Not the GP, but I can. I can play back songs in my head quite vividly or remember and replay how different people sound like, when it's coupled with a memory.
Now I'm wondering about other senses. I can readily imagine sounds and pictures, but it took my brain some time before it figured out how to imagine smells and tactile sensations when I asked it, like a muscle that is rarely exercised.
Since my imagination layers on top of my existing senses, I wonder if aphantasia is really about the (in)ability to induce sensory hallucinations at will (and to what extent). That's about the only way I can make sense of it personally, given my own subjective experience.
I can hear my thoughts and even speak to myself. I don't picture myself doing that and I don't have any image in my head.
Maybe it "looks" like a comic with only speech bubbles. It's still not the right image, because there is no image, but it also doesn't feel like a total void.
I might not have complete aphantasia, when trying to imagine an apple I struggle to imagine it beyond a circular form with a rod pertruding from an indent at the top. No color, no texture. As soon as I try to add more detail the previously imagined details dissapear and I have to circle back and reimagine them. Like having a very limited amount of draw calls every frame.
But I don't feel like I am impacted in imagining simple algorithms. I also construct them of very simple forms and rearrange them in my mind. I also feel like it is a lot easier for me to imagine things „automatically“ due to it being memories or being a byproduct of thinking about something. But my mind struggles constructing these images at will.
Also taking a pen and drawing these things up can replace some of the missing imaginary power :)
> As soon as I try to add more detail the previously imagined details dissapear and I have to circle back and reimagine them. Like having a very limited amount of draw calls every frame.
This matches my experience - I think of it a bit like a really slow CRT, the phosphorescence fading before the image can be composed.
Yes, from what I've heard other people with aphantasia often dream normally. I certainly do vividly, while struggling a lot to visualize even simple things in my minds eye.
Instead of using every n'th letter, how about using a pseudo random number sequence generated by a simple math equation, like the one posted here a few days ago[1], and add that to every letter. With that the data should be shuffled basically beyond recognition though the effort needed to decode has increased even more.
The way I've seen it used in TV shows, there'd be a number somewhere (embedded, or day of month the message was sent, etc) that indicates what page of the book to use.
