How's Your Memory?

Mine is terrible, but that's probably due to abusing marijuana. And being on Klonopin for close to twelve years, albeit a very small dose.

xlostintranslationx wrote:As in it surprises people. For example if I watch a movie I can remember basically all the details and lines from it

Sounds familiar. Back then when I had more social contacts and some friends had an argument about a scene or a line from a movie, I was asked to settle it more than once.

Misschizoid17 wrote:Many Schizoids say they first became aware of their Schizoid traits around age 10 or so. Maybe it's like beginning a new life, in which everything prior is erased from memory?

Well, if they don't remember anything prior to being 10, they couldn't possibly name any earlier onset of schizoid symptoms, I might suspect.

Misschizoid17 wrote:Although, most Schizoids have not suffered child abuse, as far as I'm aware.

Emotional neglect is abuse. Out of the top of my head I couldn't name a schizoid that hasn't been abused.

Misschizoid17 wrote:It doesn't bother me very much because there is not much in my life worth remembering. I've accomplished very little thus far.

Ha, how would you know?!

Courtier wrote:...but forget what they are called even after long exposure. It's a little strange.

That's right, names! That's my weakness too. I'm super adept at having a conversation with someone I can't remember the name of without them noticing. In my early 20's I started to use a note-book for names and such which made things more relaxed for me. I think when I meet someone I'm so preoccupied with body language and intonation and such crap the name just escapes my attention.

I'm better with dates though. Every combination of numbers has a certain rhythm to it when saying it – that's how I remember. How do you do it? I've read some 'see' like a numeric keypad and the geometric form that appears when typing the numbers is how they recollect.

Dalloway wrote:

Courtier wrote:...but forget what they are called even after long exposure. It's a little strange.

That's right, names! That's my weakness too. I'm super adept at having a conversation with someone I can't remember the name of without them noticing. In my early 20's I started to use a note-book for names and such which made things more relaxed for me. I think when I meet someone I'm so preoccupied with body language and intonation and such crap the name just escapes my attention.

I've never been much interested in past events, I get bored easily and I've learned to dissociate in order to cope with unpleasant feelings. I guess that all this has made my memory rather poor. I need memory in work though, but I probably just switch to a different shift to cope there -- and make plenty of notes.

I think that one reason for me forgetting a lot about my "life" is because I appreciate alone time more than time spent with other people. I have lots of introspective memories. It bothers me a little that I remember more about my solitary walks and nature trips than days I've spent with people.

xlostintranslationx wrote:
However, I think I have poor emotional memory. As in I can't remember how I felt before. Which makes sense. As there is a psychological barrier between me and my own emotions anyway. Bad 'emotional memory' can cause me to make bad decisions sometimes.

Sounds familiar, but it's not like I have totally forgotten every past emotion, because when an emotion stirs a former trauma in one way or another, it tends to stick to my memory. Hence most of my actual emotional memories about people, even those that have positive emotional content, have some kind of negative association. Moreover, certain positive emotions trigger traumatic emotions, but it's not like every single emotion is automatically either traumatic or forgotten, it's a mixed bag really...you never know what you get, if you get anything at all, which is usually the case.

Also, I do dissociate quite a lot. But it seems to lead more to vagueness about time and just being spaced out not to pay attention or think about certain things, rather than memory per se. I will forget appointments because I'm bad at time keeping as I'm always busy thinking about something else, and i have a poor concept of time (actually I think it's more that I'm optimistic about time keeping and choose not to pay attention but I think that's the same thing realistically as being bad at it, just maybe slightly different causes). For example, sometimes days merge into one and I can't remember what day I did something. It feels kinda like deja vu or something.

This too, my optimism about schedules is absolutely ridiculous .

Courtier wrote:I never remember dates or names. History was awful at school and I draw blanks on 'friends'' names even after 6-8 months of sitting next to them a couple of hours a day a few days a week and having conversation with them. I always remember faces and will generally retain a story after the first time hearing/reading/seeing it. I can describe characters and plots and people in a lot of detail but forget what they are called even after long exposure. It's a little strange. Maybe I don't pay much attention to that. A character on a show will say a main character's name 12 episodes in and I'll have already forgotten who that is and be a little confused about how exactly the storyline is going

Most of this applies to me too but I also forget faces. History was my least favourite subject in school, loads of uninteresting events that seemed completely random, meaningless wars and way too many people. Why is history in school mostly about wars and religion and economy and fallen empires anyway? Do they write it like a handbook for future dictators? If they focused more on inventions and science it would be easier to remember.

I forget plots of movies quickly, unless the plot is extremely simple or based on some well-known classical storyline. More than once I've watched a film or a TV show episode without realizing I've seen it before, until a random detail somewhere near the end rings a bell and it all comes back...well, at least sort of .

If there's something that works very well in me, that is my memory: I remember all my classmates' birthdays, from primary school to the college, often I refresh the memory of those who are around me about things concerning their past that they have removed, or (in)consciously biased. If I get a little exercise, I can also do multiplications between two three-figure numbers in my head in a short time (even though I always been extremely poor in math) and remember sequences of hundreds of numbers in a few minutes, though I had never payed a lot of attention on these abilities, and now they are slowly softening, but not completely fading. I wouldn't define me as nostalgic, I hate my childhood and adolescence and I'm happy that I've finally quitted them, but I spend a lot of time (mentally) in my past: when I face a given situation in the everyday life, I think about how I faced a similar situation in the past, how it went that time, how I can fix eventual mistakes I made previously, how I was that time. I can't make choices about my future without consulting all my past experiences, it's like a backward divination. I don't respect it every time, though.

Instead, I suck in exposing my arguments, even those in which I'm well prepared. I've absolutely no talkative skills and when I start a speech, often people around me start to talk each other after few seconds, like I was invisible. So, I don't talk if it isn't strictly necessary. I prefer to listen and internalize information.

All autobiographical memories are reconstructions (none of them are filed away in a cardboard box in your head) - which is how they differ from 'factual' memories, like telephone numbers (for which neuroscientists have recently identified the relevant micro boxes - although they haven't yet cracked the code that the filing system uses).
Because autobiographical memories are reconstructions they rely upon the brain keeping a good blueprint or schematic of the original event in one of those aforementioned filing boxes.
This blueprint is used to reconstruct the memory when we retrieve it.
The more often we retrieve the memory the more detailed the blueprint - and thus the opposite, the less often we call up a retrieval the fainter and less detailed the blueprint that we rely upon to reconstruct the memory.
Of course, being reconstructions we cannot really be sure that our memories accurately represent the past event, especially when the blueprint is damaged or incomplete - which is when the brain 'fills in' the missing parts with what it believes is likely to have happened, or becomes convinced did happen (ie: false memory syndrome).
The moral of this seems to be that if you want a good memory of your life, reflect upon it often so that your blueprints are clear and detailed.
Personally, I'm one of those unfortunates who forgot to do that, so my autobiographical memories are few and faint.

I think I have a very good memory. I'd say one step below the geniuses/prodigies. I'm quite good at trivia and was good at rote memorization in school. I also catch people in lies fairly frequently because they don't remember their backstory. I'm can also be quite vindictive and my memory helps me remember when I have to get back at people

Interesting point, UK SPD. I'll try to remember and experience my past more often to see what that does.

Courtier wrote:Interesting point, UK SPD. I'll try to remember and experience my past more often to see what that does.

As far as I know, it makes memories more vivid and detailed, but generally less accurate. Apparently, memories have a half-life, and recollection in itself is a reconstruction process.

In the past I've tried to preserve memories by writing about them; recording impressions and details, and incorporating factual memories to help fortify their retrieval. But it never works. I look at these pages and the information is there, but it's meaningless when I try to apply it to the memory in question. So I see the value in reflection for preserving memories. What I find interesting is that certain memories are harder to retrieve than others, and even more, some will present themselves out of nowhere, although I suspect there is a reason for this but I am unaware of all the triggers.

It has been well documented that smell is one of the strongest conduits we have to many old memories. I've certainly found this to be true. Additionally, for me, the weather has a lot to do with those memories that pop up out of nowhere, particularly during the changing of the seasons.

I've also read that as time goes on, our memories can become tainted by certain embellishments that may not necessarily be accurate, and that this is a normal process. We tailor our memories so that they may bring us more comfort (or anger or sadness) based on our changing lives. I'll frequently fondly reminisce about periods in my life, but when I read my journal entries from those times, all I see is misery.

I like to remember things my way...not necessarily the way they happened.
-Fred Madison, Lost Highway