The Name Game

I was in my late 50s when I first heard about Aphanatasia. Specifically it was on a train coming back from work when an item on a Radio 4 new programme came on discussing the condition. My attention was immediately piqued. In keeping with point 2 and 3 of the 7 stages of Aphantasia the first reaction was incredulity - was this some kind of April's fool? As the programme progressed I realised it was deadly serious, the majority of people can call to mind detailed still and moving colour images but a small number myself included don't. 

The next question was how had one not heard of this before, indeed how had in my case almost six decades elapsed without my ever having heard it being discussed? I was familiar with the term "mind's eye" but had always assumed it was meant metaphorically not literally.  

The most obvious reason for my ignorance is that Aphantasia was only christened as such in 2015 in a study by Professor Zeman and his team at the of the University of Exeter. The condition had been observed as far back as 1880 by Francis Galton but was not named at the time and little or no scientific time was devoted to it up until Zeman's study.

As soon as something is named it acquires shape and form, boundaries and characteristics are set. The named thing can then be debated, discussed, studied and contested. And so it has been with Aphanatasia for following Zeman's study articles began to appear in both journals and popular media alike ultimately leading to the Radio 4 programme I heard.

It probably helps that Zeman had given the condition what superficially sounds like an appealing title - Aphantasia has an almost Diseny quality to it, it hints at enchantment or the mystical. In reality the term is derived from the ancient Greek word phantasia, which means "imagination", and the prefix a- which denotes "without" so without imagination. As such the term whilst superficially more appealing than the term "blind mind's eye" (which is also used for the condition) is arguably just as negative or even more so as "blind mind's eye" suggests a blank wall whereas without imagination suggests a much greater psychological incapacity. Who would want to be described as being without imagination? 

One wonders if Zeman and his team now wish they had chosen a different less negative term but it has nevertheless captured people's imagination and were it not for the naming I would never have heard the Radio 4 programme or be writing this now.