I've been fascinated by this as long as you've been posting about it too. Now I'm really curious about the visual vs spatial memory modes. Is it possible to have both?

Do you remember dreams visually? How do you "picture" driving a familiar route?

I have recently learned about aphantasia from Pixar founder Ed Catmull’s book “Creativity Inc.”, where he spends quite a few pages on how his aphantasia affected his approach of working with various people at Pixar – a very interesting and insightful read.

This is how literal I am. I read the headline - can you see the world when you close your eyes - and here's me staring at that image of the heads with apples inside and then closing my eyes and trying to will a mercator projection of the world as if the pic was one of those old Magic Eye prints.

I've had a lot of similar experiences, Jason, and have been questioning my parents and wife about what they see to better understand it. My wife has been amazed at how little I can remember (especially details), even from events earlier in the day. And I've always used the college test notes example when I've talked about how I'm able to recall things.

I barely remember anything about childhood, and I'm appalling with times and dates — it's always been a mystery to me how people can recall that it was "May 1987, no, 1986 when we went to France", and here I am not even knowing what month it is now.

I remember things spatially, but also often in terms of sequences: turn left here, then right, then a couple blocks later turn right again; we did A, then B, then C, and that's when I set down my gloves so that's where they still are, etc. I also "see" better in my mind with my eyes open, rather than closed, because I can actually physically see something. I find it really difficult to remember faces, and I have trouble recognizing people if they change their hair, their clothing/hats. I'm really good at recognizing voices, and I remember music/jingles, even from my childhood, really easily. Brains are fascinating.

Also, discovered when I was discussing your original post with my husband that we are both aphantasic, and both went through engineering. So I've wondered if it affects certain types of thinkers more than others, or if it tends to cause people to veer towards certain types of interests.

I’m on the opposite of the spectrum, hyperphantasia. I can see minute details in my minds eye, like small dimples, walking routes in full detail, uneven ground. I also have synesthesia, which anecdotally seems to be common thing for those with hyperphantasia

I think i have a good visual memory for most things. But i'm a little face blind. So i can picture and recognize the faces of my family and long time friends of course. And i can even close my eyes and recall the faces of people i met last week at a party. But when my wife says 'hey, is that our server?', or 'what color hair did they have?' then i'm generally stumped. And forget about remembering names....

The more I read and think about aphantasia and hear other people's experiences, the more I think there are a few different axes on which people's various ways of recalling the world intersect.

There are a pair of very interesting Wired articles you may appreciate. The first is from 2009 called Total Recall: The Woman Who Can’t Forget about the first person diagnosed with perfect recall, and how scientists suspect it works: as a biproduct of OCD where she’s just obsessed with thinking about her memories (and interestingly, she’s still susceptible to false memories like the rest of us).

The second is 2016’s The Strange Case of the Woman Who Can’t Remember Her Past about the first person identified with Severly Deficient Autobiographical Memory. She lacks the ability to remember past events. (On the upside, she doesn’t hold grudges)