I can tell you.

My dreams are like a child’s story — “and then this happened, and then that happened, and then my friend did this, but it wasn’t my friend but a coworker, and they said this…”

It’s like reading the plot synopsis of a movie as opposed to watching the real thing.

Same with memories. Or conceptualizing things. If you tell me to imagine a red ball, my mind goes “ball, red” instead of hallucinating an image of a ball.

Give me a sheet of paper and ask me to draw someone from memory, you’ll get a stick figure. Ask me to draw someone in front of me, and you’ll get something (more) realistic.