When Seeing Is Not Believing: The Fascinating Worlds of Aphantasia and Face Blindness

Can you picture an apple? Not everyone can. Find out why that matters.

Imagine being unable to picture a loved one’s face in your mind. No matter how hard you try, there’s no visual of their smile or the way their eyes crinkle when they laugh—just a blank space where an image should be. This is the world of aphantasia, a condition where mental imagery is nonexistent. Now imagine pairing that with prosopagnosia, or face blindness, a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces. Together, these conditions offer a profound glimpse into the diversity of human perception and what it truly means to “see.”

For journalist Sadie Dingfelder, these realities are not thought experiments—they are daily life. Diagnosed with both aphantasia and face blindness in adulthood, Dingfelder has spent years navigating a world that assumes everyone’s brain works in similar ways. Her journey, chronicled in her book Do I Know You?, offers a compelling exploration of how we experience reality through the unique filters of our minds.

The Mind’s Eye—Or Lack Thereof

Aphantasia, first formally described in 2015 by a team led by Dr. Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter, is a condition in which individuals cannot create mental images. For many, this ability to visualize is so intuitive it goes unnoticed until they meet someone who lacks it. When you’re asked to “picture an apple,” does an image appear in your mind? Most people report seeing something: a red, shiny fruit or maybe a green one with a leaf. But for those with aphantasia, there’s nothing—no color, no shape, no form.

This absence has surprising implications. Without mental imagery, memory can feel more abstract, emotional processing may take different pathways, and creative thinking might rely on words or concepts instead of pictures. But far from being a limitation, many with aphantasia, including Dingfelder, have found ways to turn it into an advantage. By encoding information linguistically rather than visually, individuals with aphantasia often excel at abstraction and big-picture thinking.

Faces Without Recognition

While aphantasia affects the mind’s eye, prosopagnosia affects the ability to recognize faces—a task most people do effortlessly, thanks to specialized brain regions like the fusiform face area. For someone with face blindness, however, even familiar faces can be indistinguishable.

This creates unique social challenges. As Dingfelder explains, it’s not uncommon for people to assume she’s aloof or disinterested when she fails to recognize them. Yet, she has learned to compensate, relying on cues like voices, context, or hairstyles to navigate her relationships. For her, the realization that others effortlessly remember faces was a revelation—one that underscored just how differently our brains are wired to perceive the world.

Empathy Through Difference

What makes these conditions particularly fascinating is how they challenge our assumptions about shared reality. Most of us take for granted that others see, think, and feel as we do. Aphantasia and face blindness reveal that this isn’t the case—and that’s a lesson with far-reaching implications.

In a time of increasing polarization, when media outrage and social media hype thrive on amplifying differences, acknowledging the diversity of human perception can foster empathy. If something as fundamental as visualization or facial recognition varies so widely, what other unseen differences shape how we interpret the world, engage with others, or even vote?

Bridging the Divide

Dingfelder’s story isn’t just a personal narrative; it’s a call to action. By understanding neurodiversity, we can begin to see others not as incomprehensible or flawed but as profoundly unique. Whether it’s the algorithms that amplify extreme political biases or the distortion of news that stokes outrage, many of the divides we face today stem from an inability—or unwillingness—to understand perspectives different from our own.

But that understanding starts with curiosity. As Dingfelder suggests, simply asking someone about their inner life—whether they can visualize, relive memories, or hear an inner monologue—opens the door to empathy. These conversations not only reveal hidden aspects of consciousness but also remind us of the vastness of human experience.

Seeing Beyond

The worlds of aphantasia and face blindness remind us that much of what defines reality lies beneath the surface. Our minds are intricate, imperfect systems, shaped by evolution to interpret and reconstruct the world in ways that aren’t always aligned. For Sadie Dingfelder, exploring these differences has been a journey of discovery—one that challenges her and others to see beyond what’s immediately visible.

Her insights encourage us all to do the same: to question our assumptions, embrace neurodiversity, and how aspects of human experience that are not immediately visible or obvious—such as the way our brains work, our thoughts, emotions, and inner lives—can create deep connections and understanding between people when acknowledged and explored.

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