I practice mindfulness meditation which rests on actual experience, not mental images. So most of the guided (most, not all) meditations I experience are focused on experiencing what is, not imagining what it is. Still, sometimes in guided meditations, visualizing sneaks in and I am learning to let it go, it doesn't apply to my experience, and that's okay. I'm also learning to become a teacher of mindfulness meditation and am paying extra attention to not include visualization in my practice.

There is a type of meditation where the process is to eliminate thoughts and visualization to simply concentrate on the self or your subjective experiencer or one's own consciousness itself before thoughts even arise. See Ramana Maharshi of Arunachala or the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.

I have also used guided body scan meditations. A strange occurrence on one meditation practice years ago. I had been taking meditation coaching for about six weeks, twice a week when 30 minutes into a session. I was bombarded with facial images so clear and vivid I could see hair follicles on mens beard area and every little blemish on someones face. The faces, no one I knew, were coming at me 2 or 3 a second. This happened for over a minute or so. I have never seen anything like this before. I shared this experience with the meditation coach and she was like, OK. I could not explain it and by her saying OK, I thought, OK what's next. I want to do that again. It was a year later when I first heard of Aphantasia. I called the coach and she had never heard of it and she told me that she never heard of anyone not being able to "visualize". That is when I realized her OK was that she did not understand. To me, to see some images in my mind was incredible and I wanted more. I must report, that was the only time anything like that happened. That was nearly 5 years ago and I have never been able to repeat it. I was going through some tough personal things at that time and maybe that is what caused the images. Could stress have caused this sudden visualization? I just do not know. Maybe someone else has experienced this also and are still looking to repeat the experince.

I also am frustrated by guided meditations that require one to 'visualize' themselves. What I have found that works particularly well for me is body scan meditations, mainly because while I may not be able to visualize things, I'm hyper aware of what I'm feeling, both physically and emotionally, and how I'm carrying my stress. Closing my eyes and listening to someone guide me through how different parts of my body are feeling and relaxing each part individually is very soothing and ends up making me feel like I'm melting into the ground (or wherever I happen to be laying) in a good way.

I personally use voice meditation on Youtube, but instead of visualisation that uses positive affirmation, or simply through body talk down such as contracting certain muscles physically. I personally like Michael Sealey and Jason Stevenson, they have a couple of those that don't have visualisation in it.

What's worked for people with aphantasia tends to split into breath/body-based (Vipassana, tai chi, breathwork), sound-based (music, mantra, frequencies), and present-moment attention. Guided-visual meditation almost universally being the thing people abandon first. Here's some community perspectives on the topic you might find interesting: Meditation with Aphantasia (https://aphantasia.com/article/stories/meditation-with-aphantasia) Liana Scott dropped guided meditation entirely and moved to sound and mantra. In the comments, people land on Vipassana, breath-watching, and insight meditation (attention to present sensations), with one good point: match the practice to your dominant mode instead of defaulting to visual. Meditate With Aphantasia (https://aphantasia.com/article/strategies/meditate-with-aphantasia) Jim Collison's catalogue of non-visual options: breath, mantra, gazing, nature, even tai chi and knitting as moving meditation. "Seeing" Dragons (https://aphantasia.com/article/seeing-dragons) Auri'An Lay is a total aphant who works as a meditation therapist, building journeys from "Knowing" rather than seeing. The comments are also a good honest debate about inner monologue. There's a sample non-visual meditation in this one.

Yes! I have try using extreme hot or cold water environments, like the tub or a sauna or a cold plunge.

I'll check it out; thank you for pointing it out. In general, any guided meditation usually contains visualization. You may not like him, but Sam Harris released a free online copy of his book called, "Waking Up" demystifying meditation. He's released a free copy online. I liked it because his suggestions work just as well if you have aphantasia or not.

Solfeggio music, which is just the same frequency for the whole song, works on me for some reason. I just keep listening to these for sleep from then on.