Published November 24, 2025 | Version v2
Thesis Open
Description
Core Claim: This thesis challenges the assumption that a non-visual mind offers protection from Complex PTSD, arguing it is a catastrophic error.
Scope of the Second Edition: This version significantly expands the original argument into a complete theoretical framework. It establishes the concept of Panmodal Aphantasia—a total absence of simulated mental representation, including the inner voice (Anendophasia) and auditory recall (Anauralia). Through a longitudinal auto-phenomenological analysis of long-term abuse, it demonstrates that without the mind’s representational buffers, trauma is concentrated entirely within the somatic system, transforming the philosophical concept of Cartesian dualism into a…
Published November 24, 2025 | Version v2
Thesis Open
Description
Core Claim: This thesis challenges the assumption that a non-visual mind offers protection from Complex PTSD, arguing it is a catastrophic error.
Scope of the Second Edition: This version significantly expands the original argument into a complete theoretical framework. It establishes the concept of Panmodal Aphantasia—a total absence of simulated mental representation, including the inner voice (Anendophasia) and auditory recall (Anauralia). Through a longitudinal auto-phenomenological analysis of long-term abuse, it demonstrates that without the mind’s representational buffers, trauma is concentrated entirely within the somatic system, transforming the philosophical concept of Cartesian dualism into a lived, physiological torture.
Substantive Expansions in Second Edition:
The Neuro-Energetic Mechanism: Details the Cortisol Bridge mechanism, arguing Panmodal Aphantasia structurally permits unmitigated exposure to stress hormones, reframing somatic disease as a neuro-energetic cost.
The Structural Defense: Introduces a Dissociation Rebuttal and a Teleological Refutation, distinguishing this architecture from dissociation or evolutionary advantage.
Forensic Critique: A new section critiques existing literature, demonstrating the Panmodal experience’s distinction from SDAM, psychopathy, and the misattribution of apathy.
Operational Reality: A new part details the lived experience, including the Manual Override, Somatic Imprisonment, and Functional Death.
Systemic Context: Expands the critique to address Epistemic Injustice and Algorithmic Gaslighting as a form of systemic DARVO.
Key Theoretical Contributions:
Fleshbacks: The body’s non-representational replay of agony.
Paraconsistent Facticity: A conscious mind trapped as a witness to its own physical suffering.
The Law of Conservation of Traumatic Affect: Trauma energy not processed representationally is conserved and compressed into somatic tissue.
The Somatic Schism: The "Failed Kiss": The ultimate proof of the mind-body disconnection: conscious commands of comfort strike a "pane of glass" and fail to reach the body, transforming self-soothing into a witnessed failure that deepens the trauma.
The body is not merely keeping the score; the body is consumed by the score. This work concludes that Panmodal Aphantasia constitutes a state of structural vulnerability, demanding a paradigm shift in trauma theory.
Files
Gherghel_Aphantasia_Not_An_Advantage_Thesis_2nd_Edtition_NOV2025.pdf
Files (4.5 MB)
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