There are similar experiences reported by many, many people. Check out /r/aphantasia, it's full of people saying variations on "omg my whole life I didn't reali

There are similar experiences reported by many, many people. Check out /r/aphantasia, it's full of people saying variations on "omg my whole life I didn't realize 'mental images' weren't metaphorical!!!" Example: https://teddit.net/r/Aphantasia/comments/qurw0k/what_sayingphrase_made_sense_after_you_found_out/ https://teddit.net/r/Aphantasia/comments/qurw0k/what_sayingp... >Police sketches. I never realised other people could remember those kinds of details (e.g., particular facial features) because they can ‘see’ the person’s face in their memory. Film, TV, books etc have an arsenal of narrative shorthands and contrivances to depict people's thoughts, because the mind is so difficult to describe objectively. People don't really have thought bubbles, their mental narration isn't usually in complete sentences, their dreams aren't real-life-except-foggy-and-white-tinted, they don't literally imagine a lightbulb activating when they have an idea. And then there are figures of speech: "train of thought", "memory lane", "brain fog". We take for granted that these are just metaphors and don't ask whether there is literally a train or a lane or a fog inside someone's head. So for someone who doesn't have mental imagery, all the talk of that subject would just be rationalized as yet another colourful metaphor. And then you have people like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29366734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29366734 who just flat-out deny that mental imagery exists and that we're all lying or deluded.