Earlier quoted context omitted.
I respect you, fellowniusmonk, but all we ever get about aphantasia is self-report, anecdote, self-assessment questionnaire, subjective impression. People want me to be nice about this and acknowledge that the thing exists because they all say it does. The best I can offer is acknowledgement that you all say it does. On the other hand, you have a special claim to plausibility because of the surgery. Oh wait cardiovas…
As someone with aphantasia, all I ever get from people who can visualize is self-report, anecdote, self-assessment, etc. By definition, this will always be the case until we have a deep enough understanding of the brain to diagnostically assess this. What I can assure you is that I cannot see/imagine with my mind, and that many other aspects of my life make sense given this limitation, e.g. when people describe their…
I have similar feelings about those who claim to have an internal monologue or voice etc. It's all so alien to me. Outside of dreams or hynagogia, my "self" and internal experience is non-verbal, non-visual, and mostly lacking any other sensory qualia.
If "me" is rooted in any perceptual qualia, I think and experience a vague mixture of a spatial awareness, proprioception, topology, and emotion. I can barely summon sound memories like music, and this could include lyrics. This recall is very faintly rooted in auditory qualia. Like the ghost of an echo down a distance corridor. Moreso, I can "feel" such music memory as a hint of proprioception, i.e. the after-thump of bass in my body or the after-tingle of a cymbal in my ear. But it utterly lacks the presence and richness of real listening.
I can think about words and phrases I've either heard or read, or try to arrange some words to write or speak later. But they're fleeting concepts, neither visual nor auditory in quality. They're not like the sound or music memory above. They're also not visuals of typography. In fact, I've more than once had words in my lexicon that I could neither pronounce nor reliably spell. I could readily match them to parsed words when reading, but would be unable to express them.
Finally, I have a relative with schizophrenia. I've witnessed how she behaves when hallucinating and/or having delusions. She often seems to experience her thoughts as if being talked to over her shoulder, or can manifest a fear into seeing dangerous threats. Her experience seems a kind of polar opposite to mine.
I wonder how it is to be somewhere in the middle of this range. It must be different from hers, to be useful but not schizoid. And it also seems like it must be a lot more vivid and accessible than my usual experience.