I only found out about aphantasia a few years ago. I didn't feel a sense of loss. Instead, I felt a sense of understanding: This explains a lot. Your description of an "invisible wall" sounds similar to my experience: It feels as if there's a wall of black glass blocking the vision of my mind's eye. I'm on the far end of the aphantasia scale. It's almost always black. However, I can somehow sense what is behind the wall. I can imagine a familiar scene and sketch what is hidden behind the black. For me, aphantasia hasn't felt limiting. I score very high on those 3D shapes you need to mentally rotate on an IQ test. I often seem to know the answer before I've even scanned all the choices. I've learned to punch holes in that glass wall or even smear colors across the blackness, when lucid dreaming. There have been 2 times in my life that I've seen something other than black when I was fully awake. The first was scary: I was playing an early arcade video game "Star Fire" which flashed the whole screen during tie fighter attacks, possibly triggering something akin to epilepsy: I continued to see the game after I quit playing. It would reappear whenever I closed my eyes. I was freaking out because I was SEEING THINGS WITH MY EYES CLOSED! At the time, I couldn't understand why my friends were not as alarmed as I was. The blackness faded back into place after an hour or so. The second time was when I lost 1/6th of my field of vision, due to an "aura without migraine". My vision was missing in a curved pie shape regardless of whether or not my eyes were closed. What did I see in that pie wedge? There were impossibly thin lines of red, yellow, and blue, which were so thin and sharp it almost hurt to look at them. They bounced outward along the edges of the wedge at a frantic speed. What was in between those lines? Nothing. Not black. Not gray. NOTHING. If I were to draw it, I'd use dark gray, but that's not what I saw. There was no color, just nothingness. I suggest you don't dwell on what you can't do and concentrate on what you can do and what makes you happy. Do what you can to capture the moments you can never relive with photos and videos. Try to learn how to experience lucid dreaming. It's entirely possible that you could learn to see SOMETHING with your eyes closed. If your life feels incomplete, perhaps you consider getting a pet or two. A dog will be your friend for life. Kittens are best adopted in pairs.

I only found out about aphantasia a few years ago. I didn't feel a sense of loss. Instead, I felt a sense of understanding: This explains a lot. Your description of an "invisible wall" sounds similar to my experience: It feels as if there's a wall of black glass blocking the vision of my mind's eye. I'm on the far end of the aphantasia scale. It's almost always black. However, I can somehow sense what is behind the wall. I can imagine a familiar scene and sketch what is hidden behind the black. For me, aphantasia hasn't felt limiting. I score very high on those 3D shapes you need to mentally rotate on an IQ test. I often seem to know the answer before I've even scanned all the choices. I've learned to punch holes in that glass wall or even smear colors across the blackness, when lucid dreaming. There have been 2 times in my life that I've seen something other than black when I was fully awake. The first was scary: I was playing an early arcade video game "Star Fire" which flashed the whole screen during tie fighter attacks, possibly triggering something akin to epilepsy: I continued to see the game after I quit playing. It would reappear whenever I closed my eyes. I was freaking out because I was SEEING THINGS WITH MY EYES CLOSED! At the time, I couldn't understand why my friends were not as alarmed as I was. The blackness faded back into place after an hour or so. The second time was when I lost 1/6th of my field of vision, due to an "aura without migraine". My vision was missing in a curved pie shape regardless of whether or not my eyes were closed. What did I see in that pie wedge? There were impossibly thin lines of red, yellow, and blue, which were so thin and sharp it almost hurt to look at them. They bounced outward along the edges of the wedge at a frantic speed. What was in between those lines? Nothing. Not black. Not gray. NOTHING. If I were to draw it, I'd use dark gray, but that's not what I saw. There was no color, just nothingness. I suggest you don't dwell on what you can't do and concentrate on what you can do and what makes you happy. Do what you can to capture the moments you can never relive with photos and videos. Try to learn how to experience lucid dreaming. It's entirely possible that you could learn to see SOMETHING with your eyes closed. If your life feels incomplete, perhaps you consider getting a pet or two. A dog will be your friend for life. Kittens are best adopted in pairs.