He’s an avid reader who works in a bookshop, but he says books with vivid descriptions bring nothing to mind for him. Neil Kenmuir from Lancaster, UK, also experiences the inability to visualize things. After seven years, I hardly remember her,” he said. I can remember factually the things we did together, but never an image. "After the passing of my mother, I was extremely distraught in that I could not reminisce on the memories we had together. He also struggles with the inaccessible memories of his mother who passed away. Obeyer said that the condition has severely affected his relationships since he can’t visualize his partner unless they’re physically with each other. The ability to recall memories and experiences, the smell of flowers or the sound of a loved one's voice before I discovered that recalling these things was humanly possible, I wasn't even aware of what I was missing out on.” I began to feel isolated - unable to do something so central to the average human experience. One of the responders to Zeman, Tom Obeyer from Ontario, Canada, said, “It had a serious emotional impact. Being unable to do that can cause people with the condition to feel somewhat isolated or as if they’re missing out on a remarkable part of the human experience. So many of us spend time daydreaming (a little more than we’d like to admit) or revisiting memories of certain places and people. However, he does suggest that people with aphantasia experience life quite differently than those who can access their mind’s eye. People have described the effects of aphantasia after suffering major brain damage, but Zeman is adamant that aphantasia is not a brain disorder. If an individual is unable to visualize, it could be because the links between these brain areas are somehow disrupted. The process is hinged on the basis of how our memories process the way things look. SEE ALSO: This Man Has the Worst Case of Amnesia Ever KnownĪ network of brain regions in the frontal and parietal lobes work together to generate mental images. They reached out to Professor Zeman and serendipitously provided him with a new way to research the rare sensation. Zimmer’s story caught the attention of 21 individuals who realized they, too, had a blind mind’s eye. Zeman previously wrote a paper about a man who lost his mind’s eye after a cardiac procedure in the sixties, and science journalist Carl Zimmer covered the topic in Discover magazine. The phenomenon was actually discovered centuries ago by Sir Francis Galton in 1880, but it remained largely unexplored until cognitive neurologist Professor Adam Zeman revisited the concept. Researchers have discovered that some people just can’t picture images in their heads, a condition called “ aphantasia” - essentially meaning their “mind’s eye” is blind. Imagine reading the Harry Potter series without being able to form mental images of the fantastical world of witchcraft and wizardry. If nothing comes to mind, you might have “aphantasia.” Close your eyes and picture walking through a snowy forest with towering pine trees.
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