Can you see images in your “mind's eye”?
Do physicists have a mind's eye?
- Watkins, a physicist who also lacks a mind’s eye, describes his own experiences and also quotes Oliver Sacks. He too did not have a mind’s eye, but Sacks once used amphetamines to help him conjure up images. Amphetamine can provide the experience of a mind’s eye if you lack one of your own:
What does it mean to have a lack of mind's eye?
- One described the condition as feeling the shape of an apple in the dark. Another said it was “thinking only in radio.” The vast majority of people who reported a lack of a mind’s eye had no memory of ever having had one, suggesting that they had been born without it.
Where does mental imagery come from in the brain?
- So far, that work suggests that mental imagery emerges from a network of brain regions that talk to each other. Decision-making regions at the front of the brain send signals to regions at the back, which normally make sense of information from the eyes. Those top-down signals can cause the visual regions to produce images that aren’t there.
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