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Aphantasia can be a
gift to philosophers
and critics like me

Be e ch tre es in Fre deriksdal near Copenhagen

(1828) by Christian Morgenstern. Courtesy
Hamburger Kunsthalle/Wikipe dia

Mette Leonard Høeg is a hosted

Aphantasia veils the past and the future from the mind’s eye. That
research fellow in philosophy at the
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical can be a gift to philosophers like Derek Parfit and me
Ethics. She is also a literary critic,
and the author of Uncertainty and
There’s an early memory from my childhood, representative of its peak happiness.
Undecidability in Twentieth-
Century Literature and Literary I’m on a simple, iron child’s seat on my father’s bike. He’s just picked me up from
Theory (2022) and anthology editor
kindergarten and is taking me home through the forest on the way to our house. It is
of Literary Theories of Uncertainty
(2023). a spectacularly fluorescent Danish spring, and we’re travelling through woodland
illuminated, from above, by the light-green foliage of the tall beeches only just
Edited by Nigel Warburton coming into soft leaves and, from below, by snow-white forest anemones spreading
around us in dense, endless carpets.
SYNDICATE THIS IDEA

Bringing this scene to my mind, I don’t ‘see’ anything. I have aphantasia, the
neurological condition of being unable to visualise imagery, also described as the
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absence of the ‘mind’s eye’. Still, I know that those visual elements were there; they’re
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stored in my mind as knowledge and concepts; and I have particular and strong

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emotional responses to the thought of the light and colours.

Until very recently, I had always assumed that my experience of reality was typical,
and that being able to see only things that are actually there – present and visible in
the external surroundings – was normal. But discovering that I have aphantasia
brought to my awareness differences in perception and self-conception between me
and others that I’d always registered on some level, and felt disturbed by, but had
never consciously thought about.

The further I’ve delved into research on this neurological anomaly, the more
extensive its explanatory reach has proven. It has been like finding the master key to
my life and personality, and has significantly deepened my understanding of my
psychology, my philosophical views, and my aesthetic and literary preferences.

The distinction between what ‘is’ and what ‘isn’t there’ in external reality is, of
course, problematic, as philosophy has observed through the ages and has been
confirmed by modern neuroscience. On the predictive processing model of
consciousness – one of the more prominent neuroscientific theories today – most of
what humans perceive as external reality is projection. The neuroscientist Anil Seth
thus explains that the phenomena we experience as objective and independently
existing in our surroundings are, to a great degree, our brain’s best guesses about that
reality, generated as a response to an external reality, but based on saved data and
expectations – and, as such, a form of controlled hallucination.

This makes me wonder how I’m able to project unconsciously what appears to me as
fully fledged external reality, and thus successfully form images as part of the brain’s
predictive processing, but not consciously create images. How can I perceive
anything visually? I asked Seth about this at a talk I attended, and he put me in touch
with the psychologist Adam Zeman at the University of Exeter who is involved in
some of the first extensive studies on aphantasia. Zeman gave me a test that
measures visual vividness on a continuum. While such tests entail some uncertainty,
in part because they rely on subjective reporting which is fallible, the result was
unambiguous: I have ‘extreme aphantasia’– ie, no ability to summon up internally
even the vaguest, blurriest contours of a specific object. Neither my memory nor my
imagination has any visual dimension.

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What is there, then, in the absence of visual content? Imagination is

Though usually heterogeneous, comprising various dimensions, and spatial and kinaesthetic
described in imagination can seemingly be preserved in aphantasia. The philosopher Derek Parfit
negative terms was aphantasic, and described his memories as propositional and stored in
and as a deficit, I sentences. I would rather describe my imagination and memories as conceptual and
suspect emotional – consisting of thoughts, feelings and sensations. I cannot visualise my
aphantasia isn’t childhood home but, with a combination of conceptual and spatial memory, I can
simply a reduced describe it – and, if I do, I notice I’ll start moving my hands and body as if I were in
experience of the house. I can feel it, almost physically, when I think of it.

reality

Lamp and St atue, Venice, c1980s © Derek

Parfit and courtesy Janet Radcliffe Richards.

Zeman also supplied me with a report on the first systematic study of the
neuropsychological and neural signatures of aphantasia, which confirms many of the
hypotheses formed on the basis of self-reporting and anecdotal evidence. It connects
aphantasia to introversion and autistic spectrum features; to difficulty with
recognition, including face-recognition; to impoverished autobiographical memory
and less event detail in general memory; to difficulty with atemporal and future-
directed imagination, including difficulties with projecting oneself into mentally
constructed scenes and the future; to elevated levels of IQ; and to mathematical and
scientific occupations.

Most of these apply to me. In light of my extreme aphantasia, my profession,

however, seems somewhat conspicuous. I work as a literary critic and researcher: ie,
with stories in the experience of which visual imagination plays a key part for most
people. Indeed, some aphants report that they struggle with reading fiction. But, for
me, the emotions and thoughts evoked by literary scenes of strong visuality are
sufficiently stimulating to stay engaged and fascinated. They invoke qualities and
moods, and often trigger a strong and compelling longing to see the actual thing. I
have, however, always had a strong preference for philosophical and conceptual
literature – my favourite book is Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities (1930) –
which aphantasia could plausibly account for; as well, perhaps, as for my relative
indifference to poetry compared with most people who work with literature
professionally.

Though usually described in negative terms and as a deficit, I suspect aphantasia

isn’t simply a reduced experience of reality. This may of course just be wishful
thinking; but, considering the perceived differences between my experience of the
world and that reported by others, it seems to me the mind and body compensate,
and that the absence of some features leads to exaggeration of others. Zeman himself
notes something similar, suggesting that aphantasia may come with an increased
interest in the visual world. And so, my description of my aphantasia in terms of
what is absent inevitably veers towards what is, in turn, present.

Aphantasia seems to come with a greater sensitivity to direct visual impressions.

My mind seems Aphants’ inability to imagine or recollect beauty internally and privately may well
to compensate make the meeting with it externally more overwhelming. This could explain the
for this with a difference in response to both beauty and ugliness noticed by myself and others
stronger throughout my life. The appreciation of beauty is of course fundamentally human,
absorption in, and but my reaction to strong visual stimuli – films, nature etc – has always been
greater intimacy remarkably intense. I’m often made socially uncomfortable when experiencing
with, the present spectacular scenery in the company of others. It’s difficult to contain myself and stay
moment engaged in conversation when my disbelief and absorption in what I’m seeing feels
norm-divergent and over-the-top. The aphantasic absence of the mind’s eye may
account for a particular kind of ‘visual vulnerability’. This would, conversely, explain
my exaggerated negative and depressive response to ugly surroundings – since
aphants don’t have the option of compensating for any external lack of beauty with
exciting internal visuals.

The aphantasia also explains, at least in part, why, in contrast with most people I
meet, I find it hard and unnatural to tell my life story. I don’t really think of my past,
and when asked about it, I find it difficult to recall and recount. Nor have I ever had
specific ideas or visions for my future – only abstract thoughts of wishing to be
happy, intellectually stimulated, healthy, with good people in my life, and access to
natural beauty.

The flipside of this disconnection from the past and the future is seemingly an
increased ability to be present. Indeed, the aphantasia study report notes the
possibility of less mind-wandering frequency in aphants. And it seems plausible that
fantasising about the past, future or any fictional scenario will be far less engulfing
with no visual content to entertain the mind.

Oxford © Derek Parfit and courtesy Janet

Radcliffe Richards

I would further hypothesise that aphantasia comes not only with a greater ability to
be present and remain undistracted, but also with a reduced sense of self. In his book
Reasons and Persons (1984), Parfit formulates the view that personal identity is
reducible to physical and psychological continuity of mental states, and that there is
no ‘further fact’, diachronic entity or essence that determines identity. The belief that
persons are separate entities with continuously existing selves, he argues, is to a great
extent an illusion. The connection between this reductionist account of personhood
and Parfit’s aphantasia seems to me obvious. Our philosophical views are based on
our intuitions – which are, in turn, formed by our neurology; our perceptual
experience of the world guides our ideas about it. Speaking to Larissa MacFarquhar
for her article ‘How to Be Good’ (2011) in The New Yorker, Parfit reports on his
inability to visualise imagery, having few memories of his childhood and almost
never thinking about his past. This diminished sense of continuity and substantiality
of his own self will likely have directed him towards general anti-essential
hypotheses about personhood.

Aphantasia could certainly explain why Parfit’s theory resonates so strongly with me
– as well as my sympathy for Eastern contemplative and monist theories such as
Buddhism that advocate self-abandonment, detachment and renunciation. While
Save many people find such non-essential ideas of personhood and existence disturbing
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and estranging, to me they’re not only obviously plausible, but also highly relatable –
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and easy to practise. When I introspect, I literally see nothing – and on that basis, it is
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likely more difficult to create and uphold an idea of a centred, essential and
continuous self.

IMAGINATION While the aphantasic imagination and memory have fewer dimensions and likely
less richness, the mind seems to compensate for this with a stronger absorption in,
MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA
and greater intimacy with, the present moment. My sense of connection to my past is
THE SELF
weak. I have very few memories like the one of flying through the anemone-lighted
forest on my father’s bike, and they rarely come to my mind. The colours and light of
20 MARCH 2023 the present are always capturing my attention.

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