CHyudes your eyes and imagine you can’t imagine: it’s impossible. There are those who close their eyes and see landscapes, those who imagine the face of a friend who can relive in detail a memory in detail. Then there are those who, on the other hand, in front of the same request see … nothing. No color, no shape, no image. This condition has a name: Supandyand it is much more common than you think.
What is Supandy?
Suprene is the inability of the brain to create mental images. In other words, those who suffer from it cannot “see” in their mind. If we ask an Sottorish person to imagine a dawn, he will not be able to view the sky that is tinged with pink or the sun that arises: he will know that it exists, he can describe it in words, but without the slightest inner visual representation. It is as if the “eye of the mind” was blind.
The term is relatively recent, but the condition has been known for over a century. It was described for the first time in 1880 from Francis Galtonwho noticed enormous differences in the vividness of mental images between people. Since then LIn science he began to explore this phenomenonbut it is only in the last twenty years that the interest has grown, thanks to the work of the neurologist Adam Zeman.
How widespread and why does it happen?
The most recent studies estimate that between 1 and 3% of the world population He suffers from aphantasia in complete form, while a higher percentage has partial shapes. The mechanism at the base is not yet completely clear, but it seems to concern the connectivity between different brain areas. Imagining something, in fact, is a complex process: we must recall the concept, remember its appearance and activate the part of the brain that reconstructs it. In Supandanastic people, this chain stops: thoughts remain abstract, they do not become images.
How do you realize that you have apanthesia?
It looks like a stupid question but many discover it by chance, perhaps responding to a test like the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (Vviq)used by psychologists to measure the vividness of mental images. Simple questions, such as “imagine the face of a loved one” or “View a dawn”: for most people they are natural exercises, for an aphantastic they are impossible. Still, those who suffer often do not realize it until they do not compare their experience with that of others.
What does it mean to live without mental images?
Contrary to what one might think, Supremes is not a disease or cognitive disability. Those who suffer from it think, reason, dream of open eyes … but without images. Some cannot recall the face of loved ones, others cannot imagine scenes, landscapes or characters. Yet they can describe them in words, remember their logical, but not visual details.
Curiously, many Sacchiestics normally dream during sleep: The images in dreams are born more spontaneously and deeply, bypassing the mechanisms that during the day blocks the view. And, in some cases, Supandy could even be an advantage: those who have lived trauma or painful memories are less subject to visual flashbacks.
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