# Prophantasia Source: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html Canonical HTML: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html Generated: 2026-06-13 Description: Prophantasia covers projected imagery, aphantasia, source judgment, practice ecology, and neighboring phenomena such as imposition, flicker, DeepDream, visual snow, and HPPD. Markdown: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.md Plain text: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.txt BibTeX references: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.bib CSL JSON references: https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.references.csl.json --- Projected imagery and source judgment # Prophantasia Prophantasia names reports of internally generated imagery that seems external, overlaid on the world, or located outside the ordinary mind's eye. The page treats that as a report category to measure carefully, not as a cure, diagnosis, or guaranteed trainable ability. It belongs near aphantasia and hyperphantasia research, but it adds a different question: where the image seems to belong, how voluntary it is, how stable it feels, and how confidently the person treats it as imagined, perceived, self-generated, or externally present ([Zeman et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003); [Azañón et al., 2025](https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001756); [Schwarzkopf et al., 2026](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251887)). That makes prophantasia useful because people report it and communities practice toward it, but risky if it is sold as a shortcut to altered perception. [Start with the basics](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html#field-guide) [Source judgment](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html#source-monitoring) [Practice ecology](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html#practice-ecology) [Evidence audit](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html#evidence) [References](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html#references) Field guide ## What prophantasia is trying to name Mental imagery research has always had to deal with large individual differences. Galton's nineteenth-century survey already found that some people reported vivid inner pictures while others reported faint or absent ones. The modern aphantasia literature gave that low-imagery end a name and later placed it beside hyperphantasia, the unusually vivid end of the same broad field ([Galton, 1880](https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/os-V/20/564/2848594); [Zeman et al., 2015](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019); [Zeman, 2024](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007)). That history matters because prophantasia should not be introduced as a brand-new faculty. It is a proposed report category at the edge of a larger, measurable, still-disputed imagery spectrum. Vividness is the familiar scale: how clear, detailed, colorful, or lifelike an image feels. Prophantasia asks an additional location question. Is the content described as an image in the head, a conceptual knowing, a closed-eye field event, an overlay on ordinary vision, an object seeming to occupy external space, or a presence-like experience with little visual detail? Recent work makes this distinction harder to ignore. Azañón and colleagues found that a measure of imagery externalism related to interference in a way generic vividness did not, while Schwarzkopf and colleagues report that vividness ratings sit within a broader family of internally generated visual experiences, including reports of "seeing" imagery and projecting it into the external world ([Azañón et al., 2025](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40323864/); [Schwarzkopf et al., 2026](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10223688/)). The category therefore needs several fields, not one score. A careful report should separate vividness, external location, source judgment, confidence, modality, controllability, voluntariness, practice history, expectation, and safety signals. A person can have vivid imagery that stays plainly internal. A person can describe an externalized image while still knowing it is self-generated. A person can see visual snow, phosphenes, afterimages, or hypnagogic imagery without making any prophantasia claim. These distinctions are not pedantic. They are what keep the topic researchable. ### Separate variables - Vividness: clarity, color, detail, stability, and sensory strength - Location: mind's eye, closed-eye field, overlay, world-placed, or presence-like - Source judgment: imagined, perceived, self-generated, external, mixed, or uncertain - Confidence: how sure the person is about vividness, source, and location - Voluntariness: deliberate, spontaneous, hypnagogic, intrusive, or stimulus-driven - Control: starting, stopping, moving, sharpening, fading, and holding the image - Practice history: guides, meditation, self-tests, stereograms, afterimages, imposition work - Safety signals: persistence, distress, visual snow-like symptoms, HPPD-like symptoms, sleep disruption ### Connected pages - [Phenomenological Control](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/phenomenological-control.html) for expectancy, absorption, suggestion, and experience-shaping - [Deep Dream](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/deep-dream.html) for visual simulation and altered-vision neighbors - [Altered Xperience Project](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/altered-xperience-project.html) for citizen-science survey infrastructure - [Brain Candy](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/brain-candy.html) for rhythmic stimulation and non-pharmacological state shifts - [Optical Movement Illusions](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/optical-movement-illusions.html) for psychophysics and constrained perceptual effects Source judgment ## The hard question is where the image belongs Imagery and perception share enough machinery that the boundary between them has to be managed, not assumed. The older reality-monitoring literature asked how people decide whether information came from perception, imagination, memory, or inference. Current perceptual reality-monitoring work asks a sharper version: when imagined and perceived signals overlap, what lets a person judge which source is responsible ([Johnson and Raye, 1981](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.88.1.67); [Dijkstra et al., 2022](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104557))? Dijkstra and Fleming's 2023 work is especially useful here because it treats reality judgment as related to subjective signal strength and a reality threshold, not as a simple label attached after the fact ([Dijkstra and Fleming, 2023](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37322-1)). That does not mean externally located imagery is hallucination. It means that location, signal strength, and source judgment should be measured separately. A person may say an image appears "out there" while also treating it as an intentional image. Another person may report weak imagery but strong confidence about its source. A third may report vivid closed-eye patterns from flicker, sleep onset, or visual noise, where the right comparison is stimulus or state, not volitional projected imagery. Suzuki's 2026 C x G x D proposal gives a compact way to keep these pieces apart. In that framework, C names the classifier-like extraction of features from input, G names internal generation, and D names the discriminator-like judgment of whether a representation belongs to the outside world or internal production. For Prophantasia, this is a comparison tool, not proof. It helps explain why DeepDream, psychedelic VR, flicker, visual snow, tulpamancy, and projected imagery should not be collapsed into one mechanism ([Suzuki, 2026](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1819038); [Gershman, 2019](https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2019.00018)). ### C x G x D as a checklist - C: what the visible field, noise, darkness, flicker, image, or VR scene contributes - G: what memory, imagery, expectation, and internal generation contribute - D: how the person judges source, reality, ownership, confidence, and external presence ### Evidence boundaries - Training efficacy remains unproven. - Projected imagery and hallucination remain distinct comparison cases. - DeepDream and psychedelic visuals remain analogies, not models of prophantasia. - Tulpamancy, prayer, imposition, and visual snow remain separate constructs. Practice ecology ## Public communities named the problem before the evidence caught up Practice sources matter, but they do a different job from empirical sources. They show vocabulary, tasks, aspirations, failure modes, and recruitment ecology. General efficacy needs empirical evidence. ### Aphantasia platforms, tests, and self-understanding Public aphantasia infrastructure has grown quickly. Aphantasia Network hosts recruitment and community material, Aphantasie.org offers public self-tests, and the University of Sussex Multisense Research Lab runs an aphantasia hub and participant pool. These pages are important because they show how the field is already reaching people outside the lab ([Aphantasia Network](https://aphantasia.com/research/recruitment/); [Aphantasie.org](https://aphantasie.org/en/tests); [Aphantasia Hub](https://aphantasia-hub.org/)). They should still be read as public ecosystem sources, not as final arbiters of diagnosis or change. Online questionnaires can help people start a conversation, but self-report measures, rivalry tasks, pupil measures, drawing tasks, and cognitive profiles each answer different questions ([Keogh and Pearson, 2018](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.012); [Kay et al., 2022](https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72484); [Bainbridge et al., 2021](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014)). Aphantasia also needs careful language. It can be a real source of frustration for some people and a neutral or even valued difference for others. Reviews and definitional papers have pushed the field to avoid treating it as a simple defect, especially when measurement, cutoffs, multisensory profiles, memory, dreaming, and adaptive strategies remain under active debate ([Blomkvist and Marks, 2023](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.09.004); [Jin et al., 2024](https://doi.org/10.3390/vision8030056); [Dawes et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7)). That matters for prophantasia because "can I learn to see images?" easily becomes "can I fix myself?" The evidence is not strong enough for that promise, and many people do not want their imagery profile framed as repair work. ### Tulpamancy and imposition are adjacent, not synonyms Tulpamancy gives prophantasia a useful comparator because it has a mature vocabulary for visualization, presence, autonomy, and "imposition," the practice of experiencing a tulpa as present in ordinary space. Community guides such as Tulpanomicon and older Tulpa.info material show how visual imposition is taught and discussed inside that ecology ([Tulpanomicon](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html); [Malfael guide](https://tulpanomicon.guide/mal-imposition.html); [JD guide](https://community.tulpa.info/topic/3411-jds-guide-to-visualization/)). Academic and ethnographic sources make the broader point: tulpamancy can be dialogic, social, religious, identity-based, voice-centered, or presence-centered, with visual practice as only one route ([Veissière, 2015](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html); [Mikles and Laycock, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87); [Luhrmann et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)). The overlap is therefore narrow and useful. Imposition vocabulary can help name externally located imagery reports, practice history, and source-monitoring questions. It should not be used as a synonym for prophantasia, and prophantasia should not be used to explain tulpas, prayer, spirit voices, or plural identity. Hale's recent religion and tulpamancy work is valuable here as a comparison point precisely because it keeps prayer, magic, inner vehicles, and tulpamancy in view without reducing them to one psychological mechanism ([Hale, 2024](https://papers.aarweb.org/attached-paper/93461-inner-vehicle-prayer-tulpamancy-and-magic-mind)). ### Autogogia, Fire Kasina, Hawkeen, DreamViews, and practice provenance A second practice ecology gathers around the closed-eye field and deliberate visual exercises. Fire Kasina meditation, afterimage work, dark-field training, free-fusion practice, DreamViews tutorials, Hawkeen/NavaChing pages, and the newer term "autogogia" all show people trying to work with visual noise, darkness, afterimages, and state-dependent imagery. The historical line is older than the internet: George Trumbull Ladd wrote about "direct control of the retinal field" in the 1890s and early 1900s, with Binet reviewing that line soon after ([Ladd, 1894](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0068980); [Ladd, 1903](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071738); [Binet, 1903](https://www.persee.fr/doc/psy_0003-5033_1903_num_10_1_3576)). Modern practice sources extend that lineage in uneven ways. Fire Kasina research reports striking altered-vision phenomenology in a specialized meditation context; Hawkeen/NavaChing and DreamViews show how peripheral vision, stereoscopic mandalas, trance, and lucid-dream practice moved through public teaching cultures ([Woollacott et al., 2024](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2024.103056); [Zink and Parks, 1991](https://archive.consciousness.arizona.edu/documents/NightWalkingbyNelsonZinkandStephenParks-WholeEarthReviewFall1991.pdf); [NavaChing Hawkeen archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20010216204217/http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/hawktrain.html); [DreamViews](https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-control/80879-advanced-vision-control-tutorial.html)). These sources matter because they show provenance and practice design. They do not prove durable prophantasia training. Boundaries ## Closed-eye field, induced vision, and safety comparators Some visual experiences are easier to provoke than voluntary projected imagery. Darkness has eigengrau or eigenlicht; the eyes and visual system produce noise, afterimages, floaters, phosphenes, and other nonretinal or entoptic material; sleep onset brings hypnagogic imagery; uniform fields and flicker can produce vivid patterns. Philosophers and psychologists have argued over what, if anything, we visually experience with closed eyes, and visual noise remains a useful case because it sits between physiology, phenomenology, and report language ([Schwitzgebel, 2007](https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/EyesClosed070910.htm); [Gert, 2019/2021](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02480-7); [Schacter, 1976](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.3.452); [Stickgold et al., 2000](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.290.5490.350)). Ganzfeld, ganzflicker, and stroboscopic work make the safety boundary more explicit. These methods manipulate input. They can generate vivid pseudo-hallucinatory reports or geometric patterns, and they are useful comparators for imagery strength and state sensitivity, but they are not evidence that a person has learned prophantasia ([Wackermann et al., 2008](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2007.05.003); [Konigsmark et al., 2021](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.05.007); [Hewitt et al., 2025](https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf020); [Amaya et al., 2025](https://doi.org/10.1162/netn_a_00417)). The same caution applies to DeepDream and psychedelic VR: they can be useful altered-vision comparisons, not proof that prophantasia shares a mechanism with psychedelic visuals. Visual snow syndrome and hallucinogen persisting perception disorder matter here for safety and differential boundaries. They involve persistent or recurrent visual symptoms that can be distressing and clinically relevant. They should not be folded into prophantasia, and prophantasia language should not be used to normalize distressing persistent visual phenomena ([Puledda et al., 2018](https://doi.org/10.1097/WCO.0000000000000523); [Sampatakakis et al., 2022](https://doi.org/10.1177/03331024221118917); [Martinotti et al., 2018](https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8030047); [Butler et al., 2026](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-026-04042-1)). ### Comparators, not mechanisms - Eigengrau, eigenlicht, and visual noise: closed-eye field and baseline visual-system activity - Afterimages and phosphenes: stimulus or pressure-linked visual phenomena - Hypnagogia: sleep-edge imagery and state-dependent intrusion - Ganzfeld, ganzflicker, and stroboscopic light: input-driven altered vision - Visual snow and HPPD: persistent or clinically relevant visual phenomena - DeepDream and psychedelic VR: external simulations of altered-vision signatures Psychophysics ## The strongest control evidence is constrained If the question is whether people can voluntarily influence visual experience at all, the strongest comparison is not a forum guide. It is constrained psychophysics: binocular rivalry, ambiguous figures, multistable perception, stereopsis, free fusion, and structure-from-motion. These tasks give the visual system a narrow problem and ask whether attention, intention, imagery, or practice can bias what is perceived ([Meng and Tong, 2004](https://doi.org/10.1167/4.7.2); [van Ee et al., 2005](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2004.07.030); [Pearson et al., 2008](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.05.048)). That evidence is useful because it is modest. It says that attention and imagery can bias perception under specific conditions. It does not say people can learn to project arbitrary images into the world. Free-fusion and Magic Eye culture add a public practice lineage because they train an unusual way of using ordinary vision, but even there the target is constrained by the stimulus and task ([Stinson, 2022](https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/)). This is the right temperament for prophantasia: use strong, narrow paradigms as guardrails, and do not inflate them into open-ended ability claims. ### Useful task families - Binocular rivalry and imagery priming - Ambiguous figures and multistable perception - Stereopsis, free fusion, and autostereograms - Structure-from-motion and depth reversal - Drawing, memory, and object-spatial tasks ### Public caution - Constrained bias is not arbitrary projection. - Practice success in a task is not proof of generalized imagery change. - A self-test result is not a diagnosis. - A vivid report is not automatically externally sourced. Citizen science ## What a careful platform would measure A useful public platform should not promise outcomes. It should keep reports, practices, baselines, and retests from collapsing into one persuasive story. ### Baseline first A baseline profile should not ask only whether someone can visualize. It should ask how imagery works across modalities, whether the person uses verbal, spatial, kinesthetic, emotional, or conceptual strategies, how dreams and memory feel, what self-tests they have taken, what practices they have tried, and whether change is wanted at all. It should also record comfort with the topic. Some people want stronger imagery. Others want language that respects their existing cognition. The measurement package should mix self-report with tasks where possible. VVIQ-style questionnaires, multisensory imagery scales, binocular-rivalry priming, pupil measures, drawing tasks, and cognitive profile instruments each capture a piece of the landscape ([Marks, 1989](https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1989.69.2.459); [Keogh et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.50232); [Wright et al., 2024](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1454107)). None should be treated as the whole person. ### Practice logs without efficacy theater Practice logs can be valuable if they are boring in the right way: date, duration, method, stimulus, setting, state, expectation, adverse effects, and retest interval. A log should be able to record a Fire Kasina session, a tulpamancy imposition exercise, a free-fusion attempt, a ganzflicker exposure, a visualization guide, or a closed-eye autogogia-style exercise without implying that any of those practices are known to work. It should also be able to record "nothing changed" and "this felt unpleasant" as first-class outcomes. Provenance matters as much as score change. If a claim comes from a DOI-linked paper, a university recruitment page, a living self-test platform, a coach's website, a Discord guide, a forum thread, or an unpublished note, the public record should not pretend those are the same kind of source. The prophantasia question will only become clearer if the evidence trail stays attached to each report. ### Retesting and safety signals Retesting is where the difficult claims live. A platform can ask whether imagery vividness changed, whether external location changed, whether source judgment changed, whether confidence changed, and whether any change lasted. It can also ask whether there were headaches, anxiety, intrusive imagery, visual snow-like persistence, HPPD-like symptoms, sleep disruption, or other reasons to stop. That safety layer is not a clinical service. It is a guardrail against turning public curiosity into pressure. The goal is not to prove in advance that prophantasia training works. The goal is to make the claim testable without flattening everyone into the same story. If durable subgroups, useful practices, safety constraints, or null results exist, they need the same clean trail: baseline, practice exposure, retest, source judgment, confidence, and caveat. Current state ## What is solid, partial, contextual, and open Solid: imagery variation is real and measurable by several imperfect methods. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia are active research topics. Vividness is important, but it is not the only dimension. Source monitoring is a legitimate research problem. Narrow perceptual tasks can show constrained effects of attention, imagery, or intention on perception. Partial: prophantasia, externalism, and projected imagery are now visible enough in academic and public vocabulary to deserve careful measurement. Recent work supports separating external location from generic vividness. The construct boundary is still young, and the available evidence does not establish durable training effects. Context: tulpamancy, imposition, Fire Kasina, autogogia, Hawkeen/NavaChing, DreamViews, public self-tests, and practice guides explain where the vocabulary and tasks come from. They are sources for provenance and practice ecology, not proof. Open: whether any practice reliably changes projected imagery; which baseline profiles predict change; how expectation, absorption, demand, stimulus input, and report language affect outcomes; which safety signals matter most; and how to retest without coaching people toward the desired answer. ### Scope boundaries - Prophantasia training remains unproven. - Aphantasia cure claims remain outside scope. - Externally located imagery and hallucination remain separate comparison cases. - Psychedelics, DeepDream, tulpas, prayer, visual snow, HPPD, VR hallucination, and stroboscopic effects require their own explanations. - Clinical, diagnostic, treatment, induction, and safety advice remain outside scope. References ## Sources behind the public map These references support the claims, boundaries, and current-status notes. Community and living-web sources are cited as provenance or ecosystem context unless explicitly described otherwise. ### Imagery variation and measurement - Galton, Francis. "[Statistics of Mental Imagery](https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/os-V/20/564/2848594)." Mind (1880). - Zeman et al. "[Loss of Imagery Phenomenology with Intact Visuo-Spatial Task Performance: A Case of Blind Imagination](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.08.024)." Neuropsychologia (2010). - Zeman, Dewar, and Della Sala. "[Lives without Imagery: Congenital Aphantasia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019)." Cortex (2015). - Zeman et al. "[Phantasia: The Psychological Significance of Lifelong Visual Imagery Vividness Extremes](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003)." Cortex (2020). - Blomkvist and Marks. "[Defining and Diagnosing Aphantasia: Condition or Individual Difference?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.09.004)" Cortex (2023). - Zeman. "[Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia: Exploring Imagery Vividness Extremes](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007)." Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2024). - Jin, Hsu, and Li. "[A Systematic Review of Aphantasia: Concept, Measurement, Neural Basis, and Theory Development](https://doi.org/10.3390/vision8030056)." Vision (2024). - Marks. "[Construct Validity of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire](https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1989.69.2.459)." Perceptual and Motor Skills (1989). - Keogh and Pearson. "[The Blind Mind: No Sensory Visual Imagery in Aphantasia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.012)." Cortex (2018). - Keogh, Bergmann, and Pearson. "[Cortical Excitability Controls the Strength of Mental Imagery](https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.50232)." eLife (2020). - Kay et al. "[The Pupillary Light Response as a Physiological Index of Aphantasia, Sensory and Phenomenological Imagery Strength](https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72484)." eLife (2022). - Vanbuckhave et al. "[Pupil Changes to Voluntary and Involuntary Visual Imagery: A Unified Paradigm with Implications for Aphantasia Research](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109378)." Neuropsychologia (2026). - Dawes et al. "[A Cognitive Profile of Multi-Sensory Imagery, Memory and Dreaming in Aphantasia](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7)." Scientific Reports (2020). - Bainbridge et al. "[Quantifying Aphantasia through Drawing: Those without Visual Imagery Show Deficits in Object but Not Spatial Memory](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014)." Cortex (2021). - Wright et al. "[An International Estimate of the Prevalence of Differing Visual Imagery Abilities](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1454107)." Frontiers in Psychology (2024). ### Projected imagery and source judgment - Pearson and Westbrook. "[Phantom Perception: Voluntary and Involuntary Nonretinal Vision](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.03.004)." Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2015). - Cavedon-Taylor. "[Predictive Processing and Perception: What Does Imagining Have to Do with It?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2022.103419)" Consciousness and Cognition (2022). - Azañón et al. "[Individual Variability in Mental Imagery Vividness Does Not Predict Perceptual Interference with Imagery](https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001756)." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2025). - Schwarzkopf et al. "[Vividness of Mental Imagery Reflects a Broad Range of Internally Generated Visual Experiences](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251887)." Royal Society Open Science (2026). - Johnson and Raye. "[Reality Monitoring](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.88.1.67)." Psychological Review (1981). - Dijkstra, Kok, and Fleming. "[Perceptual Reality Monitoring: Neural Mechanisms Dissociating Imagination from Reality](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104557)." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2022). - Dijkstra and Fleming. "[Subjective Signal Strength Distinguishes Reality from Imagination](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37322-1)." Nature Communications (2023). - Suzuki. "[Beyond the Reducing Valve: Towards a Computational Neurophenomenology of Altered States via Deep Neural Networks](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1819038)." Frontiers in Psychology (2026). - Gershman. "[The Generative Adversarial Brain](https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2019.00018)." Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (2019). ### Closed-eye and induced vision - Ladd, George Trumbull. "[Direct Control of the Retinal Field](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0068980)." Psychological Review (1894). - Ladd, George Trumbull. "[Direct Control of the 'Retinal Field': Report on Three Cases](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071738)." Psychological Review (1903). - Binet, Alfred. "[George Trumbull Ladd, Controle direct du champ retinien](https://www.persee.fr/doc/psy_0003-5033_1903_num_10_1_3576)." L'Annee psychologique review notice (1903). - Schwitzgebel, Eric. "[When Our Eyes Are Closed, What, If Anything, Do We Visually Experience?](https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/EyesClosed070910.htm)" Working paper (2007). - Gert, Joshua. "[Transparency, Representationalism, and Visual Noise](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02480-7)." Synthese (2019/2021). - Schacter, Daniel L. "[The Hypnagogic State: A Critical Review of the Literature](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.3.452)." Psychological Bulletin (1976). - Stickgold et al. "[Replaying the Game: Hypnagogic Images in Normals and Amnesics](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.290.5490.350)." Science (2000). - Wackermann, Putz, and Allefeld. "[Ganzfeld-Induced Hallucinatory Experience, its Phenomenology and Cerebral Electrophysiology](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2007.05.003)." Cortex (2008). - Konigsmark, Bergmann, and Reeder. "[The Ganzflicker Experience: High Probability of Seeing Vivid and Complex Pseudo-Hallucinations with Imagery but Not Aphantasia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.05.007)." Cortex (2021). - Hewitt et al. "[Stroboscopically Induced Visual Hallucinations: Historical, Phenomenological, and Neurobiological Perspectives](https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf020)." Neuroscience of Consciousness (2025). - Amaya et al. "[A Neural Circuit Model of Stroboscopically Induced Visual Hallucinations](https://doi.org/10.1162/netn_a_00417)." Network Neuroscience (2025). - Puledda, Goadsby, and Schankin. "[Visual Snow Syndrome: What We Know So Far](https://doi.org/10.1097/WCO.0000000000000523)." Current Opinion in Neurology (2018). - Sampatakakis et al. "[Visual Snow: A Systematic Review and a Case Series](https://doi.org/10.1177/03331024221118917)." Cephalalgia (2022). - Martinotti et al. "[Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder: Etiology, Clinical Features, and Therapeutic Perspectives](https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8030047)." Brain Sciences (2018). - Butler et al. "[Characterising the Clinical Associations of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder: A Retrospective Cohort Study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-026-04042-1)." Translational Psychiatry (2026). ### Constrained perceptual control - Meng and Tong. "[Can Attention Selectively Bias Bistable Perception? Differences between Binocular Rivalry and Ambiguous Figures](https://doi.org/10.1167/4.7.2)." Journal of Vision (2004). - van Ee, van Dam, and Brouwer. "[Voluntary Control and the Dynamics of Perceptual Bi-Stability](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2004.07.030)." Vision Research (2005). - Pearson et al. "[The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.05.048)." Current Biology (2008). - Stinson. "[The Hidden History of Magic Eye, the Optical Illusion That Briefly Took Over the World](https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/)." AIGA Eye on Design (2022). ### Practice ecology and public platforms - Aphantasia Network. "[Research Recruitment](https://aphantasia.com/research/recruitment/)." Public recruitment page. Accessed 2026-05-22. - Aphantasie.org. "[Aphantasia Self-Tests](https://aphantasie.org/en/tests)." Public self-testing page. Accessed 2026-05-22. - University of Sussex Multisense Research Lab. "[Aphantasia Hub](https://aphantasia-hub.org/)." Public research hub. Accessed 2026-05-22. - Figueroa, Alec. "[Aphantasia, Prophantasia, Consciousness](https://www.alecfigueroa.com/)." Public practice and resource site. Accessed 2026-05-22. - Tulpanomicon. "[Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html)." Community guide index. - Tulpanomicon. "[Malfael's Guide to Visual Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/mal-imposition.html)." Community guide. - Tulpa.info. "[JD's Guide to Visualization](https://community.tulpa.info/topic/3411-jds-guide-to-visualization/)." Community guide (2013). - Veissière. "[Varieties of Tulpa Experiences](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html)." Somatosphere (2015). - Mikles and Laycock. "[Tracking the Tulpa: Exploring the 'Tibetan' Origins of a Contemporary Paranormal Idea](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87)." Nova Religio (2015). - Laursen. "[Plurality through Imagination](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010)." In Believing in Bits (2019). - Luhrmann et al. "[Learning to Discern the Voices of Gods, Spirits, Tulpas, and the Dead](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)." Schizophrenia Bulletin (2023). - Hale. "[The Inner Vehicle: Prayer, Tulpamancy, and the Magic of the Mind](https://papers.aarweb.org/attached-paper/93461-inner-vehicle-prayer-tulpamancy-and-magic-mind)." AAR attached-paper page (2024). - Woollacott et al. "[Fire Kasina Advanced Meditation Produces Experiences Comparable to Psychedelic and Near-Death Experiences](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2024.103056)." Explore (2024). - Zink and Parks. "[NightWalking: Exploring the Dark with Peripheral Vision](https://archive.consciousness.arizona.edu/documents/NightWalkingbyNelsonZinkandStephenParks-WholeEarthReviewFall1991.pdf)." Whole Earth Review (1991). - NavaChing. "[Hawkeen Training](https://web.archive.org/web/20010216204217/http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/hawktrain.html)." Archived training page. - DreamViews. "[Advanced Vision Control Tutorial](https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-control/80879-advanced-vision-control-tutorial.html)." Community forum thread.