What Is Hyperphantasia?
Hyperphantasia is the name for the extreme end of the imagination spectrum where mental imagery is exceptionally vivid, detailed, and often described as rivaling the clarity of actual perception. If aphantasia is the absence or near-absence of voluntary mental imagery, hyperphantasia is its counterpart: imagery that can feel photorealistic, "as real as seeing with your eyes," or like an internal movie. Both sit on the same imagination spectrum; neither is a disorder, just a difference in how the mind represents experience.
The terms were brought into wider use by researchers such as Zeman and colleagues, who studied people at both extremes and showed that these differences are measurable, linked to brain connectivity, and relevant to memory, creativity, and how people work and learn.
What It Feels Like
People with hyperphantasia often report that their mental images are sharp, stable, and rich in detail. They might "see" a remembered place with color, lighting, and layout; replay a scene from the past with high fidelity; or build elaborate imagined worlds. The experience can extend beyond vision: some describe strong multisensory imagery—sounds, textures, or even smell and taste—that feels unusually vivid. That can support immersive memory, creative work, and spatial or narrative thinking. Research has linked this end of the spectrum to stronger autobiographical memory, higher rates of synesthesia, and a greater likelihood of working in creative or arts-related fields, though these findings rely largely on self-report and questionnaires; objective validation (e.g. face recognition or memory tests) is still developing.
How It Differs From Aphantasia
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia are two ends of the same scale.
| Hyperphantasia | Aphantasia | |
|---|---|---|
| Imagery | Exceptionally vivid, often perceptual-like | Absent or severely reduced |
| Typical associations | Stronger autobiographical memory, synesthesia, creative/arts roles | Different memory strategies, sometimes weaker face recognition, overrepresentation in scientific/math roles; some links to autism traits |
| Brain imaging | Possible hyper-connectivity in frontoparietal–visual networks | Possible hypo-connectivity in similar networks |
Neither "wins." People with aphantasia can be highly creative and successful; they use other channels—language, logic, auditory or motor imagination—instead of the mind's eye. We cover that in Aphantasia and creativity. The point of the spectrum is variation, not a single "best" profile.
How Common Is It?
Recent peer-reviewed work (e.g. Zeman et al., 2024) suggests that about 3% of people fall at the extreme high end (hyperphantasia) and about 1% at the extreme low end (aphantasia) when strict cutoffs are used on imagery questionnaires. Both extremes show familial patterns, meaning they can run in families. The exact numbers depend on how researchers define the cutoff and which tool they use (often the VVIQ or similar). So hyperphantasia is a bit more common in these estimates than full aphantasia, but both are minority experiences.
How Researchers Study It
Because there are no perfect objective tests yet, self-report questionnaires do most of the work. The Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and related tools ask people to rate how vivid their mental images are; those who consistently report "as clear as normal vision" or similar fall at the high end. Zeman et al. (2020) ran one of the first systematic studies with dozens of people at both extremes, using questionnaires and fMRI and linking hyperphantasia to synesthesia and creative occupations and aphantasia to different memory and face-recognition patterns. Later reviews (e.g. Zeman et al., 2024) summarize prevalence, possible subtypes across senses, heritability, and the frontoparietal–visual connectivity differences. The key caveat across this work: it relies heavily on what people say about their inner experience, so ongoing research is aimed at tying those reports to behavioral and neural measures.
The Full Picture Includes All Senses
Hyperphantasia is often discussed for visual imagery, but the spectrum applies to every sense. Someone can have hyper-vivid visual imagery and moderate auditory imagery, or the reverse. How imagination is measured across sight, sound, movement, smell, taste, and touch gives a fuller profile than a single "mind's eye" score.
Why It Helps to Know
Knowing you're at the high end of the spectrum can clarify why your memory feels so visual, why you might excel at visual or spatial tasks, or why you're drawn to certain creative roles. It can also help you understand others who don't "see" the same way—and avoid assuming that everyone has the same kind of inner cinema. Labels like hyperphantasia and aphantasia are useful for communication and research; they don't define worth or potential.
See Where You Sit on the Spectrum
If you want to see where you fall across all six senses—from visual to auditory, motor, and the rest—the Imagination Index assessment gives you a structured profile. You get a single Imagery Profile and optional detailed reporting. The core assessment is free and takes about 12 minutes.
Further reading: Zeman et al. – Phantasia, aphantasia, hyperphantasia (PMC); Zeman et al. 2024 review – PubMed; University of Glasgow – Defining aphantasia and hyperphantasia.