The Gift of Endless Memory

It is often said that we are our memories - that web of experiences, relationships, thoughts, and feelings that make us who we are. We don't remember it all of course. That would be impossible. Or would it?

There has been a discovery in the field of memory recently, so new you won't find it in any textbook. It's so hard to fathom, there are some who remain unconvinced.

For the moment, the scientists studying it are simply calling it "superior autobiographical memory." And unless you happen to know one of the handful of people discovered so far who have it, get ready to be amazed.

Louise Owen is 37 years old and a professional violinist living in New York City. But she has another gift too, one that is far more rare.

When correspondent Lesley Stahl mentioned a date, Jan. 2, 1990, Owen told her, "Right now, I'm remembering the jogging class that I started that morning."

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Marilu Henner's Super-Memory Summit
Actress Marilu Henner is becoming known for more than just "Taxi." She's one of the handful of people who scientists say can remember their entire lives.

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Endless Memory, Part 1
Endless Memory, Part 2
Extra: Marilu Henner & "Time Traveling"
Extra: Memory Quiz Time
University of California Irvine
Documentary: "Unforgettable"

"And you're actually back there?" Stahl asked.

"I can feel it. I can remember the coach saying, 'Keep going,'" Owen remembered.

That was more than 20 years ago, when she was 16, a date Stahl picked completely at random.

Stahl randomly picked another date, Feb. 18, 1988.

"It was a Thursday. I had a big conversation with a friend of mine, and that's all I'm gonna say," Owen replied.

Owen told Stahl she can remember every day of her life since the age of 11.

"Try to talk us through, can you do that, how…it works? Out of the air, April 21st, 1991," Stahl asked.

"1991, okay. April 21st. So, in the moment between 'April 21st' and '1991,' I have scrolled through 25 April 21sts, thinking, 'Which one is it going to be? Which one is it going to be?' Okay, 1991, which was a Sunday. And I was in Los Angeles, and I had a concert with the American Youth Symphony," Owen replied.

"You went to the most important thing that happened that day," Stahl remarked.

"Right. That was the most, I mean, you probably don't want to hear about, you know, sort of the daily 'Oh, I got up in the morning. And I got dressed,'" Owen said.

Asked if she could remember what she was having for lunch, Owen told Stahl, "Not what I had for lunch that day. But I do remember what I had for dinner the night before."

"And effortless? It just pops in?" Stahl asked.

"Right," Owen said. "I mean, for me, it's almost as automatic as if you say, 'What is your name and where do you live?'"

But how do we know that what she says she remembers really happened?

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[barron715]

Matt.12:36 This is a wonderful confirmation, our brains seem to be recording every detail of what we do and what happens in our life, even if most of us can't recall all these things now, but the information is all there. So our creator can easily recreate the same being (the resurrection) with just the same mind and emotions that accompany those memories, in tact.
Human beings are wonderfully made. God bless!

[roycohen10]

Was the piece with Marilu Henner filmed in 2010?
If yes, she erred whe she said that Feb 21 of this year was a Tuesday. It was in fact a Wednesday.

[meformelee]

I enjoyed this segment on endless memory. I know of a man that if u tell him the month,date, and year he will tell you what day it was or is. This is truly remarkable.

[groovysenior]

I am 68 yrs old and have always wondered why I could remember details of certain happenings so vividly. My mother had this capability and now two of my children have this ability and perhaps two of my grandchildren as well. I found it very refreshing, after seeing this program, that there is perhaps a reason for this happening. It seems like my mind is cluttered with the past and would like to release some particulars. I would be very interested in any follow-up studies.

[skysyl]

My especial interest in this story was that the organization of memory appeared to be strongly connected to dates -- year, day, date. I wondered if the various exceptional memory persons had had someone in their lives who particularly emphasized dates to them in their early years? Imagine a similarly gifted memory person in the Roman Empire era -- would they remember everything by the 'third year of the reign of Hadrian', etc?

[helloksue]

Okay, I have a friend with some features of this type of memory recall. He often can't tell you the day, but can recall an amazing number of details down to the month of half month. Sometimes he can do days as well. Or, if he can't do the exact day, he can tell you about the Sunday before or what happened a few weeks later. After I watched this show, I talked to him about it for about 2 hours. Absolutely fascinating, especially to someone like me, who has very poor recall of even which year things happened in (despite having an IQ of over 130). As my friend and I talked, I discovered that he practices this kind of memory as a game when he's bored. For example, he'll say to himself, "What did I do last Tuesday? The Tuesday before? And before?" and so on. He says, "It helps me to feel anchored." I think he has some kind of mental map that works very effectively for him. He feels that this ability is very functional for him. He loves movies and also plays a mental memory game with them, as well--"Where did I see that movie? When? How did I feel?" He likes to fell the "tenor of the times" in his memories. He has a deep appreciation for history and political events. He doesn't rattle stuff off like a machine gun. Rather, he stops and thinks for a moment and then proceeds to paint a specific picture of what what going on in his life and the world during that time in his life. We went through the Tuesday game together for fun. Wow! What a bunch of laughs! He remembered stuff about me on those days, some of which I had completely forgotten. I think he and others like him might make great study subjects--to show that there is a spectrum of people out there. Hmm...just to put some random numbers on it...let's say that the people on the 60 minutes show are 3 to 4 standard deviations above the mean. I'd put my friend at a bare minimum of two. I, on the other hand, am probably below the mean (for attaching dates to things)--perhaps due to childhood trauma (I have many vivid memories
before the age of 6, but they literally become less vivid in my mind's eye--I'm highly visual--at age 6).
This friend of mine is much less visual than I am (he has trouble driving on the freeway, though I don't know if this is a visual processing deficit of some kind or not). Despite being extremely intelligent and being able to function fine as an adult, his awareness of objects around him seems to me to below average (to which he agrees). He is much more auditory. I'm going to guess that this sort of intelligence that we are talking about here is influenced by a convergence of abilities and definitely something on a spectrum. We all love the rabbit coming out of the magician's hat--as kept happening on this 60 minutes show--but even more significant is to understand this intelligence in terms of a spectrum, to which many more of us may be able to relate and even identify patterns or strategies which we ourselves are already employing.

[pingpongpal]

I am amazed at the ability of the people to remember. Think of how many gig of memory is required to do this. I am also equally amazed that a reputable scientist thinks that the amazing instrument of our brain evolved. Can you imagine wiring in instrument with 2 trillion connections but it wires itself. This evolved? Apparently some of the connections were mis-wired for many of our scientist today.

[Khartoba]

Your amazement seems to be contradictive. The "impossibility" of these connections coming together themselves happen every day a fetus is in a womb and continues once a child is born. So are you implying that some creator has his hand in connecting EVERY single connection for everyone who has ever lived? In that case, I'm amazed that this creator would intentionally cross wires causing some children to be born with some mental or physical deformity such as down syndrome or some other handicap. Also, who's to say your creator didn't utilize the tool of evolution to create man?

[sensorymama]

Are there any blog websites or support sites on this? I knew as young as 5 years old that I had this. Because of childhood trauma, teen trauma and adult trauma, all I have are the "bad memories" that I would like to let go. Are there others that need support on how to cope or can give advise?

[chamb3rlain]

The computer allows each and everyone of us to almost have the same ability as these savants. Since 1988, I have been entering a short description of each day into a computer journal. My database now has over 8200 entries and I can easily access/search the records using the computer. I can do instant total recall like those savants; albeit with the help of the computer. In the future, we will have technology that will record everything we do and remember everything for us. There was a Microsoft researcher who worked on this. Her name is Lyndsay Williams and she invented the Microsoft Sensecam which records her whole life into the computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SenseCam

[Khartoba]

The segment began with the introduction that I would be amazed, which I was; but I was also dumbfounded. How is it that these individuals have such an amazing ability and yet lead relatively mundane lives? I would think they would lead a life at the top of society, lauded as the all knowing. After all, isn't intelligence 90% memory? (The other 10% being able to know what do with what you have stored.) But then again, if you have superior memory, over time you should be able to memorize what other smart people connected with their knowledge, eventually becoming as smart as them. I can only imagine that I would have no limits if my memory were endless.

The story line at one point seemed to suggest this endless memory comes at a price; as though the individuals are overwhelmed with an on-rush of memories every second of everyday. But I didn't see it that way, listening to what the subjects had to say about it. Would it be fair to say that we, as a "normal" people, have thousands of memories? That's a lot to keep track of, but we are not overwhelmed by the on-rush of them everyday, but rather only when we reach in to access them. I imagine it is no different with them; they simply have access to a larger file cabinet.

[sarcastical]

Yeah,
rats, should not be used.
Rather --- Blonde females should be.
(a) As there be too many of them.
(b) That breed of females -- be the most ANIMAL of caucasian females.
As I speak about multiple behavior.
Just accelerated, than the others.