The syndrome of “hyper-recall” … the blessing of forgetfulness that is denied to some rare people

I can imagine today as if I am back there and live the moment all over again.” “There are times when I feel that I walk among people and all of them have amnesia.” My memory is like a library of video tapes, but it is scenes every day of my life from waking up to sleep. “; This is how those who struggle to forget some daily details and erase them from their memories speak this way, because they are people who never forget anything, as they suffer from “overstimulation”.

Just as some people struggle to remember some important details in their lives, especially those who suffer from poor memory, or Alzheimer’s in one of its degrees, there are people – numbered – who struggle with their never-forgotten memories. And make them live the event in all its details; And they repeat how they feel about him every time they leave their memory free. Read alsoObsessed with idealism makes you depressed .. Get rid of the guilt complex towards your child To get rid of insomnia, insomnia and depression .. A special diet for premenstrual syndrome Study: Talkative sister is the best natural anti-depressant Postpartum depression does not affect mothers only .. Why may it extend to 3 years?

The “hyperstimulating” syndrome

“Hypermuscle” or ” too strong subjective memory “, or “hyperthymesia” (HASM); They are different definitions of one case; It is the person’s loss of his ability to forget the details of his life and his personal experiences, no matter what the years pass by.

Only a handful of people can remember every day of their lives in tremendous detail, and for most of us the memory is like fragmentary, blurred or sometimes faded scenes and clips of parts of our lives and our pasts, just as many other moments fade away with the passage of time. The phrase, a tape that preserves all the scenes without exception, and presents them before their eyes as if they are reliving the scene again.

But your strong memory never means that you are these overheard ones; Remembering them details includes accurate dates and times and complex information. For example, Nima Vissé (an overly remembered person) can tell you the temperature on a particular date when he went to work, what he was wearing, and who happened to be on his way, and this is over the course of more than 20 years of his life.

How did you discover “overactive memory” syndrome?

In the early 21st century, a woman named Jill Price (b. 1965) sent an email to neuroscientist and memory researcher Jim McGough, telling him that she could remember every day of her life since she was 12 years old, or specifically since Tuesday the 5th of February / February 1980, and asks the researcher if he can help understand her condition.

The idea was implausible, how could a person not forget? So McGough began testing Price to confirm what she was saying, and he began to ask her about the world events that went by on a certain day, and she could answer accurately every time, and she kept a diary that allowed researchers to verify her memories of personal accidents as well, and she was also correct.

McGough was not the only one to test Price the following times, as another team joined him, and the study of her case took for years, and they decided to complicate the tests, such as asking her to name the dates she visited, or arrange the list of appointments for researchers, and remember their appointments that they did not remember Themselves, according to what was reported by the British network “BBC”.

The disadvantage of the syndrome is the same as its feature, not being forgotten; Price did not forget the day of her husband’s death, and she did not find any way to escape the repetition of this scene, but she was able to consume her sadness in the beautiful days that they gathered, and she could remember them in detail as well.

Price later became the subject of magazines and documentaries, and also wrote (in 2008) the book “The Unforgettable Woman”, in which she documents her experience with the syndrome. Then other rare cases were discovered of people like Price, who are fewer than 60 people living among us, and researchers are trying to understand the reason for their superior memory.

What is the scientific explanation for overstimulation?

The cases studied by researchers are few, and the assumptions are not conclusive, but they are many. A 2014 study assumed that the cause is biological, and that people who suffer from over-recall have excessive activity in certain parts of the brain, and if the brain scans do not reveal huge anatomical differences that explain the syndrome, even small differences in the frontal lobes of the brain (involved in thinking) Analytic), and the hippocampus (responsible for storing memories) believed that they may be a result of their evolving skills.

But there is another belief that the cause may be genetic, or psychological. This is to link the scientists here between the experiences at which super-remembering began and their intense anxiety and constant reflection on certain events constantly, which makes them skilled at preserving scenes in all their details.

Relationship to strong memory a blessing or a curse?

What is certain is for those who are hyperactive in memory that they differ from normal humans in their memory; For most of us, when we go through an event and try to recall it after a week, a month, or a year, the method of remembering will be different, some details are faded and others differ, unlike the hyper-remembered who narrate the whole scene in front of their eyes by simply trying to remember it.

Scientists differentiate between “hyper-recall” and inferential or imaginative memory (the ability to accurately recall an image after seeing it only once for a short period); Where the imagined scenes may change or part of them go into short-term memory and forget, and between intelligence and the ability to memorize Which is a talent and is not specifically related to personal life or general events affecting personal life.

Despite this distinction, Some scholars believe that understanding these rare cases of hyper-recall may help lay strong foundations for remembering, by training ourselves to repeat specific scenes in a detailed and continuous manner after their occurrence, making them entrenched to a greater degree, but that may not be as easy as imagined. “Imagine being able to remember every painting, on every wall, in every exhibition space, between nearly 40 countries,” says Nima Vissé – who has visited nearly 40 countries and entered their art galleries.

It is also not always an advantage; It has two sides, as Nicole Donohue explained. It helped her remember what she learned in school, and imagine what the teacher said or what it looked like in the book, to be a history school with a strong memory, but it is very difficult for her to forget the embarrassing and difficult moments no matter what she tried, and she says, “You feel the same feelings.” You’ve lived, and you can’t stop the flow of memories, no matter how hard you try. “

Regarding these difficult moments, Nima also said, “It is like open wounds.” As for the advice he hears a lot, it is for him “a luxury that he does not possess.”