It seems that historically (in real life) most of the people claiming this are eventually proven to be con men, or simply mentally ill. Does this “past is a blank slate” style amnesia really exist outside of Hollywood, scamsters and mentally ill people?
I don’t know why you excluded “menatlly ill” people from this. If this disorder is real, then it certainly qualifies as being mentally ill too. I am not convinved that it is real but there is a condition known as a psychogenic fugue in which people completely forget their past life and start a new one.
I think the OP is excluding mentally ill people because he’s talking about anmesia brought about by traumatic injury, such as the cliche blow to the head that brings about “Hollywood amnesia.”
I don’t understand why the OP excludes those with mental illness. I’m not sure where the first statement, "most of the people claiming this are eventually proven to be con men, or simply mentally ill", comes from.
I think the exclusion of mentally ill people is simply that…excluding that group to ask if total amnesia exists in otherwise mentally healthy people that have no stake in amnesia as some type of con, legal defense, etc…
That still doesn’t make sense. That suggests that mental illness doesn’t exist. If amnesia caused by mental illness exists, it’s perfectly possible for it to occur in ‘otherwise mentally-healthy people’. I don’t know if it exists, just saying that the OP has set up a problematic situation.
Now you have me confused.
Are you saying that (Total amnesia = mental illness) therefore it cannot be excluded from the question?
If not why does excluding a particular group from the “sample” question it’s existence rather then just exclude it from the test group?
John F
Having actually had a traumatic brain injury (TBI), my brain was bruised to the point where my heart stopped and I had to be on a respirator for some time, I feel qualified to answer this question. No, there is no blank slate style of amnesia. You do forget a lot of your life, though. For the first three years of my recovery I had very little knowledge of my life before I hit my head. As I recovered my memory a good many things I remember are things that people reminded of and I saw many things that seemed familiar but were new all over again, this was sometimes fun and sometimes distressing. For instance, there was this nice woman that would come and visit every few weeks and she would tell me that she was my mother, one day about six months after my TBI I came to the shocking realization that she really was my mother. The first few years after my TBI I was prone to delusion and today a good deal of what I remember about my life may be things my mind has made up. Generally, if I cannot reconcile a memory with someone that was there, also, or have some kind of hard evidence, I accept that the memory may not be real.
The most profound observation I have about amnesia is this: For me, a lot of the really good things are hard to remember, but all of the bad things, the stuff that you really regret doing throughout your life, STAND UP IN THE FRONT ROW AND WAVE AT YOU, so to speak. :eek:
One more thing, recovering from brain damage has been a most exciting adventure!!! 
Cecil’s column on the subject: Can you get amnesia from a blow to the head?
I should have been more clear. I do mean more brain injury related amnesia. I was thinking of people like the “mystery pianist” in the news a few months ago who did have a history of metal illness, but wasn’t really amnesiac.
Ah, OK. But nothing in the (reliable) reports about the piano man suggest he didn’t suffer from amnesia, only that it wasn’t permanent.
It didn’t happen to you, so it can’t happen to anyone? That doesn’t make sense.
Touche’, I stand corrected. :smack:
A friend of mine in college ran full force into a tree in a Chevette. For a week following the accident she had no idea who she was, who anyone else was - no social contact memories at all. She knew how to talk and how to read and write, and feed herself, etc. After a week she started recognizing family members, but thought her father was still alive. It was awful because she had to go through the emotional trauma of losing her father all over again. Within about 5 weeks her memory was pretty much back to normal, except she didn’t remember the 24 hours preceding the accident.
When I was 8 a pal came over to play. We went to the local playground, which had one of those steel tubing stagecoach-shaped jungle gyms to play on. We were both hanging from our knees/legs upside down and he dropped. About 5 or 6 feet. And he landed squarely on the top of his skull. With a sound I’ve not forgotten and it was 35 years ago.
He was out for what was probably only 1-2 minutes. ( An eternity to me ). He did not know me. He did not know his parents when they got to my house to get him. In the ensuing months he recovered some of his past memories but not all of it. Some chunks were lost. This was around 1970 and the ability to scan the brain with care and accuracy for damage and swelling and whatnot did not exist at that time. ( the C.A.T. Scan was invented in 1975. )
When he and I stopped seeing eachother, he had no clue who I was. It was completely heartbreaking. I’ve no clue how he turned out as an adult.
Cartooniverse
A good friend of my sister had some sort of head injury in the middle of last year, and lost everything of the previous five years, basically sixth throught eleventh grades. She remained pretty functional, and came back to school after a couple of weeks, but didn’t actually remember anything about the school she was going to or the people in her classes. I don’t think she remembers most of the lost stuff now, about eight months later.