“Can you picture her face?” My words tumbled out of my mouth as soon as my sister picked up the phone.
“Huh? Whose face?” Evelyn replied.
“Mum’s,” I said.
At sixty years old, I had just learned that most people possessed a superpower. They could visualise objects, places, events and people in their “mind’s eye”. I could not. Suddenly the darkness of my mind seemed blinding. What’s more, I felt the loss of my mother more acutely than ever.
Our mother had died six months earlier, after a long battle with cancer. Evelyn and I had nursed her until the end. Now there was a gaping hole in my life. It was Larry, my husband, who had suggested giving meditation a go.
“Picture yourself on a beach,” said the instructor that morning.
“Here we go,” I thought. Imagination wasn’t my thing.
Afterwards, I was rushing to leave, when I overheard people comparing their beaches. Some described exotic palm trees, others spoke of rugged cliffs beneath moody skies.
“But… it’s just a metaphor, right? You can’t actually see the beach.” I interrupted.
Yes, they could.
So could Larry, I discovered when I got home.
My mind was blown. An hour of furious googling revealed that I am one of approximately two per cent of the population living with “Aphantasia”.
Then it hit me like a bus. Other people could see their loved ones’ faces. Even if they were dead.
“What do you mean, Viv?” said Evelyn.
“Can you see her, in your mind?”
“Of course!” She was laughing now.
I burst into tears.
Evelyn rushed straight round. All afternoon, we stared at photographs of our mother, Evelyn trying desperately to coach me to form an image.
“Explain it more clearly!”
“You’re just not concentrating hard enough!”
Try as I might, my mind was blank. There HAD to be a way to switch the lights on.
I contacted Professor Alice Eksteen, Lead Neurologist in the field of Aphantasia. She invited me to take part in her research study.
As I feared, the results of my brain scans confirmed that my visual cortex does not activate when I imagine things.
“How do I fix this?” I said.
“Vivian, Aphantasia isn’t a disorder or something that can be “fixed.” It’s a different way of perceiving.”
I joined an online support group. There I met other “Aphants” like me, who described being rooted in the present, instead of pulled into the past or future by distracting images. That’s our superpower.
But I wanted to picture the past.
“You know what I see most of the time, when I think about her?” Evelyn said, her voice cracking, “I see her dying and in pain. It’s haunting, Viv. Believe me, you’re blessed to be spared this.”
We opened the family album. Mum would always be immortalised here, whenever I wanted to “see” her. Instead, I held an inner sense of her presence. Warm and comforting, like a hug. I embraced the internal darkness that enabled this feeling.
