>>29623598It's a common misconception.
To figure out what it feels to be "NPC" - ish , think about your own breathing. You can control it at will but you can be aware of it or you can not, it happens anyway.
The creative process is mostly unconscious.
Sometimes you are aware of the steps, most of the time you are not. Someone with aphantasia or no internal monologue has the same process happening in their brains, it is just that they do it unconsciously and can never "control it" the way you control your breathing on and off.
This in fact might make them better at creating, a professional tenis player, for example, doesn't think about every muscle he moves.
Lacking an internal world is a shame but it barely has any reflection on your daily life, which sort of makes scientists question why do consciousness exists at all.
Most likely it is a tool designed to created the illusion of a complete self instead of several brain modules competing against each other in order to generate narratives in social environments or maybe to simulate events.
(You can say that if a creature dreams it most likely has a "simulated self" , so it is conscious in the way you are)
Trust me this was literally my research field
