How you imagine scenes in your head could mean you have a ‘blind’ mind’s eye – how to test & what that means

MANY people would admit to imagining scenes in their heads, but a new visual test could reveal you have a “blind mind.”

Twitter users were asked to close their eyes and picture an apple, then select the most accurate corresponding image from the selection below.

Not known, clear with picture deskWhat pic best matches the apple image that you conjured in your mind?[/caption]

The pic shared by YourTango, contains five separate apple pics from the most visible apple to the least visible.

Based on whatever image best matches the one viewers conjured in their head, determines whether someone has a vivid imagination or not.

And for those who imagined empty picture number five, it could be a sign of a condition called Aphantasia.

What is aphantasia?

Aphantasia is the inability to form mental images of objects that are not present.

The neurological condition, coined in 2015 by researchers Adam Zemana, Michaela Dewarb, and SergioDella Salac, is believed to occur in 2 to 5 per cernt of the population.

However, despite being described by ethusiaats as being “blind in the mind,” it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Academic researcher Zoe Pounder, told The Conversation: “With aphantasia have intact spatial imagery abilities” and can perform just as well in other imagery tasks such as mental rotation as those without aphantasia.

“On the other hand, it’s been documented that some people with aphantasia – but not all – are more likely to report difficulties with recognising faces and also report a poor autobiographical memory — the memory of life events — a type of memory thought to rely heavily on visual imagery.”

How to test if you have is aphantasia?

Previously, The Sun cited a further optical illusion test to determine whether your mental images are more vivid than others.

Called the “Ganzflicker,” it’s an intense red and black flickering screen that can make you hallucinate things that aren’t there.

However, you should never try it if you have photosensitive epilepsy.
Some people who watch the flashing screen will see pseudo-hallucinations.

The study, published online in the journal Cortex notes: “There are considerable individual differences in visual mental imagery ability across the general population, including a “blind mind’s eye”, or aphantasia.”

Then, there are people at the other extreme who have brains that will convince them that they’re viewing very real objects.

The researcher explains on the Ganzflicker page: “A visual flicker is known to induce “Ganzfeld imagery” (Allefeld et al., 2011; Sumich et al., 2018), a type of visual pseudo-hallucination.

“The continuous flicker facilitates visual imagery, but does not induce any permanent changes in the brain and does not elicit actual hallucinations.

“I am interested to learn about the association between any illusions you see, and the vividness of your visual imagery.”

For the best results, you should watch on a full screen and in a dark room.