[HHalvi]

When i was in 9th grade preparing for a bio paper my friend told me to just visualize diagrams with your eyes closed, i just couldn't and found out this was not normal. I stumbled on Blake Ross's note* on this and realized i was not the only one. When i showed this to my younger brother, he told me that he had the same condition, while our parents don't.

*Link to the note: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

[eozoon]

I can visualize specific, static picture like stock photos, but I cannot manipulate them.

eg. "picture a venn diagram" - I can imagine the basic one with A, B and C overlapping a bit. I cannot adjust how many items are there or how they overlap or what colour they are.

"imagine a beach" - standard photo of a beach you see in travel ads. Usually include text like "discover Greece!"

"picture a cat" - the most common photo of grumpy cat, I can also switch to keyboard cat, poptart cat, Garfield, Felix the cat, but I can't picture a "regular" cat despite having owned one for over a decade

I wonder if that counts as aphantasia or just severe lack of imagination. Since I'm not "blind in my mind" - I've a large internal database of pictures, but I can't do the "picture yourself on a beach" thing either.

[HHalvi]

I can draw anything somewhere but can't really close my eyes and visualize be it stock photos or manipulated.

I think there is a fine line between "picture yourself in X,Y,Z" vs "close your eyes and visualize a simple thing that you know well". Don't know if there is a standard test to find out if you indeed(medically) have it or not.

[lonelappde]

That's not aphantasia. You can see things in your mind.