Connie Angle

I like "cognitive empathy." But my cognitive empathy can be accompanied by a visceral empathy. 

I believe I am a total aphantasic, but am highly empathic and intuitive, and can also feel a great deal of sympathy for animals and a more qualified sympathy for people (as in, how much digging did they do to create the hole they find themselves in). People IRL will jokingly call me a witch (some not so jokingly) because I can "see" their patterns and read their emotions.    

So, new to the general topic of aphantasia. I am not sure how much of it has been lifelong, but I would say it is total aphantasia (no inner sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch) at present. I had some pretty heavy childhood trauma and don't hold very concrete memories. I would say for certain it's been at least 9+ years (I had chemo treatments in 2013).  I am not sure what is meant by the question of what my "imaginative" experience has been like. I have received a lot of praise from teachers/professors (all the way up to the level of a juris doctorate and a secondary law masters) and employers for "novel" and creative approaches to issues/problems. I have successfully been a fiction writer by trade for over a decade now and a writer/storyteller in general since childhood. I am very empathic and have a strong visceral response to all kinds of stimuli. But, if someone falls flat on their face, the strong, sympathetic twinges occur in my gut, not my face. Someone upthread mentioned "visceral" -- and I can imagine scenarios (again, professionally, all the time) that produce strong physical responses--skin crawling, gut tightening. After learning just how few people fall in the aphantasia category, I realized that I write through visceralization. How do I fashion a scene to produce those strong, physical sensations and concrete mental associations. I also have a little more talent than average for visual arts and can carry a tune (and, at least lyrically, create them as well). As for how I felt when I learned I am aphantasic, w/in a few hours I realized it's kind of an evil superpower and not a handicap of any sort. My husband is highly visual and I've always known  that I can, with just a few words, gross him out. Now I understand why and that makes me want to hone my talent even more.  One last thing -- I do seem to subvocalize enormously, but don't think it classifies as hearing the sound (so I would categorize it as visceral even if the tongue is not anatomically viscera).