# My Aphantasia Story _2025-12-21_ ### Discovering Aphantasia Several years ago, I was sitting in my home in San Francisco, mindlessly scrolling my social media feed, when I came across a test. “Simple Aphantasia Test” was the title, and the instructions: “Close your eyes and imagine a red star.” And then, “Choose the number that best represents what you saw in your mind’s eye.” Next followed a grid with six boxes numbered 1 through 6. Number 1 was black with the sort of static you might see when your eyes are closed, and you are looking at the inside of your eyelids. Number 2 added the very faint outline of a star. In number 3 the outline is clearer, and in number 4 the star filled with gray. With number 5 the star has the hint of the color red. Finally, number 6 features a clear and vivid red star. ![[aphantasia-test.jpg|400]] My initial reaction was utter confusion. “People can actually _see_ things in their mind?” I closed my eyes and imagined a red star. I focused on my immediate experience. What happened, _really,_ when I tried to imagine? Was I seeing something? Could I distinguish shape or color? I was doing what _imagining_ meant to me. I was holding onto the idea of a star in my mind, and I could sense the movement required to draw it, or I could think about what a star is in an abstract way, but I could not _see_ anything. I was number 1. The black void. I read through the entire comment section. There was a name for this condition: **aphantasia**, “the inability to form mental images of real or imaginary people, places, or things” (Merriam-Webster.com dictionary, 2025). But I was still unsure of whether that really applied to me. There were several comments highlighting the difficulty in diagnosing aphantasia. What happens when you try to imagine something is an entirely subjective experience. It happens in your mind, no-one else can see it, and there are no external indicators of the clarity or strength of your visualizations. Have you ever wondered if you’re seeing the same “red” as everybody else? It's impossible to know for sure. In the same way, it’s hard to know for sure what other people mean when they use the word imagination or describe “seeing something” in their mind. Perhaps neuroscience could find some answers, but according to the Internet, aphantasia was as of yet an obscure and poorly researched condition. My doctor was unlikely to have ever heard of it. But I desperately wanted to know: Was I having the same subjective experience as others and simply describing it differently? Or was I lacking an experience that seemed both common among humans and—to my mind—extraordinary? I tried other tests that were suggested online. “Imagine a table, a ball is dropped on it and rolls off the side—What color is the ball? What material is the table?” I had no idea. I realized that not only could people visualize a table and a ball—the scene was also filled with unspecified details that were unconsciously added and could be observed. For some people it was a tennis ball on a wooden table, or a red ball on a camping table. For me there was no such thing. My mind did not think of details like color and texture unless explicitly prompted to do so. Soon I learned that some people “see” entire movies when they read books, and I understood why literary descriptions had always bored me so. I asked an artistic friend how much harder it would be for them to draw someone’s face from memory, as opposed to having a model. Their answer shook me: “It’s the same.” I realized I could never draw a face from memory, the attempt would be futile. You know when the police create a sketch of someone’s face based on a witness’s description? That had never made sense to me. It was clear then that my experience was markedly different from the norm. I had to mourn the absence of an ability that I hadn’t known even existed. “Seeing” things at will seems like an incredible experience. However, I also felt special and intrigued by the notion that my mind worked in an unusual way. I had no doubt that my lack of imagined visuals had been traded for other worthy gifts, and I was curious to discover them. ### Understanding Aphantasia and Neurodiversity This moment—discovering I have aphantasia—made me aware of how every person’s mind works differently. Because the contents of our minds are hidden from one another, we tend to think that other people’s minds operate like ours: they see the things we see, hear the things we hear, they remember like we do, they imagine like we do, etc. In reality, there is more diversity in human cognition than we realize, and our differences can be quite consequential. Since learning about aphantasia, and accepting that I have it, I have gradually understood various ways in which my experience diverges from others, and how that can cause me to struggle where others operate with ease. As stated before, aphantasia means that if I try to imagine something, nothing appears visually. This has a large impact on how I experience memory as well: when I remember things, I don’t remember them visually—I can remember words or physical sensations, but no images. Consequently, I have very few memories of my childhood, and I almost never remember anything about my dreams. If someone spells out a word longer than 3 letters, I’m going to need help because I cannot visually combine letters in my mind. I can’t draw your face, but I might remember the color of your hair, and I will recognize you when I see you. My latest insight is that I’ve always been bad at geography, and perhaps the fact that I literally cannot remember maps had something to do with it! I wish I could experience visual imagination and memory in the way that most other people do. But I also recognize that I have other gifts. I’m naturally good at abstract thinking, a talent that enabled my career as a software engineer. I’m bilingual because I grew up in a bilingual household, which may be correlated with aphantasia. I consider myself neurodivergent. My difficulties in remembering certain things or accomplishing tasks that require visual imagination are not personal failures, they are simply differences that are out of my control. Understanding myself in this way is a relief. I am content with who I am. ### Aphantasia in Education It took me 30 years to realize I had aphantasia, and as mentioned in [[The Future of Education]], I believe the initial lack of awareness—from myself and others—contributed to [[Marked by France|my complete disconnection from school]]. As I reflect on the purpose of education, I think it crucial that teachers and institutions realize how diverse cognition is. We could do much more to teach people how their minds work and how to work with their minds. For those of us who diverge from the norm, the difference in outcome may be unimaginable.