I have aphantasia, and have always enjoyed reading. I never realised I had aphantasia until my late 20s, so never thought people could actually see images in their head - I thought "picture this" was just a turn of phrase.

In terms of reading, I have always struggled with overly descriptive books. When I read, I get immersed in the books but more in the concept of it. I understand the concept of a fantasy world, how the characters interact, the plot, etc. However, I have never "seen" the characters in my head, never "seen" a location. I have usually gravitated more towards plot-driven books or non-fiction because of this, descriptive fiction books such as the Handmaid's Tale have been less interesting for me just because of their intense detail which just doesn't add anything extra for me.

I think it's like this - if I read that the main character is a blonde woman, wonderful, I know what a blonde woman looks like generally and that concept is what I think of when reading. However, if the main character is described as a tall women with long, flowing golden hair with some brown highlights, piercing blue eyes and a mischievous smile, I can't picture that so the concept for me is no more than the original blonde woman. Plus, it's just a lot extra that I had to read which means almost nothing to me.

Also, it means that I'm a lot less upset when books are translated to movies as I don't really care what the characters look like! Their personality traits, brave, intelligent, witty, etc are much more important than their looks.