I Can’t See You but I’m Not Blind
I don&#x27;t have any concept of seeing something in my head. I always assumed it was a way to say &quot;think about this thing&quot; and never thought people could &quot;see&quot; it in any meaningful way. If someone asks me to picture an elephant, I don&#x27;t have any visual experience at all. It doesn&#x27;t even make sense to me. I can describe what an elephant looks like. I can draw something--poorly--that other people would immediately identify as an elephant. I can talk about the shape of an elephant, the parts of an elephant, colors, textures, and other physical properties. But I can&#x27;t &quot;see&quot; or &quot;picture&quot; an elephant.<p>I&#x27;m not sure if I have aphantasia or if I&#x27;m just being overly-pedantic about what people mean when they say they &quot;see&quot; something in their head. I guess maybe this could be measured by seeing if the visual cortex is active when imaging an elephant; I&#x27;d be curious to see how I compare to others in a test like that.<p>Like many subjective experiences, I&#x27;m not sure if I&#x27;m experiencing things differently or just describing them in different terms.