My dreams generally are as colorful and detailed as the real world, though usually full of nonsensical and fantastical elements.  I remember some details when I wake up. Occasionally, sometime later in the day I will recall some details of a dream from the night before.  Someone once suggested that when I wake up I should write down what I remember from my dreams in order to gain some insights into myself and my life.  When I started it would take me only a minute or two to write down what I remembered.  After a few weeks I was remembering so much that I didn't have the time to write it all down. And since I wasn't finding any real value in the practice I gave it up. As an aside, when I go to bed I sometimes will get a brief mental image or hear an imagined sound.  That tells me I'm falling asleep; I just need to not let my awareness of it break the spell and jolt me back into wakefulness.  

I have been photographing the events of my life for decades now.  It was only a few years ago that I realized how tightly that practice is tied to having aphantasia.  For me being able to see my past is so gratifying that until reading your post I never considered what might be happening in heads of "normal" people when they look at photographs of their lives: the recollected sounds and smells, the emotions rekindled.  To be sure my scrapbooks are an imperfect substitute for a typical brain but they are so much better than having my past disappear day by day. As for failing to recognize people, that is a very awkward problem.  When possible I rely on my wife to tell me if I have met somebody before.  And I try not to say "Nice to meet you." until I'm sure I haven't met them before.  When I'm alone and someone approaches with a smile (of recognition?) and says "Hi." I just have to hope that sooner or later they will say something that will clue me in to how they know me and, presumably, I know them.  I have often thought that aphantasia is like a mild case of prosopagnosia ("face blindness").  

As an aphantasiac (?) I find myself obliged to do almost all of my thinking verbally.  I believe the only situation where I think non-verbally is when recalling a familiar space. I would liken it to mentally feeling my way around the space in complete darkness.  I can't sense a whole room that way but I can mentally make my way around to its various elements.

While I have long been aware of the fact that other people could "see" things in their minds in a way that I could not, it was much more recently that I realized that my imaginative inability was more extensive than that. I can not conjure up the taste/smell of food. It did occur once when driving past the site of a former restaurant where I had often ordered a favorite chicken dish.  When I got the "taste" in my mind I was actually startled.  I remember wondering if that happened to "normal" people all the time. I also have a deficit with sound.  There are pieces of instrumental music that I love, but I cannot for the life of me play them in my head or hum them out loud.  It is as if I can't find them in there.  Once I hear the opening notes I recognize them immediately and know how they go.  On the other hand if there is a piece of music I like that has lyrics I can recall the melody with no problem.

Reading posts on this site it is clear that the manifestations of aphantasia vary quite a bit from person to person, but my own sense of memory seems quite similar to yours. About thirty years ago I became keenly aware of a sense that my life was disappearing behind me. I could recall the handful of major milestones in my life, though only in a descriptive sense, but that was it. So I began to make a point of bringing along a point-and-shoot camera (no smart phones, or even digital cameras, back then) whenever I did anything I thought I would want to remember.  I would put the photos into a scrapbook. After decades of this practice I have a bookcase full of scrapbooks. I only occasionally go though any of them, but it comforts me just knowing they are there. They are in effect my external memory.  

My dreams generally are as colorful and detailed as the real world, though usually full of nonsensical and fantastical elements.  I remember some details when I wake up. Occasionally, sometime later in the day I will recall some details of a dream from the night before.  Someone once suggested that when I wake up I should write down what I remember from my dreams in order to gain some insights into myself and my life.  When I started it would take me only a minute or two to write down what I remembered.  After a few weeks I was remembering so much that I didn't have the time to write it all down. And since I wasn't finding any real value in the practice I gave it up. As an aside, when I go to bed I sometimes will get a brief mental image or hear an imagined sound.  That tells me I'm falling asleep; I just need to not let my awareness of it break the spell and jolt me back into wakefulness.  

I have been photographing the events of my life for decades now.  It was only a few years ago that I realized how tightly that practice is tied to having aphantasia.  For me being able to see my past is so gratifying that until reading your post I never considered what might be happening in heads of "normal" people when they look at photographs of their lives: the recollected sounds and smells, the emotions rekindled.  To be sure my scrapbooks are an imperfect substitute for a typical brain but they are so much better than having my past disappear day by day. As for failing to recognize people, that is a very awkward problem.  When possible I rely on my wife to tell me if I have met somebody before.  And I try not to say "Nice to meet you." until I'm sure I haven't met them before.  When I'm alone and someone approaches with a smile (of recognition?) and says "Hi." I just have to hope that sooner or later they will say something that will clue me in to how they know me and, presumably, I know them.  I have often thought that aphantasia is like a mild case of prosopagnosia ("face blindness").  

As an aphantasiac (?) I find myself obliged to do almost all of my thinking verbally.  I believe the only situation where I think non-verbally is when recalling a familiar space. I would liken it to mentally feeling my way around the space in complete darkness.  I can't sense a whole room that way but I can mentally make my way around to its various elements.

While I have long been aware of the fact that other people could "see" things in their minds in a way that I could not, it was much more recently that I realized that my imaginative inability was more extensive than that. I can not conjure up the taste/smell of food. It did occur once when driving past the site of a former restaurant where I had often ordered a favorite chicken dish.  When I got the "taste" in my mind I was actually startled.  I remember wondering if that happened to "normal" people all the time. I also have a deficit with sound.  There are pieces of instrumental music that I love, but I cannot for the life of me play them in my head or hum them out loud.  It is as if I can't find them in there.  Once I hear the opening notes I recognize them immediately and know how they go.  On the other hand if there is a piece of music I like that has lyrics I can recall the melody with no problem.

Reading posts on this site it is clear that the manifestations of aphantasia vary quite a bit from person to person, but my own sense of memory seems quite similar to yours. About thirty years ago I became keenly aware of a sense that my life was disappearing behind me. I could recall the handful of major milestones in my life, though only in a descriptive sense, but that was it. So I began to make a point of bringing along a point-and-shoot camera (no smart phones, or even digital cameras, back then) whenever I did anything I thought I would want to remember.  I would put the photos into a scrapbook. After decades of this practice I have a bookcase full of scrapbooks. I only occasionally go though any of them, but it comforts me just knowing they are there. They are in effect my external memory.