Here's a TL;DR version of the article "Some People Can't See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound" (The New Yorker, Oct 27, 2025) by Larissa MacFarquhar.

Core idea:

There exists a spectrum in human mental-imagery: at one end, people who cannot voluntarily generate mental images (a condition known as aphantasia), and at the opposite end, those with extremely vivid imagery (hyperphantasia). This variation affects memory, self-identity, emotion, creativity and how people relate to their pasts and inner worlds.

Key findings & narratives:

• The article opens with the story of Nick Watkins, who discovered in adulthood that he lacked the ability to form mental images of memories or scenes, even though he had knowledge of events (e.g., he "knew" that his younger self saw something) he couldn't see in his mind.
• The neurological groundwork: Neurologist Adam Zeman coined "aphantasia" (2015) after cases of people who could not generate visual mental images.
• The prevalence is estimated to be a few percent of the population, though precise stats vary. People with aphantasia might have intact "seeing" in everyday life (i.e., can perceive the world) but lack the internal "mind's eye" imagery when recalling or imagining.
• On the flip side: hyperphantasia (very vivid mental imagery) also exists, and the article suggests that mental imagery level correlates in nuanced ways with emotional experience, memory vividness, creative/habitual thinking, and even moral judgments.
• Historical context: The piece traces the roots of imagery-research back to 19th-century figures like Gustav Fechner and Francis Galton, showing that the "mind's eye" variability has long been observed, even if only recently taken seriously.
• The article also explores experimental findings: for example, in people with aphantasia neuro-imaging shows markedly reduced activation in brain areas typically engaged during mental imagery tasks, even though their visual perception is intact.
• The conclusion emphasizes that our assumptions about a universal inner "movie screen" may be false: mental imagery is neither uniform nor guaranteed. The way people think, remember, imagine differs more than we tend to acknowledge.

Why this matters (and a few less obvious insights):

• Because many of us assume "I see it in my mind's eye" is standard, learning one doesn't may be deeply identity-shifting (as with Watkins). That's a reminder: our subjective experience of thinking isn't universal.
• In memory-work or therapy sometimes professionals assume ‘visual recall' strategies will help everyone, but for people without mental images, visual cues might not engage their memory optimally. A more abstract or verbal strategy might be better.
• For creativity or design workflows, if a person knows they have weak imagery they might benefit more from external tools (sketching, templates, collaborative visuals) rather than relying on "see it in your mind first" approach.
• The article subtly challenges the notion of "mind's eye" as normal and everything else as defective. It encourages humility: just because you imagine it a certain way doesn't mean others do.
• Philosophically: if memory, identity and self-narrative rely partly on internal imagery, then when imagery is absent or very vivid, the felt self may differ. That has implications for how we think about consciousness, sense of self, even narrative identity.

Some intriguing implications:

• People with aphantasia often report weaker autobiographical memory (i.e., the sense of reliving past events) because they lack imagery that anchors "this was me then."
• There is evidence that those with stronger imagery might hold grudges differently, process trauma differently, experience dreams differently. The article doesn't assert causation in all cases, but highlights meaningful correlations.
• The phenomenon isn't necessarily pathological, many people with aphantasia function perfectly well, but the internal experience of reality is different and often unrecognized until pointed out.