It might be that what I am describing falls short of aphantasia (though my difficulties recalling motionless faces do suggest it).

I sometimes wonder if what it actually is, is a kind of fundamentally unexplored thought or experience.

There's a bunch of other examples.

Like... I can't _really_ tell my left from my right on an instinctive level, though I believe this to be inherited because I have relatives who can't.

Ask me directions in a hurry and I'll get them wrong even when I am sure they are right. I don't really have a "left" and a "right"; I have two sides that don't feel that different.

So I also can't really use mirrors well.

I have surprisingly quick and accurate reflexes for catching falling things but I can't catch a ball thrown to me.

The question about all of these things is: are they just things I have never found the right way to deliberately work through into a conscious process? Are they things I can't do now because I didn't learn when my brain was fresh?