(MASON CITY, IA) -- Mindfulness meditation and guided meditation apps that are selling like hot cakes just might be failing up to 3 out of 100 people trying them. So says Jim Collison, a meditation instructor and author of "Simply How to Meditate."

Here's the problem, Collison says. An estimated 1-to-3 percent of people have no mind's eye. This means they aren't able to see pictures in their mind. This condition is named aphantasia. "So, if they have to see images in their minds when they are meditating or when listening to guided meditations, they get frustrated and give up," he explains.

Collison says he knows this because four of his six children are aphantasic. Because it's estimated only 1 to 3 of every 100 people may have aphantasia, it's extremely unusual for 4 out of 6 members of a family to have the condition. "Yet, my four aphantasic children over the years have found fitting ways to meditate even though they don't see images in their minds when they meditate," Collison says. "One of my aphantasic daughters even taught mindfulness meditation classes in her church."

"Here's the crux of the problem," Collison says. "Two methods of meditation dominant in the U.S. and Europe now are mindfulness and guided meditation. Especially on meditation apps. These have become a big, profit-making industry in recent years. But there are dozens of other meditation techniques."

Collison cites gazing meditation and meditating while knitting as two examples of alternate forms of meditation that can give meditators the health benefits of meditation. "Humans probably have been doing gazing meditation since our ancestors evolved beyond the ape and monkey stage," says Collison.

He suggests a couple of ways anyone, especially people who are aphantasic, can meditate without having to see pictures in their minds.

One is to visit an art museum, locate a painting on display that is especially interesting to you, find a chair and sit and gaze at the picture for two, three or even 20 minutes. Collison explains: "When I do this, I usually focus my mind on thinking about the story the painting is telling me. There's an idiom that says a picture is worth a thousand words. Actually, when you take the time to really ponder what you see in the painting, the picture can be worth ten-thousand words."

Collison believes his book is the first how-to-meditate book that addresses the issue of aphantasia in meditation. And he's confident his just-published book, "Simply How to Meditate," is the first book to tell persons with no mind's eye they can easily use photos they've taken on their camera phone to substitute for images others with a mind's eye can bring up in their minds.

"I do this myself, even though I am not aphantasic," Collison says. "Occasionally, simply as a break from my normal eyes-closed meditations, I bring up a favorite photo on my camera phone and focus my mind on recalling in some detail the story this picture triggers in me."