I use echolocation all the time. Granted, I can definitely not explain how a bat feels, but... I was born with 20% vision, and kept it for roughly 6 years. After that, the world officially went dark. However, my brain was quite stubborn in not accepting that.
From that point on, my auditory system, in particular echolocation, took over. My internal field of vision did not change much. Echolocation, and my prior knowledge of the world, was used to build up my idea of my surroundings.
At first, that built-up internal image resembled very much how I saw the world prior to going blind.
However, after a few years, things started to become abstract. I lost almost all notion of clear-cut edges, and color "perception" smeared itself all over the color spectrum.
These days, what I see in my minds eye doesnt really reflect what a sighted person would visualize.
However, my minds eye still has the same function, it creates my surroundings in my head such that I can navigate and interact with the world.
That's very interesting. Bat neuroscience might be able to tell us whether bats use echolocation in a similar fashion as you described (they do also have ears and eyes, although many don't have color vision). If not, then probably they have an entirely different experience that humans when using echolocation.
It is different - not metaphysically or entirely, but... echolocation for humans is rather long-wave (although it's experienced as vision.) You can't - I couldn't - see a door edge wise so I could walk into doors pointed right at me. But bats want it for insect location, I'm betting. Much more precise, much higher frequency.
Sure, bats echolocation is more precise, basically due to the shorter wavelength, which is quite obvious if you think about it. However, what I was trying to hint at is that the function is likely equivalent, while the implementation is definitely more sophisticated when it comes to bats. The function is to build an internal representation of the external world.
