Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it’s not like you actually see it the way you’d see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?

That highly depends on your specific definition of that. But personally I can do things like think of a place I've been, and basically walk around like I'm controlling a video game character. "Seeing" the place as if I was there.

I have a friend at work who openly confessed to not being able to mentally create images when discussing why he wasn't into reading books.

I was like "Wow, I can't really imagine your reality for myself, that sounds strange."

he said, "Now you're getting it, as I can't imagine it, either."

Video games and film though? 1000X more entertaining for him via his testimony. He can't conjure those images so seeing someone else's interpretation is often thrilling.

I can't really do that either and I read books.

I also do have an inner monologue which might be a part of it.

Wait are there people without inner monologue?

What the fuck did apples do to you to deserve such a scathing review. Are you a doctor?

I can only rotate the apple in my head vertically

I don't think I have an inner monologue. Also I have full Aphantasia. I can't visually imagine an apple let alone rotate it in my mind.

I often find myself getting distracted from whatever I'm watching because my brain takes over and starts making up alternative scenarios.

Do you have dreams?

I do! I visualize when I dream. But I can't do it on command. This is how I realized I probably have aphantasia. I can never consciously visualize. I can think and conceptualize, but not 'see'.

I also have aphantasia. I only learnt about it a year or so ago. It was eye opening when I realised. People used to say "picture this or that" and I thought it was a figure of speech! Turns out there are people who can picture shit.

I don't know how a cow looks like directly from the front though. How would you even imagine that??

That's interesting that your brain is capable of it but it just won't. It sounds like it could make a lot of things difficult for you. I spend a lot of my idle time "working" on different problems with projects I have going on and a lot of that involves "constructing" things in my mind. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't do that.

For me, "imagine a circle" is kind of a meaningless instruction until you follow it up with something

Waiiiiit. It's not just a figure of speech?!

I spend a lot of my idle time “working” on different problems with projects I have going on and a lot of that involves “constructing” things in my mind.

I do, too! I guess in a different way though. A lot of aphants like to compare it to a computer that does not have a screen or GUI. The computer is there - also the graphics card, the images, the data - but nothing visual appears in your mind's eye. I would say there are several things that are more difficult for me to do - but surprisingly people with aphantasia function just fine. Otherwise I would have known something is different with me way earlier.

I realized after reading about people with aphantasia that what I do is kind of a combination of visualization and conceptualization. If you ask me to imagine a cow, I'll tend to visualize the cow itself, but it doesn't come with a field for the cow to stand in. The cow is just in the concept of a place. That is, until I concentrate on visualizing details of the place, at which point I'll probably lose the visual of the cow. Like, it's still there, it's just become the concept of a cow.

A talking apple? How novel.

welcome to the rabbit hole!

I've noticed my brain lately has been doing this thing where I'm watching something cool and it goes, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if <exact thing I'm watching>?"

Well, yeah, but why are you activating the "I have a cool variant idea related to this" pathways and distracting me instead of just watching how this one plays out?

Edit: corrected "largely" to "lately"