I think I have the same kind of garden variety visualization experience that you have. There is bound to be a spectrum where some people's mental imagery is virtually non-existent on one end, and it's very lucid and persistent on the other. The people who come out of the woodworks online claiming they have a mental heads-up display, like AR superimposed on their vision, make me raise an eyebrow. I'd be more inclined to believe that a child had such an experience, but by the time we're adults, our brains have normally found it more advantageous to be squarely grounded in baseline reality.

What is the difference between tasting an apple in your mind and remembering what an apple tastes like?