Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

A couple of months ago we covered Prosopagnosia – the inability to recognise faces. Following on from that, today we’re covering Aphantasia – the inability to see mental images.   Most of the time most of us, if asked to remember something or “picture” something in our minds, we create a mental image of the thing or person.   For example, if asked to remember what you had for breakfast this morning, many of us will mentally see the weetbix and toast – not always in perfect detail, but there will be a picture of the thing.   But for a small number of people, this is just a theoretical idea. They have aphantasia.   Estimated to affect about 1% of people – not a disorder in itself but considered one end of a spectrum related to how well or poorly we can visualise things in our mind.  Some people become aphantasic after a head injury or damage to the brain. Others have never had it and assume that terms like “mental pictures” were just meant to illustrate the idea of thinking about someth