I'm fairly sure I fall on the aphantasia side of things (or at least mostly - I've had what I'd consider "flashes" occasionally over a couple decades, which ser

I'm fairly sure I fall on the aphantasia side of things (or at least mostly - I've had what I'd consider "flashes" occasionally over a couple decades, which serve as a contrast to what I normally experience), but I don't really have any trouble "knowing" what a triangle-in-a-circle-in-a-square-in-a-circle looks like. I can even draw intersections and segments in isolation, or rotate the thing (or the square and circle in opposite directions) and basically immediately tell you how the edges / corners will align with each other. But I don't "see" any of that. In any way. You tell me it's drawn in a blue light, or the square is an inch thick piece of plaid: sure. now it's plaid. I already have colors picked out and I'm remembering how the threads in the fabric produce patterns when viewed up close, especially where the stripes overlap. I'm not seeing anything though. It's closer to how I deal with math - 5x7 is 35 because I know it is. I memorized single-digit multiplication long ago, and if I ever want to reassure myself I can just do repeated addition. It's not accompanied by literally any metaphor or mnemonic or whatever, it's just equal to thirty five, and 35 is 三十五 is ٣٥ regardless of where it comes from. Similarly, rotating the deathly hallows by 90 degrees is just a rotated deathly hallows - the line is now sideways, the triangle has a vertical edge on the left, the green stripes in the plaid are now sideways and the diagonal-hashed intersections at the overlaps are in the opposite direction, etc. --- Maybe also oddly, I have a very good visual memory in practical terms. I disassemble and reassemble stuff with no trouble, and when I'm looking for a phrase in a book I read a year ago I can generally find it within an inch of where I remember it on a page (but not usually what page it is). When I'm looking for things I lost, I generally hunt by looking for colors or textures that were adjacent to where I last remember it. I'd never describe how I remember that or how I look for it as seeing though - there's just a wadded up blanket near it with a big fold that tangents with the far right corner of my phone, so I go looking for wadded up blankets. I feel like this is probably mostly a sensory-qualia thing, almost totally orthogonal to what is being thought about / done. People who can see things in their mind's eye can't necessarily do anything with it beyond having the experience, and people who are totally internally blind can do things that seem to be based on sight. And to some degree both of those are train-able.