[cnity]

Maybe let's loop in other senses for a second. Since, presumably aphantasia doesn't apply to all senses? I can imagine the sensation of my tongue on a cold ice cream, and even the taste. But I don't _taste and feel_ it. I can imagine burning my hand on a hot stove, but I don't recoil. See how they are separate but related? The same is true for how I imagine things visually. I don't actually see them, but I imagine them. I don't know how else to articulate that seeing and visualising are not the same thing.

[vidarh]

What you describe makes it sound like you have aphantasia.

People who don't have aphantasia do report "actually seeing" things with various degrees of fidelity, in some (less common) cases clearly enough to "overlay" on objects with their eyes open.

When I had my experience I did "actually see things". Yes, I know they weren't there, but it looked as if they were, in high resolution, full colour, with motion.

EDIT: Also, people "imagine" things with other senses or without too, and people have or don't have inner monologues, or dialogues, in their own voice, or separate voices - the breadth of inner life is very significant.

For my part, I don't recall sounds either, but I "reproduce them" in inner monologue in my own voice roughly in proportion to my ability to reproduce them out loud, but others do recall sounds as they heard them, reporting various degrees of fidelity. The same for smells. Most assumptions about how people's internal life "must" be tends to fall apart once you ask enough people.

E.g. There are writers I know with no internal monologue or dialogue. I know others for whom writing is like listening in to characters acting out scenes and just transcribing it. In some cases watching them act out scenes and just describing them.