I grew up in northern Minnesota, spent the 70s and 80s as a nuclear-trained engineer aboard Boomers in the Atlantic. I have lived in Colombia for twenty-plus years. I study day trading. I test as an INTJ, and my superpower is congenital, full multisensory aphantasia.
People who are good with names likely have a picture of them in their mind's eye. Without a picture, there is no way to label them with a name. I hold lists of names, and if the list is long, I generally know your name. Lists of one, and I am in trouble. Everyone should wear a name tag. Aphantasia is a superpower. Trauma and drama that rule most people leave me alone. The reality of NOW is my home.
I have known since about age 6 or 7 (65+) years ago, that I was blind like the two blind from-birth twin girls in my class, that I saw nothing when my eyes were closed. Dreams happened with my eyes open or a word/verbal concept of an experience upon waking. Until I learned to read, I did not understand what people said for the most part and made it up what they meant. Odd duck I was. The world changed when I read See Jane Run. Run Jane Run. I earned straight A's in school without taking books home, ever. I realized early that the 'answers' would show themselves as needed. I did not need to KNOW or remember everything. It is all in there as a text file. [(anything!) I have family still locked into the pictures of pain and angst from incidents in childhood. Aphantasia is a superpower. All there is, is NOW. Nothing is left of yesterday and tomorrow comes when it comes. I operate in NOW. Having thoughts is not thinking. I suspect picture believers use thoughts that appear creating pictures that are not real, but they believe they are, holding on to them in upset or pretend happiness, BLIND to reality. I've worked with people who have photographic memory. It comes at a price. If the picture is deemed reality, they are afraid to process what is actually real, stuck in their head with an answer that often does not work in the real world. Once you get that success is nothing more than a series of learning experiences, failures for some, life is really easy.
I have not had a dream experience that I remember upon waking in decades. In the early 80s, I used something called 'rebirthing' to visit every memory deemed an upset. There were many, but as I relived the experience, all in living color and total senses while watching from another point of view, they disappeared along with decisions I made that day about me, it, or them. I discovered a lot about myself and verified the early until then forgotten memories with my parents, who provided another point of view and their context. 15 years later, I met with another rebirthing practitioner and visited the birth canal experience again... just a whole body warm fuzzy without any pictures. Since the completion of the rebirthing the first time I cannot remember having a visual dream while sleeping. Just a black canvas.
I realized in the second grade I was as blind as my totally blind-from-birth classmates when it came to describing what I saw with my eyes closed. Their mother thought I was being kind. In my mid-thirties I saw a hypnotist freeing up some issues and was introduced to a group that was doing 'bebirthing', guided hypnosis with breathwork, all in the attempt to discover and remove past incidents. Sounds like past-life regression, perhaps. While re-experiencing the incident it was in full living color, sight sounds, and smells from the incident as I watched at the same time. Each incident disappeared and the stuff I made up about it along with it. Eventually, after months of incidents to go through, I experienced the tingling sensation of birth. All further attempts initially returned me to my birth experience. A new approach had me discover incidents that were not mine. They were all in black and white, almost fuzzy, and given I knew the people involved I discovered incidents from my father's childhood. I would ask him about the events without suggesting I had the knowledge from 'dreams'. He corroborated his incidents as well as the major issue from my first serious memory at age two. A decade later I did a rebirthing session and just returned to my birth experience. I do not dream in pictures but dream in word streams. I know I am dreaming and use them as concepts I need to pay attention to while awake. My ability to hear the 'wee small voice within' is significant and I can ignore the amygdala's [lizard brain] constant harping or the monkey mind's incessant chatter. When I cannot, I take a nap. Knowing or understanding makes very little difference to me. I suspect it makes little difference to anyone... everyone KNOWS what they have to do to lose weight. The knowing makes no difference except when it does once in a while. However, when I discover something, that rocks me back, shocks me somehow, that always impacts me going forward. I suspect my aphantasia has saved me from many difficulties because I have no 'movies' to rerun over and over. I wouldn't trade my way for a crystal clear photographic memory ever.