{"id":240623,"date":"2026-07-10T19:09:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/do-your-dreams-have-smells-new-study-on-blind-minds-reveals-vast-differences-in-imagination"},"modified":"2026-07-10T19:09:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:09:33","slug":"do-your-dreams-have-smells-new-study-on-blind-minds-reveals-vast-differences-in-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/do-your-dreams-have-smells-new-study-on-blind-minds-reveals-vast-differences-in-imagination","title":{"rendered":"Do your dreams have smells? New study on \u2018blind minds\u2019 reveals vast differences in imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/do-your-dreams-have-smells-new-study-on-blind-minds-reveals-vast-differences-in-imagination.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s common to think we all have similar experiences of life. But the more we learn about other people\u2019s hidden thoughts, the more evidence there is that this is untrue. For instance, not everyone has the same ability to have imagined sensations. Most people can visualize\u2014they can have imagined experiences of seeing people and scenes that aren\u2019t there. But not everyone can.<\/p>\n<p>We are both <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/a-blind-and-deaf-mind-what-its-like-to-have-no-visual-imagination-or-inner-voice-226134\" target=\"_blank\">visual aphantasics<\/a>, which means we can\u2019t voluntarily imagine seeing things in our minds\u2019 eyes. When we read a book, neither of us can imagine seeing the characters.<\/p>\n<p>Yet other types of our waking imagined experiences are quite different. Derek can imagine hearing snippets of music at will, but Loren has a silent mind. She can\u2019t even imagine hearing herself talk. Loren can have vivid imagined feelings of touch, taste and smell, but Derek doesn\u2019t have any of these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s common to think we all have similar experiences of life. But the more we learn about other people\u2019s hidden thoughts, the more evidence there is that this is untrue. For instance, not everyone has the same ability to have imagined sensations. Most people can visualize\u2014they can have imagined experiences of seeing people and scenes [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}