Aphantasia, imagination and dreaming

Aphantasia, the inability to generate visual mental imagery while awake, poses a challenge to theories that claim dreams are essentially imaginative experiences. Recent studies show that most aphantasics still have rich visual dreams, contradicting the view that dreaming constitutively involves the kind of imagery aphantasics lack. The paper argues that this empirical finding can be reconciled if the imagination theory is revised to hold that dreams are inactive and involve non-voluntary forms of imagination, rather than the active imagery proposed by Jonathan Ichikawa. Further research is suggested to test this revised hypothesis.

Study at a glance

Abstract

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.