Art, obsession, and identity
Those with hyperphantasia have an intensely vivid imagination that sets them apart from people with a normal level of imaginary capacity.
According to a study released in 2024, around three percent of the world's population has a condition called hyperphantasia.
In other words, the parts of the brain that handle sensory information and imagination experienced heightened activity in people with hyperphantasia.
In contrast, those with hyperphantasia can imagine a scenario so completely that it can blur the lines between perception and what's being envisioned.
Many people with hyperphantasia have high creativity, as they use art to channel their senses and their rich experience of life.
Being able to picture objects and events so accurately gives people with hyperphantasia an incredibly rich inner world.
A person with hyperphantasia can describe visual details including color, texture, and movement, but for some, the ability stretches beyond visuals.
Are there advantages to having a keen visual mind? Using neuroscience, we can examine the benefits and drawbacks of being so readily able to stir up images.
Hyperphantasia lies at the opposite end of the mental visual spectrum to aphantasia, a condition where people have an absence of mental visualization altogether.
In fact, their other senses can also become engaged, enabling them to summon an active imagining of certain smells, tastes, or feelings of touch.
In a 2021 study published in Oxford Academic, it was found that participants with hyperphantasia were more often employed in "creative" professions.
In the same study, resting-state fMRIs revealed stronger connectivity between prefrontal cortices and the visual network among hyperphantasic than aphantasic participants.
It's believed that the ability to manipulate images in the mind's eye comes from this connectivity between separate parts of the brain in people with hyperphantasia.
The prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain involved in decision-making and concentration, also shows increased activity in studies.
It seems as though the pathways that process memory and visual imagery are better at communicating in people with hyperphantasia than, for instance, someone with aphantasia who does not see images in their mind's eye.
The increased neural activity associated with hyperphantasia is thought to allow people to recall and combine images more easily.
The brain's "happy" chemicals, dopamine and norepinephrine, might also have something to do with helping the areas of the brain in people with hyperphantasia work better.
As aphantasia is believed to run in families, there could similarly be a genetic component to imagery vividness that makes hyperphantasia something hereditary.
Since the 1800s, scientists have been curious about visual imagination. The earliest tests involved describing what you had for breakfast.
Back then, it was the eugenicist Francis Galton who developed a scale that ranged from lacking in imagination (aphantasia) to highly accurate visualizations (hyperphantasia).
Researchers and clinicians also use mental rotation tasks, which people with hyperphantasia excel in, to ascertain if someone has it.
Advances in technology mean that researchers can make use of brain imaging techniques, using MRI and PET scans to observe neural connectivity in those with hyperphantasia and better understand it.
In the meantime, much has changed in how hyperphantasia is tested. Visualization tasks and self-report questionnaires have been developed to determine if you have it.
These tasks involve the person imagining rotating images in the mind and asking them if they match a certain image.
Researchers might also ask a participant to draw or describe scenes as part of the rotating image test, in order to compare them with the original image.
A photorealistic, or eidetic memory, is different from hyperphantasia. Eidetic memory involves retrieving information from your memory.
In contrast, hyperphantasia involves generating or imagining vivid images. The images are coming from the imagination.
Focus, however, might sometimes be an issue for people with hyperphantasia. It's important for people who have it to practice grounding so they can remain rooted in reality, while using their vivid imagination to come up with visionary ideas and solutions.
Sources: (Well + Good) (The Guardian)
See also: Visual agnosia: when your brain doesn't process what you see
Far from being something to worry about, hyperphantasia's imaginative thinking can be a real asset in many careers such as in design, science, and literature.
Do you struggle to recall what you had for breakfast this morning, or could you describe in fine detail the scene, objects, colors, and tastes you experienced? Depending on where you find yourself on this spectrum, you could have hyperphantasia. Not to be confused with its opposite—aphantasia—where people do not experience visual imagery at all, those with hyperphantasia have an extremely intense imagination which makes their recollections so vivid that they could be happening at the very moment they're recalling them.
Intrigued? Click on to learn about hyperphantasia and whether or not it's something to worry about.
Is hyperphantasia something to worry about?
Do you recall or imagine details with vivid intensity?
LIFESTYLE Imagination
Do you struggle to recall what you had for breakfast this morning, or could you describe in fine detail the scene, objects, colors, and tastes you experienced? Depending on where you find yourself on this spectrum, you could have hyperphantasia. Not to be confused with its opposite—aphantasia—where people do not experience visual imagery at all, those with hyperphantasia have an extremely intense imagination which makes their recollections so vivid that they could be happening at the very moment they're recalling them.
Intrigued? Click on to learn about hyperphantasia and whether or not it's something to worry about.