Episode summary
What happens when you close your eyes and try to “see” something in your mind? For some people it’s a full-colour mental movie. For others it’s hazy, fleeting or completely blank. In this episode, Dr Sabina Brennan explores the neuroscience of mental imagery, including eigengrau (that grainy ‘intrinsic grey’ most people notice in darkness), the spectrum from aphantasia to hyperphantasia and why visualisation is less about forcing pictures and more about learning how your brain constructs experience.
In this episode, Sabina covers
Why “seeing nothing” when you visualise doesn’t mean you’re bad at imagination
Eigengrau – what that smoky grey tells us about baseline visual activity
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia – two ends of the imagery vividness spectrum
Mental imagery in brain terms: top-down simulation meeting bottom-up perception
Why worry is often a “mental movie” and how imagery can amplify emotion
How imagery is used in sport, performance, rehab and therapy
Tools in Three: how to work with imagery whatever your baseline
Key takeaways
Imagery varies hugely between people and it’s normal.
Visualisation isn’t just visual – sound, touch, movement, emotion and language can carry imagination too.
The goal isn’t perfect pictures, it’s intentional rehearsal that shapes attention, expectation and behaviour.
The most effective visualisation tends to be process-focused, not just outcome-focused.
Tools in Three
1. Know your baseline – stop forcing a cinema screen. Work with your strongest channel (words, sensation, sound, movement).
2. Build a multisensory practice – start with a real object, then recreate it with eyes closed. Add texture, temperature, weight, sound. Pair calming imagery with slow breathing.
3. Apply imagery intentionally and aim for process – rehearse the steps, the likely wobble moments and how you’ll recover, not just the “trophy scene”.
Memorable lines (pull quotes)
“Imagination isn’t about pictures. It’s about possibility.”
“Worry is often imagery too – the brain running mental movies of what might go wrong.”
“Aphantasia is not an imagination failure. It is a different format for thinking.”
References (as cited in the episode)
Zeman A, Dewar M, Della Sala S. Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia. Cortex. 2015.
S6E6 - Visualisation beefed up …
Pearson J. The human imagination: the cognitive neuroscience of visual mental imagery. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2019.
Milton F, et al. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: extreme differences in visual imagery vividness. Cortex. 2021.
Tags
visualisation, mental imagery, aphantasia, hyperphantasia, eigengrau, neuroscience of imagination, memory, anxiety, sport psychology, mental rehearsal, guided imagery, manifesting, brain prediction
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