On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being photographic memory and 1 being senile, what would you rate your memory?
Compared to the people around me, I would rate myself a 9. I seem to remember things that happened 3-5 years ago with great accuracy. On the flip side, people around me can barely remember what happened 3-6 months ago.
I would say a 9 as well. I can remember in vivid detail the house I lived in from birth to age 3. And have never been back in it nor are there many photos taken in the house. While I don’t have a photographic memory in the sense that some people do, It’s pretty close.
I’m like a 2 for dates, names and personal history. I forget things almost everyone seems to remember, for example: the where/when/who of my first kiss. No idea. Or where/when I first met my husband. I have a vague idea, but I couldn’t pin it down. Etc.
However I have a strong visual/spatial memory, and can specifically recall the layouts of places. For example, I easily found the bathroom in the Venice, Italy train station from memory, after having been there once on a layover, 7 years previously.
I used to have an astounding memory. Either age or illness or both have degraded it such that I now don’t trust it’s accuracy.
It’s wildly different depending on the thing being remembered.
Directions to places or where I got a part for my job, tasks I’ve done before, like mixing a certain color, 9.
Facts and trivia, about a 9.
Events in my life, maybe 7. For example, I don’t give a rip about NASCAR, but I remember exactly where I was when I heard Dale Sr died.
People in movies, 7.
For names of people that I meet, about a 2.
Although all of my memory is getting progressively worse the older I get.
I wouldn’t either. 
Mine is definitely diminishing with age, but I’d still give myself a 7 or 8.
Er… what was the question?
Actually, I’m probably a 9. I can remember some astounding things. Sometimes I pull something out of my ass and people look at me like I’m some kind of freak and ask, “How the hell do you remember that?” It’s usually because I read it, and things that I read really stick with me.
I’m probably a 3 all around.
Pretty average. Good for some things, bad for others, and no real pattern to what sticks and doesn’t.
Lets see:
One hen
Two ducks
Three squawking geese
Four limmerick oysters
Five corpulent porpoises
Six pairs of Don Alversos tweezers
Seven Mastodonian warriors in full battle array on their way to a picnic
Eight brass monkeys from the sacred ancient crypts of Egypt
Nine lyrical spherical denizens of the deep ??
I’m trying to remember this from the 1970s. Okay, not so good, maybe a 5.
At work I’m the one everyone asks when they want to know the name of a movie or an actor, even though it may take me 10 minutes to remember.
Like Paintcharge it varies wildly depending on subject but overall I’d say it’s probably fairly low, like a conservative 4-5. The cutoff point seems to be about a decade. Further than that things tend to get more than a bit hazy and unreliable.
Yep. Things I’ve read and random trivia, at least an 8. Events in my own life…well, I usually remember that things happened, but pinpointing when they happened or in what sequence? 3, maybe a 4.
Trivia - 9.8
Names - .03
Ever listen to a song you haven’t heard in 20 years and are able to sing along with all the lyrics? What’s that all about?
Trivial stuff, about a 9.
Past events, birthdays, things people told me, what I had for lunch 2 days ago, about a 3.
I’m gonna say a 6. Adequate or a little better, but hardly outstanding.
Yeah, I didn’t think about different types of things to remember. I’m really good at names, faces, movie titles, book authors, etc., usually after I’ve read about them. For numbers, I’m usually within 10%. Usually, in terms of movie or novel plots, I can give a pretty accurate summary, maybe 60-80%. However, the other night when I re-watched As Good as It Gets, I was rather surprised that I only remembered like 20% of the film. However, I’m terrible at phone numbers, addresses, and songs.
Weird technical shit or life events that I loved? 10.
Chronological events? 9.5.
Names? 0.
I guess that’s pretty common.
Depends.
Mundane stuff like what my wife was wearing on our first date (pink sweater, we went to Mazzio’s Pizza for lunch), trivia that might come up on Jeopardy! (the smallest state (geographically) west of the Mississippi is Hawaii), or similar stuff: 9.5.
Names: .75. I’ve been working in a building with ~50 people for going on six months. I can only tell you about a third of their names.
I think it depends how important something felt at the time whether I place it into long-term storage or not. I am familiar with the flashbulb memory psychological phenomenon, and I think this represents my memory fairly well. I remember the exact layout of my classroom, where I was sitting, and my teacher’s name from the day of September 11th. But there are great swaths of my childhood (months or years at a time) that were “just OK” and not worthy of storing anything about. It doesn’t necessarily seem to be related to how long ago it happened. I can vividly recall doing counting contests in first grade, losing my first tooth, and getting berated by my fourth grade teacher. But I remember almost nothing of 3rd grade at all except the name of my teacher. It just wasn’t a very noteworthy time of my life.
I can’t really give an overall rating. The important things that I remember, I remember near-photographically and practically verbatim (so 9). The things I don’t, 0.