Imagery and perception feel similar but aren't. Research into aphantasia is helping explain where the two diverge.
Hangai · Rhizomata
The paper studies how the ancient Aristotelian philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias treated phantasia, the power behind remembering, dreaming and imagining, as separate from perception. On this reading, a perception leaves a bodily residue that keeps its content after the object is gone, and that residue later triggers the experience. Errors, dreams and images of things that never existed, such as a winged horse, arise when a residue loses detail and phantasia fills the gap from other stored residues. The paper concerns ancient philosophy and does not discuss aphantasia.
Liu and Bartolomeo · Cortex
People with aphantasia were as accurate as typical and vivid imagers on imagery and perception tasks, but slower. The authors suggest visual knowledge is still reached without a conscious image, or through other strategies.