Have you ever complained about your “leaky” memory and even thought about taking some vitamins to improve it? Rebecca Sharrock is a stranger to such problems: she is one of the few people with a phenomenal autobiographical memory. But it turns out that in order to thoroughly remember all your life, there are a lot of minuses.
Every morning since January 2004, Rebecca Sharrock crosses out a new day on her calendar. Like many of us, the 31-year-old woman strives to separate days among themselves, preventing them from merging into a single mass. But unlike most, Sharrock can remember exactly what happened every day of his life — even 5, 10 or 15 years ago.
What day of the week was, say, July 21, 2007? It was Saturday, Sharrock replies without a shadow of a doubt. As a teenager, she loved the Harry Potter saga, and that day her stepfather went to the bookstore to buy her a volume of the newly published Deathly Hallows.
But on October 22, 2003, when Sharrock was 13, she went to a vocal master class, and on the same day, according to her recollections, the new US President George W. Bush arrived in Australia, where she lives, for the first time. The girl’s mother watched the news broadcast about it that day, and although this information meant nothing to Sharrock, she remembered the fact well.
The girl did not even suspect that she was somehow different from others, until one day (more precisely, on January 23, 2011), her parents showed her a story about people with an amazing ability to remember their own lives in great detail.
Hyperthymesia is rare
According to Professor Craig Stark, a neuroscientist and behavioral researcher at the University of California, there are very few like Sharrock.
Scientists know only 60 cases of hyperthymesia (that very exceptional autobiographical memory) among living people
In numerous studies, Stark and his colleagues asked subjects to remember in as much detail as possible one day last week, then one day a year ago, and, say, ten years ago. Subjects with hyperthymesia were much better at remembering events that happened to them personally, as well as what happened in the world as a whole, including days of the week and dates.
“Of course, even these people don’t remember absolutely everything,” Stark explains. “They tend to forget too, but compared to everyone else, they remember much, much more. They don’t perform particularly well on routine memory tests in the lab, but their episodic memory is excellent.»
In a cross?
For the first time, hyperthymesia, or hyperthymestic syndrome, was identified as a separate condition in 2006, after American Jill Price contacted Stark’s colleague. “When I see this or that date on the news or somewhere else, I immediately mentally transport myself to that day and remember where I was, what I did and felt,” Price wrote. — Many would say that this is a gift, but for me it is a heavy cross. Every day I replay my whole life in my head, and it drives me crazy!”
Stark says that many of his patients with hyperthymesia describe their condition in a similar way: they mentally go back to different days of their lives and check themselves to see if they remember what happened to them correctly.
“Many people say: once in my childhood I forgot something (a), it was terrible, and I don’t want to repeat this experience”
Some have to structure their lives using calendars, out of fear that all the past days will one day merge into one endless canvas. It sounds illogical, but here’s an example for you: you probably happened to hear a story with your participation from a friend and catch yourself thinking that you don’t remember anything. How did you feel about it? Most likely, at best, uncomfortable, at worst, as if you are a little crazy. People with hyperthymesia feel the same way, realizing that they forgot at least one day.
As for the causes of this condition, Stark and his colleagues carefully studied the brains of people with hyperthymestic syndrome, but did not find significant differences in the structures responsible for memory — the hippocampus and amygdala.
At the same time, the scientist notes that people with hyperthymesia often have obsessive-compulsive traits.
From the outside, such a feature may seem like a superpower: for example, Sharrock’s mother regularly checks with her daughter when this or that household appliance was bought at home in order to understand whether the warranty is still valid. But the cons are no less than the pros. “In order to fall asleep, I need to be distracted by lights and / or sounds — when I am in silence, my brain is flooded with memories, and I can’t turn off,” admits a woman who has also been diagnosed with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), anxiety and autism.
She also complains about not being able to forget negative events. “When I remember something bad, the emotions come back. It’s a shame to hear from people that I myself am “stuck” in the past and “do not let go” of these memories — as if I like to cook in all this negativity! Few people can understand what people like me go through and realize that there is practically no cure for this.
In a word, everything is known in comparison. So the next time you complain about your bad memory, remember Rebecca Sharrock: a woman would be glad to be in your place, but nature intended otherwise.
Three books on memory training
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