People with Aphantasia Are Learning to Visualize

Imagine closing your eyes and picturing an apple. Can you see its red skin, maybe a brown stem? About 4 percent of people see nothing but darkness when they try this, a condition called aphantasia.

Now some of these lifelong non-visualizers are doing something unexpected. They're training themselves to see mental images, and many are reporting success.

Adrià Voltà spent decades not realizing other people actually saw pictures in their minds. When someone said "picture this," she thought it was just a figure of speech. She would think the word "apple" or list its qualities, but never see an image.

After learning about aphantasia in her early 30s, Voltà discovered online communities where nearly 3,000 people share strategies to develop mental imagery. She signed up with a coach to try developing her mind's eye.

The concept is brand new. Scientists only named aphantasia in 2008, after neurologist Adam Zeman studied a man who lost visualization ability after heart surgery. When Zeman published research in 2015 about people born without mental imagery, tens of thousands reached out saying "that's me."

Coach Alec Figueroa has worked with over 90 people trying to develop visualization skills. He's recorded 87 "breakthroughs," ranging from seeing colors for a few seconds to achieving clear, complete mental images. His training uses meditation-inspired exercises and asks people to practice regularly.

Scientists remain cautious but curious. Researchers at the University of New South Wales developed objective tests that confirm aphantasia is real. People without mental imagery don't experience the same pupil dilation when imagining bright or dark objects that visualizers do. Their brains show measurably different responses.

Why This Inspires

If people can learn to visualize, it suggests our minds are more adaptable than we knew. The discovery challenges assumptions about fixed mental traits and opens questions about human potential.

More importantly, these training experiments are revealing something profound about consciousness itself. We each experience thinking so differently that some people spent 30 years not knowing others could see pictures in their heads.

The research also validates that aphantasia isn't imagination or exaggeration. Objective brain measurements prove these mental differences are real, helping people understand their own minds better.

Whether visualization training works long-term remains an open scientific question. But the experiments are already teaching researchers about neuroplasticity and how flexible our internal experiences might be.

For Voltà and thousands like her, even small breakthroughs feel meaningful. Seeing a flash of color or a fuzzy outline where only darkness existed before opens new possibilities for how we understand and potentially shape our own minds.