The Anatomy of the Arts

When the Mind’s Eye is Blind

Photo by Sam Manns

Photo by Sam Manns

Each of us relies on the acuity of our senses every moment to bring the vast world in, and to help us make meaning of it. For some of us, individual senses are not available to aid us. We may have been born with a visual impairment or have lost our sense of smell or taste. We can imagine how these shifts in sensorial knowledge come to impact our lives. But can you imagine having the ability to see but the inability to visualize anything? This article shares a phenomenon called aphantasia. Those with aphantasia are unable create pictures of people, places or things in the mind's eye. When asked to "picture-it" they are not able to envision a thought, memory or image.

"In 2003 a 65-year-old man brought a strange problem to neurologist Adam Zeman, now at the University of Exeter in England. The patient, later dubbed “MX,” claimed he could not conjure images of friends, family members or recently visited places. All his life, MX, a retired surveyor, had loved reading novels and had routinely drifted off to sleep visualizing buildings, loved ones and recent events. But after undergoing a procedure to open arteries in his heart, during which he probably suffered a minor stroke, his mind’s eye went blind. He could see normally, but he could not form pictures in his mind... Learn more in the Scientific American article"