Last Tab
Last Tab
Lastly, in closing up the
tabs: an article at the BBC website: (Credit: Edouard Taufenbech)
And
Both articles are basically
profiles of people who file away data/memories. Who can never forget. Some of
us have excellent memories, some of us—mostly husbands—cannot remember what
they went to the grocery for.
Researchers are not yet
certain what forms the basis of memories. The assumption is that most memories
are language based—thus, it is unlikely to have memories pre-verbal. Yet, I
know I can recall certain images—an overhead light over my crib because I associated
the seemingly glazed spiral with a honey bun, even though I still didn’t have a
word for honey bun. I guess looking at it made me hungry. I wanted to eat that
thing over my crib.
I remember climbing out of my
crib. I wasn’t tall enough to open the door, so I would fall asleep in front of
the door, making it difficult for mom to come in and check on me. Now some of
this memory could be stuff Mom later recounted. Like the sleeping part. I
suspect I was under the age of three.
The subject of the article,
her memory stretch all the way back to being a baby. “I’d always know when it was Mum holding me, for some reason. I just
instinctively always knew and she was my favourite person.” She has been
diagnosed with a rare syndrome called ‘Highly Superior Autobiographical
Memory’, or HSAM, also known as hyperthymesia. This unique neurological
condition means that Sharrock can recall every single thing she did on any
given date.
The second article has to do
with the ability to hang onto every random date and memory and retain it at the
fingertips of recall. The blessing and curse of this kind of memory is that it
can be an anvil weighing you down. Every regret, mistake, coming back to you to
be rehearsed all over again. Scenes of sadness, grief replayed over and over.
It is a tremendous burden to bear.
‘Highly superior autobiographical memory’ (or HSAM for
short), first came to light in the early 2000s, with a young woman named Jill
Price. Emailing the neuroscientist and memory researcher Jim McGaugh one day,
she claimed that she could recall every day of her life since the age of 12.
The subjects themselves find it hard to put their
finger on the trigger, however; Veiseh, for instance, knows that his HSAM began
with meeting his first girlfriend, but he still can’t explain why she set it
off.
I remember applying mnemonic strategies
before a test. In order to remember A I remember B. The whole house of cards
can easily come undone. One presupposes the other. Very tricky. There were even
courses you could send away for to help improve memory. For the person who
cannot escape their memories they would gladly change places.
Two of the people interviewed
with HSAM: “It can be very hard to forget
embarrassing moments,” says Donohue. “You feel same emotions – it is just as
raw, just as fresh… You can’t turn off that stream of memories, no matter how
hard you try.” Veiseh agrees: “It is like having these open wounds – they are
just a part of you,” he says.
It is a narrow road we
travel, the tension between recall and what the memory represents. We don’t
want to live in the land of memories 24/7.
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