https://www.openculture.com/2026/02/why-some-people-think-in-words.html

~9 minute video in link

I’m a mix of visual, inner monologue and emotional

Take the surprise some have expressed in recent years upon finding out that the expression to “picture” something in one’s head isn’t just a figure of speech. You mean that people “picturing an apple,” say, haven’t been just thinking about an apple, but actually seeing one in their heads? The inability to do that has a name: aphantasia, from the Greek word phantasia, “image,” and prefix -a, “without.”

I remember finding this out not that long ago (perhaps here; it’s come up a few times) Also that among those who visualize there’s a wide spectrum of what that entails.

I found aphantasia very interesting for the discussion of what we consider disorders or impairments in the mental realm. On its face, aphantasia seems like a deficiency in terms of what some claim is is mainly sensory imagination. Yet, in everyday life folks do not seem to be really affected by it.

On 2/9/2026 at 4:32 PM, CharonY said:

I found aphantasia very interesting for the discussion of what we consider disorders or impairments in the mental realm. On its face, aphantasia seems like a deficiency in terms of what some claim is is mainly sensory imagination. Yet, in everyday life folks do not seem to be really affected by it.

I see aphantasia as a difference in cognition, rather than a deficiency. Ultimately, a deficiency is usually defined as an absence that has a pathological effect in some way, don't you think? People with aphantasia don't seem to suffer practically or socially, do they?

55 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I see aphantasia as a difference in cognition, rather than a deficiency. Ultimately, a deficiency is usually defined as an absence that has a pathological effect in some way, don't you think? People with aphantasia don't seem to suffer practically or socially, do they?

That is actually my overall point. I.e. there are conditions that we consider to be deficiencies of sorts if we test for it, but they may or may not interfere with every day life. The latter is often used an indicator of a disorder, and there are certainly conditions that can do that to an extreme level. However, there are other conditions that are only an issue under certain conditions, or are itself on a continuum. An examples is ADHD, which was often seen as a categorical disorder, though increasingly data suggests that a dimensional understanding might more sense. And I suspect that this is true for many things that we currently still classify in terms of categorical disorders.