For most of my life, I was aware that my mind worked differently from others, and that people often struggled to understand me and my reasoning. But I never fully grasped why or how that difference manifested. I strongly suspect that my innate verbosity is, in part, a result of this awareness. Additionally, I always assumed phrases like 'picturing something in your mind's eye' or 'counting sheep to sleep' were just metaphors, so it never occurred to me that some people could actually see images in their minds, let alone that others don’t have an internal monologue—mine can run non-stop! My lack of clarity regarding the nuances of mind persisted until February 2022, when I first came across the concept of aphantasia. The realisation was both shocking and transformative—it was as if a hidden veil had been lifted, revealing an entirely new world I had never known existed. As I began exploring this newfound awareness, I struggled to put my experiences into words, so I t...
Introduction Aphantasia, a condition in which individuals lack one or more sensory modalities of the mind, has traditionally been defined in terms of the absence of the five external senses. However, this narrow view fails to consider the possibility of additional, unrecognised senses that shape our internal perception. Recently, researchers have redefined “global aphantasia” as the inability to mentally recreate “all sensory experiences”—not just visual imagery. This definition is problematic because it presumes a completeness of understanding that has not yet been established. Specifically, the terms "all" and “global” are misleading, as they imply a full comprehension of the sensory modalities involved, when in fact, only a limited set of sensory experiences have been defined. Given that the human body possesses a broad array of sensory modalities—at least 33 sensory modalities , according to research from the University of Glasgow conducted in 2005—it seems arbitrary and...