Aphantasia, imagination and dreaming

Abstract

Aphantasia is a recently discovered disorder characterised by the total incapacity to generate visual forms of mental imagery. This paper proposes that aphantasia raises important theoretical concerns for the ongoing debate in the philosophy and science of consciousness over the nature of dreams. Recent studies of aphantasia and its neurobehavioral correlates reveal that the majority of aphantasics, whilst unable to produce visual imagery while awake, nevertheless retain the capacity to experience rich visual dreams. This finding constitutes a novel explanandum for theories of dreaming. Specifically, I argue that the recent dream reports of aphantasics constitute an empirical challenge to the emerging family of views which claim that dreams are essentially imaginative experiences, constitutively involving the kinds of mental imagery which aphantasics, ex-hypothesi, lack. After presenting this challenge in the context of Jonathan Ichikawa’s recent arguments for this view, I argue that this empirical challenge may be overcome if the imagination theorist abandons Ichikawa’s account of dreaming in favour of a modified version. This involves the claim that dreams are essentially inactive and constitutively involve non voluntary forms of imagination. I conclude with a suggestion for further research which can test the viability of this alternative hypothesis, and move the debate forward.

Explicit and implicit motor simulations are impaired in individuals with aphantasia

“…Concerning the second point, the current study is, to our knowledge, the first to illustrate that aphantasia also encompasses an inability to engage in implicit motor simulations. This result extends recent investigations demonstrating the deterioration of implicit simulations during mental rotation (Pounder et al, 2022; Zeman et al, 2010; Zhao et al, 2022; but Milton et al, 2021) and involuntary simulations during night-time dreams (Dawes et al, 2020; Zeman et al, 2015, 2010; see review: Whiteley, 2020). As already described for motor imagery, we observed that, relative to rest, action observation increased corticospinal excitability in phantasics but not aphantasics.…”

Aphantasia: In search of a theory

“…Thus, current data plausibly underestimates the cases of non-visual imagery impairments. 4 For aphantasia and dreaming, see Whiteley (2020). and night dreams; as well as the subjective experiences rating scale comprising of 39 questions assessing participants' night dreams.…”

Aphantasia and psychological disorder: Current connections, defining the imagery deficit and future directions

“…On the face of it, that is a significant benefit that the volitional account has over the metacognitive one. Similar claims have been made about the capacity of volitional account to explain how it is that aphantasics report dreams, since dreaming is an imagery-based process that mostly occurs involuntarily (Whiteley, 2021).…”