I realized I was aphantasic just like the woman in the article. I always thought the minds eye was just an expression and I was shocked to find out people can actually SEE stuff if they want. I can draw but it takes a lot of trial and error and I use lots of references.
Told my teacher I preferred "the movies in my head" and earned myself a EEG to check for epilepsy as a 10 year old. No always explain my vivid imagination.
As a kid, my method of passing time when I was told to wait a half hour or an hour was to just play back shows, with commercials, in my imagination because I knew they were 30-60 minutes long. Shit worked, too!
30-60 minutes isn't that long to me anymore. I'm usually impatiently waiting months or weeks at a time now. Currently waiting for Shadow of the Erdtree to drop in 8 days. All I can do for these lengths is imagine that WaitMate is real.
I used to see how many "videos" I could play in my brain simultaneously and still keep track of what was happening in each. Most I was able to be satisfied with was 3.
Hadn't ever really thought about whether other people did that or not..