The Mind's Eye is not an actual eye.

In my first week at Parsons, in a class I don’t remember the name or purpose of—in addition to the studio classes (painting, sculpture), there were a couple required classes that were more focused on ideas, on learning how to think about art; in fact my main criticism of art school, and it’s the reason I only lasted a year, is that there’s not nearly as much attention given to learning how to make art as there is to learning how to talk about art, so that your experience is nearly completely determined by the sensibility of whatever teachers you end up with, which obviously can be good or bad*—the teacher was leading a discussion having something to do with idealized forms, which she described, using “apple’ as an example, as what you picture when you close your eyes and someone says, “picture an apple.”

I said something to the effect of, saying that you’re “picturing” something is a figure of speech; you’re not really picturing it, you’re imagining it, you’re contemplating its attributes or qualities, but you’re not looking at a picture I thought I was making a trenchant point about how idealized forms are ideas, not depictions. But the teacher, who I guess just thought I was a smartass, said something like, “Well maybe you need to do some contemplating on what exactly it is you see if it’s not a picture.” That teacher, I can’t say if it was because of that early interaction, but she disliked me the whole semester. She would literally roll her eyes when I raised my hand. For what it’s worth, I thought she was kind of dim.

Anyway, I thought of that teacher when I ran across this article on “aphantasia,” which is described as the state of not having “a mind’s eye.” I’m skeptical. Am I supposed to believe that some people, when they close their eyes and think of an apple, actually see an apple? I know that the mind contributes to seeing, but vision begins with a mechanical process, a lens interacting with light, etc. If people can close their eyes and imagine a thing and see it, as they claim, in full color, as clearly as if it is right in front of them and they’re looking at it with their eyes, completely conjured with the mind, then why do they need to shut their eyes? Why can’t they just think it and see it in front of them, replacing their view of the world actually in front of them with a mentally conjured view that is indistinguishable from it?

I’ve done my share of drugs, so I know it’s possible to see something vivid and whole and absolutely real-looking, but which is not actually “there.” That experience of hallucination sounds like what these scientists are saying most, or many, people have, like all the time.

* I had three main teachers at Parsons. No one has had a bigger influence on my life and career than my painting teacher. I frequently refer back to her teaching in class, and conversation outside of class, when I think about what art is and means, and what the activity of art-making entails and requires. My drawing teacher was entertaining but taught me nothing. My sculpture teacher was a complete zero. I don’t remember, in fact I don’t think I had, a single moment of engagement with him.