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Rebecca Sharrock, one of the only people in the world with Hyperthymesia She can remember virtually every single day of her life in vivid detail, including being in her crib at just 12 days old. (europe.pub)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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[–] 117 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Sounds like a fucking nightmare

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    It also sounds like it's going to get tragic with age. The brain is finite in its capabilities, and memory pruning is something that happens automatically, she won't get to choose what she forgets...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    i don't think this is even remotely true whatsoever, there are people who have lived their entire lives with like 10% brain mass and barely noticed a difference.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    I'm not a neurologist, I'm not going to make any grand claims with absolute certainty.

    But, from what I've heard from scientists, the brain does do a sort of passive pruning, memories (or at least the neural pathways and patterns that represent those memories) are left to disconnect if they go unused/unaccessed for long enough. And conversely, when neural pathways are used more often, those synaptic connections are reinforced. And when those synaptic connections no longer exist, that's data loss (forgetting).

    To be clear, I think there's a lot about memory that is still not well understood, and my description is simplified and I certainly may have remembered some parts wrong, but from what I've read and been told about how the brain works, that's the gist of it.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah that's where my head went too. I've dealt with a pretty middle-of-the-road amount of hardship... wasn't born with a silver spoon up my ass or anything, but no Hollywood-esque trauma arch either. Still, looking back over even just the past decade, there's a lot more bad than good popping into my brain.

    And the cool part? I already can't recall details from a lot of that shit. Just fuzzy concepts that my brain has filed into the fuck-it box and now I don't have to worry about them cuz I'm literally incapable! Woohoo!

    Being fully conscious of all that, all the time... that would absolutely destroy my mental health. Fuck that!

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah. Remembering when a loved one died as vividly as if it happened yesterday.... For decades. No thank you.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    There was a House (I think) episode with this and the character was fighting with her sister bc of some old fight and the sister wanted to make up but she couldn't since the fight was still as fresh in her mind as if it'd literally just happened.

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