Ralph Rickenbach

This is a great article. I have total aphantasia, but my mind is constantly running. It is not a monkey mind, jumping from things brought up by external sensory input to stuff on my internal todo list. It is more like exploring threads that have been dispatched by the subconscious and surface again, tackling the big questions, taking up internal research or arguments. All those thoughts are not coupled to visuals, tastes, smells, emotions, or often even concepts of time and space. I believe that step-by-step thinking and even skip thinking of average and mild+ gifted people respectively is wildly influenced by sensory input and their expressive memories (what I would call the things that we with aphantasia have not available). The meta-thinking of highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted people might be less dependent on this and just happen without those triggers. I would love to see some research around that.