Today in Digg I came upon this article for The Daily Telegraph.
This story specially caught my eye given that it reminds me of a tale “Funes or Memory” by one of my favorite authors Jorge Luis Borges. In the story you have the exact same plot : of a man that can remember absolutely everything. Once more the lines between fiction and reality are blurred.
“Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life since she was 14 but considers her ability a curse as she cannot switch off.
She described her life as like a split-screen television, with one side showing what she is doing in the present, and the other showing the memories which she cannot hold back.
Every detail about every day since 1980 - what time she got up, who she met, what she did, even what she ate - is locked in her brain and can be released to come flooding back by common triggers like songs, smells or place names.”
To read the full article, please go here.
“Funes, the Memorious”.
I prefer that “Funes” one… :)
This man is so incredible.
Of course, memory contains all.
Yesterday, when I was watching the meeting in Aviles (I hope it is recorded, for those who did not see), I first had problems to understand. But I told to myself that I learned spanish at school, for three years. So, that I just had to be confident with my memory.
Moreover, I'm convinced we could learn a language very fastly. As languages are like mathematics. And they look like so similar in a way.
Then I had some difficulties because of articulation. But this disappeared too very fast.
Since, I have been disturbed at the end, and couldn't hear.
I'm happy to know a man like Ireneo exists. I know living could say he's dead, but I know he's not.
Gratefully
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Hmm.. what an interesting case..
I, too, remember a lot of things.. One of them is conversations from word to word. It’s kinda unfair to my boyfriend cos I can use what he has said against him and he doesn’t even remember we’ve had such a conversation in the first place.
Or maybe it’s unfair to me. If I’d forget too, I would not have to hold anything against him.
:) Awww.. just noticed that little smiley face on the bottom of this page.
Anyway… Maybe one aid for remembering is that most of these things that I remember, I have also written down to my diary. Maybe I sealed the memory once I put it down to paper in my own words. In fact, according to Roland Barthes, the way we make sense of things is by verbalizing what we experience. We have to verbalize things in our head to understand and remember them. That would also explain why we don’t generally remember much, if anything, from before we learned to speak.
I wonder if she’s tried self hypnosis, meditation or some other means of relaxing and letting go of her mind… especially before going to bed.
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If you have only happy things to remember is ok.I think is not the case.The best part are that we witnesses that man could have qualities superior to those common.On the other hand,how can one live in present and still in past?Are the boundaries of the time broken in some way?
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Thank you, Paulo, because you always post interesting things like this one :) A woman who can’t forget… by reading the entire article, I discovered that she wrote also a book in which she describes her experience. I must absolutely read it!
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I wish I could just remember … remember what made me who I am today …. Memories are a blessing and they should never be seen as anything but a blessing …. What would we do if we just cant have memories?
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Alot of people have this ability to remember everything ,I have worked with people who are very similar to the Rain Man movie where they remember singers -dates -years -numbers and so forth ..I find though the more I try to remember, the more I forget these days . Like this thing I read the other day which made me laugh -Why 50 year old women do not have babies anymore as they forget where they put the down.
A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills… she has 14 kids but doesn’t really care.
One of life’s mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.
My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.
The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.
The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you are doing, someone else does.
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.
Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.
Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.
I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my knicker’s.
Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!
Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like…’You know sometimes I forget to eat!’ …..Now I’ve forgotten my address, my mother’s maiden name and my keys, but I have never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!
I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are they kidding? That’s my idea of a perfect day!
Blessings Tania
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What a curse!
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I believe everything we experience is stored in our memory - unless you were on drugs at that moment and were blacked out. The thing is we don’t have access to all those memories all the time. We need triggers for a lot of the memories. But its there.
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“Funes, the Memorious”.
I prefer that “Funes” one… :)
This man is so incredible.
Of course, memory contains all.
Yesterday, when I was watching the meeting in Aviles (I hope it is recorded, for those who did not see), I first had problems to understand. But I told to myself that I learned spanish at school, for three years. So, that I just had to be confident with my memory.
Moreover, I’m convinced we could learn a language very fastly. As languages are like mathematics. And they look like so similar in a way.
Then I had some difficulties because of articulation. But this disappeared too very fast.
Since, I have been disturbed at the end, and couldn’t hear.
I’m happy to know a man like Ireneo exists. I know living could say he’s dead, but I know he’s not.
Gratefully
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Yes I tend to agree with ….um what is her name again? ;)
Well a little more memory wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I certainly wouldn’t want to remember some things in such detail. I tend to remember things that made me very sad, very happy, very angry and I never forget a face.
Perhaps Paulo could teach Jill Price how to see this as a blessing and not a torture..? If she knew she was putting this ability to good use, perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to bear? I wish her a speedy solution anyway.
Love, and pleasant memories, Paul
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“The first thing would be maybe to take it as a gift, rather than a salvation”.
I meant “enslavement” instead of “salvation”. :)
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The same for me…
It’s crazy about! As a continuum? Gee!
I imagine: we are all gifted of reminiscence. A place, a smile, a sky could put us to the past to let emerge something that was hidden for years.
But gee! What if I could tell, eating spinach, that the 25th of june in 1981, I was eaten some (maybe lol!), and contrary to my brothers I liked it so much.
I thought we all could remind our whole life. This is not a brake for me, and sometimes I use the invisible plane to go back. Other times, indeed, a thing could bring me too suddendly. But before 8, it’s just a blackhole.
I also consider my past as present. Indeed, it’s always here, as an immortal canvass. But I’m not the slave of it, as this woman seems to be.
Yet, it shows us our brain is acting in different ways.
“He said MRI scans indicated their brains were a slightly different shape to normal.”
To my mind, no scientists could talk about a “normal” brain. There are not.
Signals are maybe modeling our brain, regarding to what we learn and have to. In constant evolution.
That woman has something to understand from it, and she tried to, going and seeking for help. The first thing would be maybe to take it as a gift, rather than a salvation.
Though I could understand, it mustn’t be easy, whether she lives it everyday.
I’m curious to know about her slumber, that I hope restful…
Love.
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I’m not sure that I would want that..some things are better left forgotten.
love
Agnieszka
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