i definitely have hyperphantasia. as a young lad i used to sit at my desk for hours just day dreaming. it was like being addicted to the movies i created in my head.
as a result i never forget a face. in fact one time a person mistook me for somebody else and when it hit him that I wasn't that person but that I recognized him from 15 years ago on a train once astounded him.
it gets to the point where i have to constantly pretend to not recognize the person because it freaks them out.
Once upon a time I used to be so good at remembering faces that the first two times I encountered someone who knew me but I didn’t recognize, it freaked me out -for days- afterward.
The first time it was someone a year or two behind me in high school who I never recalled interacted with but must have known of me through someone else in school.
The second time my first year chem lab partner said hi to me while I was at work. She had gone through a complete makeover. Lost weight, switched to contacts, clothes that actually fit and complemented her, bleached and straightened her hair. It took me half an hour to figure that one out.
I am still the guy who can point out the boyfriend in the movie was so and so who hasn’t been in a major dip for twenty years, but in last few years I’ve started to confuse actors with each other, and suspecting family connections between people that have none. Which is both bothering me and giving me some sympathy for old people saying “they all look the same”. Maybe it’s not being racist it’s just having an old brain.
I can still pick out voices accurately though. Molly Ringwald was in season 2 of The Bear. After 40 years (yes, 40 years this summer!) she looks completely different from The Breakfast Club, but her voice, while much older now, is exactly the same tempo.
as a result i never forget a face. in fact one time a person mistook me for somebody else and when it hit him that I wasn't that person but that I recognized him from 15 years ago on a train once astounded him.
it gets to the point where i have to constantly pretend to not recognize the person because it freaks them out.