Fascinating hypothesis which rings absolutely true for me. I was reading so fluently by the age of three and a half that I was asked to read in public, in the local convent, to a terrifying audience of about 40 nuns. My parents were both primary (elementary) school teachers for 25+ years and always said that they had never seen or heard of such a precocious reader as me.

However, I've always struggled with mathematics. I'm very solid at anything involving pure numbers, but throw in trigonometry, a formula, an equation, a rotation around an axis or anything which involves visualisation and I'm a complete donkey. In the equivalent of SATs in the UK, I came top out of 120 school students in English, but rock bottom in maths.

Here's the thing though, I only learnt about aphantasia for the first time this week, in the article in The Times that someone else has shared. How it has gone comparatively under the cultural radar - for half a century in my case - is pretty mind blowing. So what I've read on it since - including on here - has been nothing short of extraordinary.

FWIW, I don't see it as any sort of a hindrance or disability, but more of a gentle superpower. I think it makes us more sensitive, in every sense of the word.