Reid believed that there was no reason to posit ideas that we perceive immediately.  This is not to say, of course, that our perception of the world lacks an experiential component but only to deny that it is in virtue of perceiving that element that we perceive the world.  Reid thought that just as representationalism for perception was flawed, so was the RTM.  When I remember having corn flakes for breakfast, Reid argues, it isn't in virtue of my now remembering an image of a bowl of cereal that I now remember my breakfast.  Rather, my remembering breakfast is a direct apprehension of the past.  Of course, there is an experiential element to my memory, but that doesn't begin to show that I only remember breakfast in virtue of “remembering” the mental image.  To get from the experience to the representative theory requires two steps: a reification of the experience into an idea or image and the epistemic claim that my knowing that I had cornflakes for breakfast is mediated by my knowledge of that idea or image.