After reading this thread (or was I re-reading it? Hmmm…), I’d have to say that if I was writing a novel, I’d leave the amnesia out. It sounds like no matter how realistic it’s done, people will roll their eyes and go “Not amnesia again!”
That said, I love Memento. And the beginning of “Biting The Moon” by Martha Grimes. But those are exceptions.
Evan Hunter (a/k/a Ed McBain) wrote a marvelous novel called Buddwing. Guy wakes up on a bench in Central Park with no memory of who he is, has lots of NYC adventures, and finally figures out his identity.
My ex FIL was in his late 50s when he started to forget things. Within a few years he had lost the ability to form new memories, and could not remember old friends that he only saw every once in a while.
(Going from memory here, I don’t recall a lot of the terminology - but at the time no doctors could figure out what it was) We were told at the time that he was having a series of mini strokes, but he did not have dementia. Because of the mini strokes his neurons had degenerated, so he was unable to create memories. At one point he was diagnosed with I believe OPCA - Olivopontocerebellar atrophy.
Reading up on it on wikipedia it sounds like what they described, but it doesn’t mention memory loss - unless the medical terminology is above my head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivopontocerebellar_atrophy
The last time I spoke to my ex in any civil manner she said they had found out what he had, he was being treated, and his memory was getting better.
I am not a memory expert, but I don’t think that the cerebellum, pons, or inferior olivary nucleus (damaged in OPCA) are areas associated with declarative memory, that is the kind that we can consciously express. Some parts are associated with implicit memory, which involves improvement on a task. Dementias like Alzheimer’s experience losses in the former, but minimal losses in the latter. Someone with severe anterograde amnesia can be given the same task every day like maze completion. They will profess no memory of doing the task, but will improve over time.
It’s a little off what I was writing, but do you have a source for this? I find it fascinating!
As for creating new memories, that’s actually something that gets addressed in the story, but for a completely different character. A lot of the info and opinions expressed here are helping to flesh all of that out, and I thank you all for it!
Lots of patients have been recorded doing this. The best example is probably HM. Scroll down to “Motor skill learning” section.
The two Roger Zelazny stories I read (Amber series and ‘Creatures of Light and Darkness’) were basically similar: it’s about a deadly being who lost his memory (and powers.) The amnesia plot in Amber was well-played, even in the later books. Not so well in Creatures.
Suppose I have Korsakoff’s for a year and am then treated with a healthy diet. Do I have amnesia about that year or false memories?
You probably have many lasting effects, and more than likely need ongoing care. That’s the big difference between real and Hollywood amnesia: real amnesia rarely happens by itself. Korsakoff’s patients are usually chronic alcoholics, and whatever recovery they make is minor compared with the damage done over many years.
When retrograde amnesia recovers (and I’m speaking generally here, not specifically Korsakoff’s) it tends to be the oldest memories that come back first - the ones furthest removed from the onset.
Eh? You may see some improvement, but by that time the damage is pretty much done. The amnesias mentioned before (HM but also KC and Clive Wearing) have had amnesia for decades without repair. Granted, the Korsakoff’s patients aren’t as famous, but they likely have the same outlook.
The confabulation involves some false memories, but is also them reconstructing memories based upon tenuous links. Like they may not remember events about being in the Vietnam War, but they know they were there, and so they recall killing Marlon Brando in Vietnam.
I came here to mention him!
ArrMatey!, look for a couple of documentaries on Clive Wearing on youtube (here’s the first part of the longest one). He’s considered to have the worst case of amnesia ever discovered, and the documentaries go into great detail as to what his daily life is now like.
The problem with the standard blunt-trauma induced amnesia is that it is too transparently a plot device. The victim conveniently develops plot-relevant gaps, rather than random ones. Why do they never forget a random day in fifth grade, say, rather than a murder they witnessed a few days ago? (Obviously, this is a little more justifiable if they got whacked on the head while witnessing the murder, but that has its own complications.)
If a specific period of memory has to be lost, it might be more plausible to have something happen that prevents the victim from forming retrievable memories during that period. There are drugs that do this to some degree. Atropine, if I understand what I’ve read correctly, sometimes “isolates” memories; it doesn’t seem to prevent them from forming, but it makes them difficult to retrieve. That seems like a very plot-convenient form of amnesia–memories of a specific period are present, but inaccessible, and might be reached with the right stimulus. As a bonus, it doesn’t necessarily involve any physical trauma (although many circumstances in which one might be dosed with atropine specifically are pretty traumatic).
Of course, you still have to figure out why the victim was drugged at the time…
The only amnesia plot that I’ve ever liked was where the main character hit her head, and instead of not knowing who she was, she took on the personality of her favorite fictional character. The movie is “American Dreamer” and it’s sort of a thriller satire/rom-com.
I say that if you can find any other way around having the character have amnesia, do it. It is way way overdone. People forget things all the time, and sometimes refuse to believe that they forgot. My ex did this all the time especially those things that might show him in a bad light; mind you, he was an asshole, so I wasn’t sure if he had really forgotten something or just trying to see if he could get away with denying it.
Wired Magazine had an article on the development of new drugs that can selectively erase memories. You don’t say how big of a chunk but if for a period of a few days maybe that would be the way to go, especially if the amnesia is not perfect like he remembers he went to the store but not what he bought there or he remembers seeing a movie but doesn’t remember actually going to the theater and he may have been on a date or was it just with a friend?
I thought thiamine therapy cured Korsakoff’s, at least in regards to forming new memories.
A childhood friend of mine was struck by lighting. (He was camping on a moutain in a storm. Lying in wet sleeping bag next to tree, tree got hit. He got some of the blast.)
He immediately was unconscious. When he came to, he didn’t know where he was and didn’t remember several days leading up to the event. IIRC eventually he recalled everything, on the order of a couple days. Not sure the time frame.
I wasn’t present when this happened, so everything I have is second/thirdhand. But I did see the burn scars.
Thanks for this explanation.
*Who am I?
Who am I? Why do they want to kill me? Can’t remember anything… 'cept two words:* “Coronet Blue”…