illiam Blake’s imagination is thought to have burned with such intensity that, when creating his great artworks, he needed little reference to the physical world. While drawing historical or mythical figures, for instance, he would wait until the “spirit” appeared in his mind’s eye. The visions were apparently so detailed that Blake could sketch as if a real person were sitting before him.
This once neglected form of neurodiversity is now a topic of scientific study, which could lead to insights into everything from creative inspiration to mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. Unfortunately, Galton’s findings failed to fire the imagination of scientists at the time. “The psychology of visual imagery was a very big topic, but the existence of people at the extremes somehow disappeared from view,” says Prof Adam Zeman at Exeter University. It would take more than a century for psychologists such as Zeman to take up where Galton left off.William Blake’s depiction of Minos for Dante’s Divine Comedy.
As you might expect, these visual abilities can influence career choices. “Aphantasia does seem to bias people to work in sciences, maths or IT – those Stem professions – whereas hyperphantasia nudges people to work in what are traditionally called creative professions,” says Zeman. “Though there are many exceptions.”Reeder recalls one participant who uses her hyperphantasia to fuel her writing.
“My guess is that if you say ‘apple’ to somebody with hyperphantasia, the linguistic representation of ‘apple’ in the brain immediately transmits the information to the visual system,” says Zeman. “For someone with aphantasia, the word and concept of ‘apple’ operate independently of the visual system, because those connections are weaker.”
For the moment, this remains an intriguing hypothesis, but Reeder has shown that people with more vivid imagery in daily life are also more susceptible to seeing harmless “” in the laboratory. She asked participants to sit in a darkened room while watching a flickering light on a screen – a set-up that gently stimulates the brain’s visual system. After a few minutes, many people will start to see simple illusions, such as geometric shapes.
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