Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Strange Memory

Unlike the title might suggest this isn’t a posting about some strange memory I’ve been having. Suffice it to say, I have more than my fair share of those, but this is about the act of having a memory that could be characterized as being strange.

The other day my M and I were discussing memory and how she feels her memory is somehow faulty or deficient. While she has memories of different people and events throughout her life, she, and this is her perception, doesn’t feel like she has very detailed memories of those people or events.

I, on the other hand, feel like my memory is oddly detailed. I can recall all manner of details about different places and things that we have been to, or done over the last 17 years that M either has no memory of, or remembers without much detail. However, I’m forced to wonder if I truly have a really detailed memory, or if subconsciously I’m fabricating these details in order to create memories that make sense? Who knows?

What M does have, that I’m extremely jealous of, is a fantastic short-term memory. Thanks to a closed head injury, which I first told you about here, my short-term memory is the pits! If I meet someone and hear his or her name, but don’t use it right away, it’s gone in a matter of seconds. M, on the other hand, can hear a name one time and remember it forever…or so it seems.

If given a choice, I would take M’s fantastic short-term memory over my bizarrely detailed memory any day of the week, but I guess that’s not possible.

So this leaves me with one question:

Who has the strange memory?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'll test that long term memory for you. What was our writing utensil of choice in Seminary before the accident?

I still use it today.

Tracy W.