I'm very good at colour matching, but when taken into a room and then to a shop to match a colour from the room's carpet to a new sofa I don't see the colour, I just know it feels right. And that it needs to be darker/brighter/etc.
I was in therapy for PTSD, and I was totally frustrated by my inability to find a safe place in my mind. I tried everything I could think of. I carried pictures that looked a little like a bluebell wood I loved as a child, but it was never the right one, I knew it wasn't right and that I would know it when I saw the right picture I wanted but couldn't explain what was missing. Also, with my eyes shut the picture disappeared no matter how long I looked at it. In the end, my therapist and I decided to use an alternative way for me to calm down and feel safer. Going back for a 'top-up', I knew I'd have a different therapist and only a few sessions so I didn't want to spend two of them searching again for a place I could visualise - I went googling and finally found the name. But I do dream in pictures, and in colour. And sometimes I can visualise things in my mind but it is as if they run away across my eyes - there for a nanosecond then gone and out of my conscious control. So does this mean I am partly aphantasic?