfs]

I have hyperphantasia. Until a few years ago I thought everyone visualized the same way. The strengths for me are often process based, where I can run physical simulations in my head backwards and forwards fairly rapidly. I often solve mechanical problems at work, and coworkers think I "got lucky", but the reality is that I did the same problem-solving anyone would only I did it in my head. Some people can memorize texts/statistics/formulas much easier than I can, and choose that skillset to follow processes. I visualize in 3D. Pros and cons to the entire spectrum. Mutual respect is key.

[Vincent.]

Being an artist with aphantasia is really hard sometimes, since I can *think* of a pose idea that I want for something, but I can't actually... put that on a canvas, if that makes sense. I can think of it, and how I wish for the limbs to be positioned, but I can't actually visualize it, which makes it hard to actually.. put it on paper.
That's why I like to take pictures of myself doing poses resembling the idea I had in mind and use them as references. Total life saver

[fakee]

I have Aphantasia and I was always so frustrated when someone said "Close your eyes and imagine X". I was always thinking what kind of bs trick that is when I can't imagine anything. After some time I've looked into it and I found out that people actually can imagine things and see them in their mind. I felt so bad, I love art, I love books, I love science and knowing how many times cooler would all these things be if I was able to imagine them just hit me like a truck. Ever since I am kinda envious of everyone who have the ability to imagine things clearly in their head.

I would also like to describe how it feels when I try to imagine things. It feels like I am only thinking in a facts. I know how apple looks, I know it's rounded, I know what kind of color it can have, etc. But I can't imagine it. I can draw it since I know the apple is rounded, I can color it since I know for a fact which colors can apple have but I can't visualize it. It feels as if I told myself ok so let's visualize an apple and task would be passed down to someone else, imagining the thing and then telling me what it looks like. I can't see it. I just for some reason know how it looks based on my knowledge.

[jacobobos]

I can't imagine anything unless I am extremely sleep deprived or right before falling alsleep, when my body beggins to remove my admin privileges to the ability to move my body(falling into lucid dreaming). In that state and lucid dreams i see shapes or low detail locations, more towards concepts like road/hills/trees/houses occupying particular location in the vision field, but there's no color and very little texture

[Krompulos]

I have strong Aphantasia. While awake, I have no imagery associated with thought. However I have the ability to conceptualize heavily. As a child, I thought when people said they had a "Mental Picture" of something it was only an analogy. I have extremely vivid dreams, so I have the ability to Imagine. Perhaps there is a lack of connectivity between the concious and unconcious mind. I am a visual artist, and can draw from memory, with accuracy, but not visualize things internally. I would love to speak with anyone who is interested and discuss further.

[leonardoanacadios]

"They don't lack mental imagery of an apple, they lack the counciouss experience of the mental imagery of an apple"

Trully mindblowing.

[microchip]

This is why I always loved reading. Everything turns into a movie in my head still. I recreate everything described and it’s why I get disappointed with some movies made from books because they leave out a lot of information or changes things.

[Giganfank]

Aphantasic here.
I can hear music, sounds, and peoples voices. Visualisation seems like sorcery. I can't even understand what that would be like.