I Can’t See You but I’m Not Blind
I don't have any concept of seeing something in my head. I always assumed it was a way to say "think about this thing" and never thought people could "see" it in any meaningful way. If someone asks me to picture an elephant, I don't have any visual experience at all. It doesn'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't "see" or "picture" an elephant.<p>I'm not sure if I have aphantasia or if I'm just being overly-pedantic about what people mean when they say they "see" something in their head. I guess maybe this could be measured by seeing if the visual cortex is active when imaging an elephant; I'd be curious to see how I compare to others in a test like that.<p>Like many subjective experiences, I'm not sure if I'm experiencing things differently or just describing them in different terms.