I spent 45 years or so thinking people were talking metaphorically when talking about picturing things, because surely they couldn't actually see things while awake?
I see things when I dream, so I know what it is like, and some years ago I had a single experience during meditation I've never managed to replicate, but otherwise nothing while awake.
No reason why it would. My abstract reasoning is far above average, and for that matter my ability to draw used to be far above average, though I'm a few decades out of practice. I "visualize" what things look like and where things are in relationship to each other in the sense that I know where things are with a level of precision well above average - I just can't see it in front of me, though I know where they are and what they look like.
I use the term "visualize" because that is what I thought people meant when they said to visualize or imagine things. I remember the shape of the visual rendition of source code, for example, and that is usually the basis for how I navigate large code bases. And I know what parts of papers I last read 30 years ago look like, but I can't see them.
I think the biggest way it has impacted me is that e.g. when it comes to fiction, I find visual descriptions of things usually bore me unless the language used in itself is particularly compelling because the words themselves are beautiful to me. So I often skip and skim visual descriptions.
I spent 45 years or so thinking people were talking metaphorically when talking about picturing things, because surely they couldn't actually see things while awake?
I see things when I dream, so I know what it is like, and some years ago I had a single experience during meditation I've never managed to replicate, but otherwise nothing while awake.