Sounds like you have aphantasia but you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t.

Here’s a simple question: how close are your waking visualizations to images you see in vivid dreams? From what you’ve said, assuming you do experience vivid dreams sometimes, it sounds like the answer is “not very”.

Many people without aphantasia report waking imagery quite close or at least comparable to what they experience in dreams. If that’s not the case for you, that’s consistent with aphantasia.

The OP article does a decent job of describing it. I recommend reading it, if you haven’t already. What you’ve described matches how it describes aphantasia very closely.

Right now, while staring at a blank wall, I visualized a red, 3D apple with a cartoonish worm emerging from it and then taking out a cleaver and chopping up the apple. It was similar in detail to what I'd see in a cartoon, but (like I said above) in another mental plane.

So no, I don't think I have aphantasia.