Comments on: Understanding the gift of endless memory
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- Simply facinating. I would want to know how good is their "dream memory" recall is?
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- I found this story fascinating and had a student on my special needs school bus who was a high functioning austistic person with this gift. I am not so gifted, but have recall of my childhood back to approximately 16 months of age. I believe that this excellent recall of most of my childhood could in fact have something to do with traumas and upheavels suffered over a 4 year period of my childhood between age 10 and 14. I lost my entire nuclear family between age 11 and 13. I always thought others could remember their childhood on an day to day basis the way I could, but have learned since this is not the case with most people. I now wonder if the traumas some of which resulted in my family's deaths had to do with this. I had very ritualistic behaviour in childhood I do not have now and I also have wondered if I retained these memories so completely as there was no one to remember my childhood for me as most parents will do for children and so my mind knew it had to retain these for me. The memory and how the mind controls it is such an interesting subject.
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- I still remember too much of High School..
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- Dr James McGaugh
Phone: (949) 824-5401, 5250
Fax: (949) 824-2952
Email: jlmcgaug@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
334 QRL
Mail Code: 3800
Irvine, CA 92697-380 - Reply to this comment
- Our father who passed 6 years ago at the age of 93 had this type of memory. Over the years he would comment on something that had happened in the past and would recite the day, date, place, and sometimes the time. We always thought it was amazing but didn't realize it was a gift and didn't encourage it. He was quite a remarkable man. WV
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- Our father who passed 6 years ago at the age of 93 had this type of memory. Over the years he would comment on something that had happened in the past and would recite the day, date, place, and sometimes the time. We always thought it was amazing but didn't realize it was a gift and didn't encourage it. He was quite a remarkable man. WV
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- I can understand being able to remember what happened on certain days, but how many ppl ever know exactly what the date is? These ppl knew it in every case. They must keep diaries or calendars pasted on their refrigerator doors. I'd like to know why the investigators or Ms Stahl didn't find that odd. For the rest I'd say they do not organize things conceptually, according to a philosophy, or rule. They are particularists. The organization no doubt takes the place of concepts without which they couldn't function. The comment that they simply "see" things is I think very suggestive.
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- I agree with both of you. My father was the same way. I thought he had Aspergers as I somewhat followed. He could master Jeopardy, explain history and science for a long time, and acted professionally. We don't know what the cause is, as Autism/Aspergers or OCD, but a use is to exercise an journal.
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- After seeing this story I am grateful for my forgetfulness for the first time in my life.
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- I teach philosophy. I found this program on superior autobiographical memory most interesting. William James wrote that memory is a mystery. The experience of these people just deepens it. But, it is still important to be reminded that correlation is not causality. Adding one more correlation will not help to dispel the mystery for anyone who has not understood he mind-brain relation. Otherwise, Dr.Cahill's prediction that the MRI research wouldn't lead to any new discoveries may have been more right than even he realized. Or did he realize it?
Fred Bauer, Worcester, MASS - Reply to this comment
