reminds me of this RadioLab episode about Mr. S
http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-mind/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevsky
What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#12Not sure I sympathize. But I didn't know photographic memories included sounds. Are smells included?
At least for me I would say yes. I know I can think of my grandmother's house and immediately smell it.
Isnt this normal? Being able to recall smells/sounds/etc from places you've been?
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#13While having a good memory is important for cognition, it is just as important to be able to forget memories. There are probably limits to how efficiently our brains can scan memories for information relevant to a given situation and having more memories decreases the efficiency of this process. Also, when you can find almost all knowledge about anything on Google in just a heartbeat, it's inefficient to try to memorize most things. As Einstein said, "Never memorize what you can look up in books."
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least for me I would say yes. I know I can think of my grandmother's house and immediately smell it.
Isnt this normal? Being able to recall smells/sounds/etc from places you've been?
Maybe. I just know that I can do it and also have some overlap with the eidetic memory crowd. Whether those are disjoint groups or not I don't know.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#15I had a somewhat atypical memory through early high school. Long story short: I was really, really good at memorizing books without trying to, and could recall them word-for-word, with essentially random access inside the book if you spotted me two sentences to work off of. This also extended to remembering events/conversations/etc in my own life, and they often became "intrusive thoughts." Was anybody hear ever pick…
Sounds very familiar.
Out of curiousity, since I've never actually met someone with the same type of experience, do you ever have trouble "shutting your brain off"? e.g. sleep issues, etc.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#16There's a higher level of photographic memory that very few people are capable of. Those that can call on demand images of the past at will. I've met one, and knew of a teacher who knew one. Like the author of this article stated. It can be a curse, nightmares and things they don't want to remember stick with them. Forever. Although a lot of people also have really great memory, which can arguably said to be "somewha…
Agreed. I'm 30 years old and I can still visualize everything about my grade school schoolyard from a "bird's eye view" quite easily (can even do this with the apartment I moved out of and never saw again after 3.5 years old, and the grounds outside it) - never been accused of having photographic memory.
The author seems to be discussing more a "very good" memory mixed with a fixation on the past - e.g., feeling hurt that others don't remember what you remember means the past has some special importance for him/her. I recall plenty of things that happen that other people soon forget, but it never bothers me. I realized as a child I had to pretend to forget things, otherwise people would think it was bizarre I remembered so much about them that they'd forgotten ever telling me.
As I've gotten older and had less free time to think / worked crazier hours and ruminated on people and the past less, this tendency to remember lots of small details has receded (though still much stronger than other people's I meet). I'm pretty sure if I started thinking about the past often enough again though, it'd make a quick return to being as proficient at recalling numerous tiny details from the deep past as it was before.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#17I had a somewhat atypical memory through early high school. Long story short: I was really, really good at memorizing books without trying to, and could recall them word-for-word, with essentially random access inside the book if you spotted me two sentences to work off of. This also extended to remembering events/conversations/etc in my own life, and they often became "intrusive thoughts." Was anybody hear ever pick…
I had an amazing memory as a high school kid too. I couldn't do the hobbit word for word, but definitely reproduce long texts of Economics essays, which was my thing. I find it very sad that I grew out of it in college. It feels like a part of me is no more.
My memory ended up getting very bad through college. I developed a coping mechanism ... I realized instead of having to remember formulas or algorithms, I could just derive them on tests.
While my memory deteriorated, my ability to visualize complex stuff kept at it for quite a bit longer. I can still do that part but it doesn't feel as crisp as it used to. Another weird thing I could do when I was a teenager was step through code with an exactness that my classmates thought was freaky. They joked I was a human compiler. Ahh ... youth.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#18I had a somewhat atypical memory through early high school. Long story short: I was really, really good at memorizing books without trying to, and could recall them word-for-word, with essentially random access inside the book if you spotted me two sentences to work off of. This also extended to remembering events/conversations/etc in my own life, and they often became "intrusive thoughts." Was anybody hear ever pick…
Sounds very familiar. Out of curiousity, since I've never actually met someone with the same type of experience, do you ever have trouble "shutting your brain off"? e.g. sleep issues, etc.
I have.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#19This reminds me a bit of the way telepathy was presented on the TV show "Babylon 5". Untrained telepaths found themselves awash in a sea of confusing, poorly organized thoughts that they couldn't control (the "broadcast" thoughts of others.) With training, they could block out others' thoughts, or focus and read specific thoughts from specific people. Star Trek:TNG showed a similar contrast in the episode "Tin Man", between normal Betazoids and Tam Elbrun, who couldn't shut off his mind-reading ability and therefore found being near people excessively stressful.
The same ability could be either a curse or a blessing, depending on how well it was organized and controlled.
Re: What Is It Like To Have a Photographic Memory?
#20[deleted]