Unable to picture mental imagery when in my mind

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Okay, so, this is very weird, but, due to the nature of brain damage I accrued in 2005, I cannot see anything in my own brain. I think a thought of a picture (a vague, emotional ball of a picture that is poorly formed), and then I translate that into something that is a video on a video website, like Youtube.

People assume that I have vivid pictures in my mind because I post Youtube videos, but I am completely void of the ability to be able to form visual imagery without the aid of external devices like a computer.

It's like being visually blind and typing out braille....

Just another thing people get wrong about me.

Aphanthasia?

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I remember people emotionally, but I cannot see them in my mind. A big advantage for not being overly traumatised by traumatic events that keep happening over & over.

I know the facts of a situation, too, and can play a situation out in my mind, but it is more of a computer process rather than a formed, visual image...

Kind of like a 3D grid like this, as an appropriation:

How I approach incoming alien threats:

I have aphantasia too. I can recall details about a person I know well enough from memory, like I know if so and so has brown hair or freckles or whatever, but I can't see the person in my mind. I've read or heard somewhere that aphantasia makes it easier for people to get over trauma, breakups, deaths and so on because we lack that visual recall. I have no idea if that's true or not, but the idea behind it makes sense to me.

I don't recall my dreams often, but I know I dreams are vivid in imagery when I do have them. I think that's pretty common for people with aphantasia as well. That strikes me as odd...how can our brains let us see things sometimes but not other times..

Personally, I wouldn't mind being able to do the whole visual recall bit in my head. It would make writing much easier, writing too. I always end up googling things or grabbing objects/photos to help me with those tasks.

My grampa claimed he had photographic memory, and was accused of cheating in the police academy because he recalled exactly what was on the page they were supposed to study, including the page number. He also used it to learn English and French by memorising dictionaries.

I can't form a coherent image in my mind but I can picture details. If you ask me to recall a scene from memory I can recall a great deal of details but I have to jump from detail to detail to get a sense of the whole scene.

I have aphantasia. I can visualise most things for maybe a flash of time but then they're gone. I can't really picture faces at all and I'm also face blind, meaning if I see a bunch of photos of people, or I watch a movie I can't always recognise people scene to scene unless they're main characters who I know well. I can't picture my own boyfriend. In fact when I first met him and didn't have any photos I was afraid I wouldn't recognise him when we met for walks in public (silly, because no that didn't happen). I can describe things like a room I'm not in but I can't actually see it for more than a quick flash. Most of my memories are sensory related to general colours, smell, and texture.

I don't know if I have this or not, Hard to verify isn't it? being so subjective. Intra-psychic perception. I have visual memories, just maybe not that clear.

I also have not much visual imagery. I remember fragments of a face. Very small areas. I feel it may also be connected with my small functional memory. To put together a face, I need to be able to hold several pieces of visual data in current memory simultaneously. I dont seem to have space for that.

It amazed me I could have got to 47 years old before realising this about myself!! !