I have a condition called aphantasia, which is where I don't have access to my mind's eye. It turns out that the mind's eye is a spectrum. On one end are about two to four percent of us with aphantasia, and at the other extreme is hyperphantasia. That's where you can visualize an exquisite detail, sometimes even able to superimpose what you're imagining on reality. That's about three to six percent of people.
Aphantasia changes the way that those of us who have it perceive information and consume and process information. So for example, most people I speak to who have a mind's eye describe the experience of reading a novel as seeing scenes play out in their mind and casting characters. I can't do either of those things. It's a much more conceptual experience for me.
And when something is out of sight, it's very much out of mind. I have a five-year-old daughter. I can't, in this moment, imagine her face. But what's become increasingly apparent is that the mind's eye is just one of many constellations we're starting to draw in a night sky full of neurological diversity.
That includes having or not having an interior monologue. It includes the autism spectrum, ADHD, dyslexia, and a lot more, probably a lot of things we have yet to even give a name to because we're just figuring all this out. There is no true normal out there, and difference is not deviance. Rather, these are all clues towards a vast and profound star field we're each individually blinded to because we only have our one cozy,
inescapable mind as a single reference point.