Posted on 05/10/2008 11:27:17 PM PDT by Arec Barrwin
The woman who can remember everything Last updated: 10:15 AM BST 09/05/2008
A woman who has baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day has broken her anonymity to speak of her condition.
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.
Mrs Price, a widow who is a school administrator, sometimes struggles to sleep because the vivid memories crowd her mind and stop her relaxing.
Her condition is so rare that scientists had to coin a term for her condition - hyperthymestic syndrome from the Greek thymesis, for remembering, and hyper, meaning well above normal.
For years she remained anonymous, referred to only by initials in scientific journals while experts at the University of California-Irvine tested her ability.
Mrs Price said her memory started working overtime after her family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight and from the time she was 14, in 1980, she can remember absolutely everything.
Neuroscientists say a trauma such as moving the family home can trigger major, lingering changes in the brain, especially in children who cling to memories of how their life had been. Mrs Price said: "Some memories are good and give me a warm, safe feeling.
"But I also recall every bad decision, insult and excruciating embarrassment. Over the years it has eaten me up. It has kind of paralysed me."
Mrs Price was so worried by her condition that in 2000 she asked neuroscientist Professor James McGaugh, a world expert on memory, what was wrong. She wrote to him: "My memory is too strong. It's like a running movie that never stops.
"Most have called it a gift. But I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!"
Professor McGaugh spoke to her and was astonished.
He said: "You could give her a date picked at random from years ago and within seconds she'd tell you what day of the week it was, and not only what she did but other key events of the day."
From the age of 10 until she was 34, Mrs Price kept a daily diary, which allowed scientists to check events as she remembered them now against what she wrote down at the time.
Mrs Price, who has written a book called The Woman Who Can't Forget, blames her vivid memories for many years of depression.
Professor McGaugh has since discovered five other adults with similar powers and 50 more "possibles".
He said MRI scans indicated their brains were a slightly different shape to normal.
Two other patterns have emerged. Mrs Price and three of the other five are left-handed and they all compulsively collect things like TV guides, old films and theatre programmes.
Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/1940420/The-woman-who-can-remember-everything.html
I read the article. What was it about again?
Somewhere she has a twin whose brain is like Jell-0 and can’t remember anything except sniper fire in Bosnia....
Does she know about Blackjack?
I wonder if she remembers everything she reads or hears? That could be useful I guess.
All 57?
Good thing she never worked for the Clintons.
Ha ha. No kidding. I saw something on the local news about a man who had the same type of memory. He didn’t seem to think it was beneficial. Give me that memory, I’ll find a way to make it profitable!
Vegas.
All women permanently remember all of your mistakes. Maybe she'll remember the good things you've done too.
Vegas is not card-counter friendly.
They don’t appreciate people who can actually beat them.
There’s that famous guy with autism, that can remember everything he has read and if you give him a date he can tell you what the weather was like and what day of week it was on. I think the movie Rain Man was loosely based on him.
I realize memories aren’t transmitted to offspring, but it’s fun to imagine that.......
If Jon Cary were to mate with this Jill Price, would the child have false memories or true memories “seared, seared” into a running movie of life? Would “Christmas in Cambodia” be intermingled with true memories or false memories?
Actually, maybe Jon Cary should have mated with Hillary, and then Chelsea’s sibling would have seared memories of sniper fire in Cambodia at Christmastime......
Why are you misspelling his name? It’s John Kerry.
“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but my faculties are decaying, now, & soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the latter. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”
—Mark Twain
Guess you missed the little brouhaha in the ‘06 campaign, when Kerry made a derisive statement about students needing to stay in school and pursue their education so that they would not get “stuck in Iraq” — this led to the famous banner made by actual troops in Iraq, mocking Jon Carry’s contempt for them:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1730616/posts
You can see the banner near the beginning of that thread.
Yeah, I am going to go there. The reason why she is a fairly young widow is her husband couldnt catch a break anywhere. SHE REMEMBErS EVERYthing and spouts it back to him, like “NO YOU WORE BROWN SHOES THAT DAY” “WeLL I remember when you were talking to that hussy 10 years ago.” ect....
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