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Mind

The extremes of imagination reveal how our brains perceive reality

The worlds inside our heads can be dramatically different. What does that reveal about how our minds shape our lives, asks cognitive neurologist Adam Zeman

By Adam Zeman

27 May 2025

ÐÔÊӽ紫ý. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Brett Ryder / Getty

Because we live our lives entirely in our own heads, understanding the contents of someone else’s — and how radically their experience might differ from our own — is hard. New research, though, is revealing just how diverse the human imagination can be.

Take the concept of a “mind’s eye”. You might take being able to conjure up mental images in your imagination as a given. But has shown that 1 to 4 per cent of the population have aphantasia, meaning they lack wakeful visual imagery – ask them to “see” a hippo floating down…

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