Psychic blindness, also known as “imaginative disorder,” refers to patients who are unable to imagine any images in their mind after closing their eyes.
Those suffering from “this condition” cannot engage in visual imagination, such as being unable to recall the specific appearance of familiar faces. In some cases, they may accurately recall and describe the color of someone’s eyes or hair, but they lack the ability to construct a complete facial image.
Psychic blindness has different symptoms. Some individuals lack visual imagery, while others may only lack imaginative images in a specific sense or organ. Furthermore, some individuals with psychic blindness dream. Professor Pearson says, “Psychic blindness is neurodiversity, which is a remarkable symptom that shows the vast differences in each person’s brain and thoughts.”
The “skin conductance” of psychic blindness patients remains stable
To test the role of visual imagination in fear, researchers brought 46 participants (including 22 with psychic blindness and 24 without this condition) to a darkened room and attached electrodes to their skin.
When a person experiences strong emotions, such as fear, the skin can conduct electricity being tested. Scientists then left the room and turned off the lights, allowing participants to read horror stories presented in textual form on a screen.
Initially, the stories were mundane, but as they progressed, many unsettling scenes were gradually built up. Professor Pearson states, “For those who can visualize the stories in their minds, their skin conductance quickly increases.” As the stories unfolded, the participants’ skin reactions became more intense.
Interestingly, the skin conductance of psychic blindness patients remained almost steady and unchanged.
To verify that differences in fear thresholds do not cause this reaction, researchers repeated the experiment using a series of terrifying images instead of text, such as photos of corpses or snakes with sharp teeth. The results showed that both groups of participants exhibited similar fluctuations in skin conductance.
No imagination leads to a lack of fear
According to the research findings, when participants with “psychic blindness” read horror stories but cannot visualize these terrifying scenes in their minds, the terror of these horror stories loses much of its intensity. These results also indicate that the connection between images and emotions is much closer than scientists previously thought.
Individuals with this condition generally believe that everyone is unable to imagine, and sometimes when characters in movies imagine scenes, they think it is just a “special skill” portrayed in art.
However, they do not realize that this is actually a “special skill” that many people possess in real life. Therefore, individuals with psychic blindness often do not notice any abnormalities; it is only when someone informs them that they discover their differences.
