>>12511032Just want to talk about my case.
It always felt like thinking was tough for me, even though my grades at school were fine at first. Every time I try to concentrate on a subject, it's as if i'm trying to move through a dark muddy sludge. Naturally, upon learning of aphantasia and trying to visualize a star or anything for that matter, I wasn't able to do better than image 1.
However, I always had a good sense for music: it's possible for me to "playback" a song in "my minds ear", given that it's a familiar one. Also I'm very good at remembering melodies or motifs. Don't have perfect pitch tho.
Another thing that I discovered a couple years back, which was quite surprising to me, is the way to actually "see" images in my head while being awake (I do see dreams). I have to be in a quiet environment, fully relaxed. The best time is couple hours before sleep or couple hours after waking up a bit early. I lie down on my back, have a pillow or two behind my head, and cover my eyes with an arm to make it darker. Then I roll my eyes up and try to think of something. Again, I can't visualize what I think of, but after a bit of relaxing, suddenly a chain of random fleeting images is launched. I am fully aware during this process, and can memorize some of them, but if i try too hard, I snap out of it. The images are colorful and feature movement (not unlike gifs), but unlike dreams, which have a "storyline" they don't make apparent sense. These images are uncontrollable, I can't influence what I see, and each individual section does not last more than a second. The themes of the images seemingly don't correlate to recent events, thoughts, feelings or stuff I see in movies/on intenet; they truly appear random.
