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Resources

Where to go next.

A curated list of the external places worth your time. Each has been checked and is current at time of writing; if you find a broken or moved link, please tell us via the about page.

UK research groups

  • The Eye’s Mind, University of Exeter — Adam Zeman’s group. The UK academic home of aphantasia research and the source of the term itself. Run studies that recruit UK-resident participants.
  • Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience, University of Glasgow — Fiona Macpherson’s group. Broader programme on imagination, imagery, and consciousness including the extremes.
  • Rotman Research Institute, Toronto — home of SDAM research. Accepts international (including UK) participants.

Validated questionnaires

  • Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) — the standard measure of imagery vividness. Take the VVIQ (canonical version, hosted by the Aphantasia Network). See our glossary entry for what the test is measuring and why it looks the way it does.
  • Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM) — the standard measure for SDAM. Take the SAM (hosted by the Aphantasia Network). See our glossary entry for what the four subscales mean.

We deliberately link to the canonical hosts rather than re-hosting the tests. If you are a researcher and the links below are stale, please let us know.

Peer resources (non-UK, but useful)

  • Aphantasia Network (Canada) — the largest international community and the host of the VVIQ. Community skews North American; useful nonetheless.
  • Mind Void (US) — long-running lived-experience site from one of the earliest public voices on aphantasia.
  • r/Aphantasia and r/SDAM on Reddit — useful for pattern recognition, not as evidence. As with any Reddit community, treat as public testimony, not medical information.

UK mental-health support

Recognising aphantasia or SDAM in oneself can be emotionally heavy. If you need someone to talk to:

  • Samaritans — free, confidential, 24/7. Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.
  • Mind — UK mental-health charity with support lines and local services: mind.org.uk.
  • Rethink Mental Illness — especially if the recognition arrives alongside other cognitive or emotional changes: rethink.org.
  • For under-25s, YoungMinds — youngminds.org.uk.

Books worth reading

  • Adam Zeman’s 2024 review article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (“Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes”) is the most accessible synthesis available to a non-specialist.
  • For the wider history of imagery research — from Galton in 1880 to the present day — Zeman’s The Consciousness Instinct (chapters on imagery) and Alan Richardson’s earlier work are good starting points.
  • For mental-health practitioners specifically, Sassy Smith’s Unseen Minds: A Therapist’s Guide to Multisensory Aphantasia and Invisible Cognitive Differences (2024) is the only book-length guide to adapting therapy for aphantasia, SDAM, and the wider cluster we are aware of in print. Companion text to the UK CPD-accredited Aphantasia Coach training programme; available on UK Kindle.

Our own things

  • The cornerstone guide — the backbone of this site, fully cited, UK-focused.
  • The glossary — plain-English definitions of the terms the research uses.
  • The research tracker — monthly plain-English summaries of new peer-reviewed findings.
  • The newsletter — one email a month, nothing else.
  • The forum — UK-focused peer community.