Your comments, and your other reply to the parent post I was replying to, really resonated with me.
I think by default I imagine things the same way as you - not images, not words, but just knowing how something is. I think perhaps that is similar to what I called remembering. When I think of something that way, I can think of, for example, a whole house. But I don't see anything.
But, if I try to picture something instead, as an actual image, I can actually picture smaller specifics parts of something. I think when I do that I am actually doing what people are talking about when they say they are picturing something, or seeing something in their mind's eye. All I get then is like an outline, or faded details, and I can only do small details at a time. Between a 3 and 4 in the Wikipedia representation of aphantasia. It sounds to me like you aren't able to switch to seeing something at all.
A while ago, after reading about someone curing their aphantasia, I thought about this a lot, and I think at the time I suddenly remembered something that made me think I could picture things clearly when I was a child. I also know that I see things when I dream, so I decided I should be able to get the ability back.
I used to try quite often to picture things in my mind, and would do some of the tricks like having eyes open a crack, and just waiting to recognise things in the patterns on my eyelids, etc. Occasionally I would suddenly see something as if it were really there. Like a 2 on the scale. The one thing I remember now is that I saw an entire chair, well enough that I could have sketched it. Have you tried often, or I guess practiced?
Edit: I tried some of the things this person described. They took a Better Living Through Chemistry approach that I didn't want to try though, so I skipped all drugs/chemicals/teas:
I think by default I imagine things the same way as you - not images, not words, but just knowing how something is. I think perhaps that is similar to what I called remembering. When I think of something that way, I can think of, for example, a whole house. But I don't see anything.
But, if I try to picture something instead, as an actual image, I can actually picture smaller specifics parts of something. I think when I do that I am actually doing what people are talking about when they say they are picturing something, or seeing something in their mind's eye. All I get then is like an outline, or faded details, and I can only do small details at a time. Between a 3 and 4 in the Wikipedia representation of aphantasia. It sounds to me like you aren't able to switch to seeing something at all.
A while ago, after reading about someone curing their aphantasia, I thought about this a lot, and I think at the time I suddenly remembered something that made me think I could picture things clearly when I was a child. I also know that I see things when I dream, so I decided I should be able to get the ability back.
I used to try quite often to picture things in my mind, and would do some of the tricks like having eyes open a crack, and just waiting to recognise things in the patterns on my eyelids, etc. Occasionally I would suddenly see something as if it were really there. Like a 2 on the scale. The one thing I remember now is that I saw an entire chair, well enough that I could have sketched it. Have you tried often, or I guess practiced?
Edit: I tried some of the things this person described. They took a Better Living Through Chemistry approach that I didn't want to try though, so I skipped all drugs/chemicals/teas:
https://old.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/comments/vrih14/how_...