"Marilu Henner, can remember every single day of her life since she was 12 years old in 1964. She can recall almost every day back to age seven. In her earliest memories, she’s still a baby.
For decades Henner—nicknamed the Memory Kid and Univac, after an early computer—sought the perfect analogy to explain her baffling memory. “You know how a card catalog works?” she used to say. When VHS tapes became commonplace, she talked about a tape that she could cue. Then the DVD was invented, and she had the perfect metaphor: her brain had a scene selection function.
When she thinks of a certain year—say, 1976—the major dates come in first. “I see, oh yeah, Christmas was on a Saturday. My birthday was on a Tuesday. And it just starts filling in, filling in, filling in,” she says. “Simultaneous little videos are playing next to each other, all these 365 days—well, that year, 366. Some of them are a little dark and haven’t come in fully yet, but if I sat here for like 15 minutes, I could do every day of 1976.”
I can tell you what I had for lunch.
ReplyDeleteNope, I've got some days in the Navy and in college that no cute parlor trick is going to bring back. The little ones and zeros are simply obliterated.
ReplyDeleteI have met only two people with this ability, or at least who would admit to it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was a genetic mutation caused by post-war radioactivity, much like Godzilla?
In the 1970s we needed to dig a trial pit before starting work at a new road junction and I had instructed the contractor to notify me when they were starting so that I could be there to document the various public services.
Later that morning I was annoyed to hear the Clerk of Works detailing such services in great detail and asked when the work had been done.
I was then amazed to find that the pit had not been excavated yet, but the COW had been passing when services were being laid in 1935! He was out walking his dog and had just glanced into the trench on his way past and could still recall where the pipes/ cables were and their depths below ground.
We needed a small washer to repair a measuring tape and he not only supplied one but could tell when (again pre-WWII), where and why he had bought them and how much he paid! It was a packet of 5 and could say exactly what he had used the others for.
Thought it was an act at first but soon found out that he could recall the most trivial events with great detail.
She also has a nice rack.
ReplyDeleteShe also has a nice rack.
ReplyDeleteShe also has a nice rack.
ReplyDeleteThen you have people like me, what did I come in this room for?
ReplyDeleteMind boggling.
ReplyDelete