Living with Aphantasia

This range covers aphantasia and hypophantasia: no mental images, or only faint ones. Studies draw the line differently – some at 23 points (Zeman et al. 2020), others at 32 (Dance et al. 2021). Almost everything known about daily life comes from comparing this group with people with typical imagery.

Remembering

The best-supported difference concerns remembering one's own life. In interviews, people with aphantasia gave fewer details belonging to the event itself than the comparison groups – for recent as well as for older memories (Milton et al. 2021; 24 people with aphantasia, 20 with typical imagery, 25 with hyperphantasia). The same was found for imagined future events (Dawes et al. 2022).

Standard memory tests showed no difference between the groups in the same study (Milton et al. 2021), and a further paper found no lower capacity in working memory (Keogh, Wicken & Pearson 2021). Another study, however, found weaker performance in visual and verbal memory tasks (Monzel, Vetterlein & Reuter 2022; 67 people with aphantasia, 32 controls). So the findings contradict each other. As things stand, what is affected is mainly detailed re-experiencing, not knowing what happened.

In a large survey, people with aphantasia more often called their memory “poor”, people with hyperphantasia more often “good” (Zeman et al. 2020; 2000 people with aphantasia, 200 with hyperphantasia, 200 controls). The participants with aphantasia and hyperphantasia had come forward themselves after media reports.

More on remembering one's own life (SDAM)

Learning, school, university

There is no evidence so far of disadvantages at school or university, and none of advantages either. In a sample from the general population, imagery vividness was unrelated to school grades after correction for multiple tests, tested across 9 subjects and 5 year levels (Monzel et al. 2023; 115 people). The paper calls itself preliminary and did not study a group with aphantasia.

Among 450 students in an introductory psychology course (78% in their first year), the two extreme groups, those with aphantasia and those with hyperphantasia, did not differ in how they approach learning (Cavazos et al. 2025; among them 21 with aphantasia and 36 with hyperphantasia). The study did not compare grades. We found no reviewed paper comparing the grades of people with and without aphantasia.

Reading

When reading a short story, people with aphantasia were less absorbed in the story and felt less with the characters. How much they liked the story did not differ, and neither did their reading habits (Speed, Eekhof & Mak 2024; 47 people with aphantasia, 51 controls, a single story).

Feelings and distress

When reading and imagining frightening stories, the bodily response, measured as skin conductance, stayed flat with aphantasia in a lab study. When looking at frightening pictures there was no difference (Wicken, Keogh & Pearson 2021). So the response to what is imagined was dampened, not the response to what is seen; this says nothing about feelings in general.

For distress after trauma, a survey found no overall difference. Somewhat fewer intrusive memories and less avoidance were reported, but somewhat more negative changes in thinking and mood – small effects in each case (Dawes et al. 2020; 267 people with aphantasia, 203 controls). This is not evidence of protection against a trauma-related disorder.

Navigation and spatial thinking

On familiar routes and in rating their own sense of direction, people with aphantasia did not differ from others. Only for rarely travelled routes did they recall fewer sensory details (Li et al. 2025; questionnaire: 113 people with aphantasia and 110 controls, route description: 65 and 72). In a navigation game they took considerably longer in difficult levels, but not in easy ones (Li et al. 2026; 63 people with aphantasia, 99 controls) – a game environment, not a real route. In this study they also rated their own spatial ability and memory lower – unlike in the 2025 paper.

Drawings from memory contained fewer objects and less colour with aphantasia, but were just as spatially accurate and had fewer memory errors (Bainbridge et al. 2021). In mental rotation of figures, people with aphantasia were slower but more accurate (Kay, Keogh & Pearson 2024).

Faces

People with aphantasia more often report difficulty recognising faces (Zeman et al. 2020). In a face memory test they performed worse in one study (Dance, Hole & Simner 2023); in another there was no difference for famous faces or in a further face test (Milton et al. 2021).

Work

Among the people who had come forward for the large survey, those with aphantasia worked less often in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media and more often in computing, mathematics and the natural and social sciences than those with hyperphantasia (Zeman et al. 2020). This is a clustering among self-selected participants, not a cause; a comparison with typical imagery is missing.

Between students of art, architecture, law and dentistry, imagery vividness did not differ (Smyth, Acharya & Hunt 2019). No recommendation for or against a profession can be derived from these data.

Dreams

In the large survey, 63.4% of participants with aphantasia said they dream in images (Zeman et al. 2020).

More on dreams without a mind's eye

Most people fall into this range (Wright et al. 2024). In the studies this is the comparison group with “typical” imagery: what is described above as a difference is measured against it.

Within this range, too, mental images vary in vividness. In a sample from the general population this was unrelated to school grades (Monzel et al. 2023), and it did not differ between students of different subjects (Smyth, Acharya & Hunt 2019).

In the large survey, the comparison group called its memory “normal” more often than the other two groups did (Zeman et al. 2020).

Nothing more has been studied separately for the middle of the scale: the papers we checked ask about its two ends. There is no evidence that the findings on aphantasia apply “a little” to a score in the middle.

Check the other senses: MST-21

From 75 points upwards, studies speak of hyperphantasia (Zeman et al. 2020). There is far less research on it than on aphantasia: comparison data come from three papers (Zeman et al. 2020; Milton et al. 2021; Cavazos et al. 2025).

• RememberingPeople with hyperphantasia more often called their memory “good” (Zeman et al. 2020) and, in interviews, described more details belonging to the event itself than people with aphantasia (Milton et al. 2021).
• LearningStudents with hyperphantasia reported stronger memory for personal experiences and more study behaviours such as self-testing than students with aphantasia; there was no difference between the two extreme groups in their approach to learning (Cavazos et al. 2025).
• WorkAmong self-selected participants, creative professions were more common with hyperphantasia than with aphantasia (Zeman et al. 2020) – a clustering, not a cause.
• PersonalityIn a small study, openness to experience was elevated with hyperphantasia (Milton et al. 2021).

On reading, navigation, faces in tests and grief with hyperphantasia we found no robust study.

More about hyperphantasia

Several studies describe people with aphantasia solving tasks by a different route – in some of them with the same result.

• Knowing instead of seeingAsked how many windows their home has, people with aphantasia did not count them off a mental image. They used spatial imagery without a picture, a sense of movement, or plain knowledge (Zeman et al. 2020).
• Words as scaffoldingWhen drawing from memory, they relied more on words (Bainbridge et al. 2021).
• Breaking down instead of rotatingIn mental rotation of figures, they tended to proceed analytically (Kay, Keogh & Pearson 2024).
• Other routes in working memoryWith equal performance, they reported different strategies from the comparison group in all memory tasks (Keogh, Wicken & Pearson 2021).
• At universityIn interviews, 14 students with aphantasia described what they do: offloading into lists, processing in language, linking to what they already know, using several senses (Cavazos et al. 2025).

About half of those surveyed said the strength of their imagery affects their relationships: 48.7% with aphantasia and 53% with hyperphantasia, with no difference between the groups (Zeman et al. 2020). Most of them called the effect negative (95.5% and 75.8%); the study did not analyse what it consists of.

None of the papers we checked studied how such conversations go. These sentences say no more than is supported above:

• “I know what happened. I just recall fewer of the details you can still see in front of you.” (Remembering: Milton et al. 2021)
• “When I read, I get less absorbed in the story. I can still like it.” (Reading: Speed, Eekhof & Mak 2024)
• “Not being able to picture things doesn't mean I don't dream: in a large survey, 63.4% of participants with aphantasia said they dream in images.” (Dreams: Zeman et al. 2020)
• “The result comes from a self-test. It is not a diagnosis.”

On grief and loss with aphantasia we found no robust study. Whether people without mental images grieve differently has not been studied.

If you would like to talk to others: our FAQ lists the communities that exist online.

Communities for exchange (FAQ)

• Many samples consist of people who came forward themselves – after media reports or via online groups (Zeman et al. 2020; Dawes et al. 2020). How common something is in the population cannot be derived from them.
• Several groups are small: one study on remembering one's own life had 14 people with aphantasia and 16 controls (Monzel et al. 2024).
• There is no study on grief, and only a few on hyperphantasia.
• Whether a strategy helps has not been tested.
• All findings are group averages. They do not predict how any one person fares.