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I sometimes wonder if there's not some sort of miscommunication about what it means to visualize something in your head.
I don't have aphantasia, but hearing some people try to describe what it's like to imagine something I think some people could get the idea that it's like a voluntary hallucination, literally seeing a thing that isn't there that you can conjure up and dismiss at your pleasure.
And that's certainly not my experience (though it's possible people have different experiences with it, I can of course only speak for myself)
The things I imagine don't actually exist in my vision. It's definitely getting processed through the visual parts of my brain, there's a sort of visual mental model with all of the dimensions and color information and such, but it's sort like a video game with the monitor turned off, except since my brain is the computer so I can just keep playing the game, I know where everything is, what it looks like, what it's doing, all of the physics and such still work, it's just not ending up on my brain's screen.
That sounds a lot like aphantasia. I have friends who can strongly visualise and they claim it's like an inner TV that they can control & manipulate.
I think that you're falling into the same trap like many others here. Not saying you don't have aphantasia, but e.g. the subreddit is full of people deluding themselves into believing they suffer from aphantasia. Because their experience is similar to what Fondots said.
I have the same exact experience. But I can still rotate 3D images, paint scenes, draw maps, watch spaceships or compare color palettes in my mind.
Every questionnaire is kinda based on "do you see it like in real life or nah?". Depending on your definition of "seeing", imo people with the same level of visualisation might choose opposite ends of the spectrum.
I think the "mind's eye" is also partly a "skill" thing.
I remember distinctly as a child doing a great deal of "work" developing my mind's eye. I didn't have TV at home, so I read a lot, and that necessitated me being able to take text on paper and make mind's-eye models of what the things on the page might actually look like (often without any visual references at all)...and I recall the early ones were definitely vague and fuzzy.
As I got older and did this more, and was exposed to more visual images of different things, my ability to visualize (and "hear") with detail got better, as with any skill.
I suspect folks who have the ability to use their mind's eye, but who haven't been pushed into (or interested in) developing it might not realize what a "trained" mind's eye can do because they haven't developed that skill.
But I do think there are some people with legit aphantasia who don't even have the weak, untrained mind's eye that most people start out with.
Sorry I'm well late replying to this! For some reason I didn't get the notification.
I've been trying really hard to boost my visualisation skills. The best I can do is a vague suggestion of an image, it's like made out of mist and dissipates instantly.
I think there's probably like you said, a lot of people who think not being able to conjure a distinct internal image = aphantasia. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I'm aphantasic as I score extremely poorly on any tasks that require mental image projection (eg manipulation of 3D objects, spatial reasoning etc). Iirc last time I did an IQ test which broke down IQ into various regions, I scored 17% on that part. And there's practically nothing there when I shut my eyes and concentrate.
I would wager that without having done halucinogens a number of times, that score / my ability would be even lower.