I do not remember my life and it's fine

So I'm on the other end of the number line from the SDAM folks and I'm kind of mind blown that people don't remember when they trip, I remember at least 6 instances off the top of my head. Ditto feet touching each other - which shoes I was wearing, what the weather was like, where I was at. The bus question I would have to dig a little but I'm sure it happened at least once.

> I can imagine essentially every detail of a bicycle, all the mechanical components and how they interact.

As I understand it, this is extremely uncommon, perhaps you might be categorized as hyperphantasia. How's your memory? They're commonly linked attributes, as per the article, some people with hyperphantasia have hsam - highly superior autobiographical memory, apparently from being able to conjure such accurate mental images.

> Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. I've been successful at most of what I've tried to accomplish in my life until now, and never had to battle with a sense of being disadvantaged. On top of that, even aphantasia experts generally agree that it is not a disorder.

This almost sounds similar to deaf rights activism that tries to prevent children from getting cochlear implants to me.

You never experienced what you are missing, you have no idea what you are missing.

I can, on demand, replay my most beautiful memories on loop. They are my most valuable treasure. Unless they are lost to dementia, I already know which memories I will replay before death.

Being able to visualize mental images is essential to experience the full range of what it means to be human.

I do wonder how drugs with strong visuals work on those people though? What do they see when they take ketamin or DMT?

I have aphantasia, SDAM, and face blindness.

Like the author i rely on mental models (I wrote a book called visual models for software requirements), Im good at getting to the heart of things and am constantly organizing information so I can remember the principle.

I do get anxiety about not remembering people once they pass away. I might only remember a few things about them. But when I look at pictures I can often times remember all kinds of details. I think some of the information is there, it just isnt retrievable.

Im bad at networking, when I go to events lots of people know me, but I have no idea who they are. Im waiting for glasses with cameras that will identify people for me and go over their background.

Aphantasia is supposed to be rare, but I think many engineers have it. At least at my company it seems more prevalent than it is supposed to be in the general population.

In some ways it is a gift. I barely remember traumatic events, but unfortunately I dont really remember amazing events either.

> Those vague "problems I had to overcome in university" that the job screening question wanted from me had happened, and I had learned my lessons from them, even though I forgot how they unfolded.

Is the author sure about this? How do they know they learnt the lessons if they don't remember what happened?

The best way to convince most people of something is to tell a story about it. Ask a senior engineer how splitting up a monolith into microservices can go wrong and they'll have a dozen stories. Ask someone about the importance of clear communication and they have hundreds of stories of things going wrong. And when I want to convince someone, I deploy a story from my experience and it has a good chance of working.

I can tell someone my mental model, but also the evidence that went into the model from my experiences. Not having that second part is like publishing conclusions without publishing the data.

I understand it's fine for the author but it does seem like a real handicap. Dwelling on it is not going to be useful for the author, but actively handwaving this all away doesn't seem credible.

And on another note, when a loved one dies it is nice to think about them and remember things we did together.

> By doing away with reminiscences, flashbacks, and graphic visions of possible futures, I can stay focused on the now, and on what I can do now to improve tomorrow.

My graphic visions of past experiences and possible futures when someone says "let's do a complete rewrite of this business logic" are actually very useful for convincing people not to do that...