# Reliving past memories as if they're happening now or just happened yesterday **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129 "2012-01-20T14:21:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/1 "2012-01-20T14:21:48Z")
I read somewhere (maybe on this board) of a woman somewhere who has a condition where she can’t get rid of short term memories, and keeps remembering events of ten or twenty years ago as if they were yesterday. Apparently it was interfering with her day to day life quite a bit. Can’t find a link, though, sorry. Thinking about that brought to mind a question: could such a phenomenon be induced somehow, through drugs, meditation, yoga practice or something else? Better yet, with some future technology or drug, could one relive a past event as if it were happening now? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/2 "2012-01-20T15:47:18Z")
Did you maybe read Oliver Sack’s “[The man who mistook his wife for a hat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat)”, where he describes neurological disorders? > [@](#): > > “The Lost Mariner,” about Jimmie G., who has lost the ability to form new memories due to Korsakoff’s syndrome. He can remember nothing of his life since the end of World War II, including events that happened only a few minutes ago. He believes it is still 1945 (in the late 70s and early 80s), and seems to behave as a normal, intelligent young man aside from his inability to remember most of his past and the events of his day-to-day life. He struggles to find meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in the midst of constantly forgetting what he is doing from one moment to the next. While this is a man, not a woman, it gives one possibly type of disease: [Korsakoffs syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff%27s_syndrome). The general problem of “not creating new memories” is called [anterograde amnesia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia) and can have many causes. > [@](#): > > Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. > [@](#): > > This disorder is usually acquired in one of few ways: One type of cause is from agents like benzodiazepines, such as midazolam, flunitrazepam, lorazepam, temazepam, clonazepam, triazolam, and nimetazepam, which are known to have powerful amnesic effects.[1] ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/3 "2012-01-20T15:57:08Z")
No, this was more like a recent news story, and I’m sure it was a woman. And I don’t think she had difficulty forming new memories – its just that they stood alongside equally fresh memories that were formed ten years before. ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/4 "2012-01-21T03:08:41Z")
“[Superior autobiographical memory](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20026088-10391709.html).” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/5 "2012-01-21T03:30:31Z")
I went through a period of about a year in my life where this kept happening to me. I knew the memories were long ago, but about once a week would just pop into my head with absolute vividness. Random stuff too - nothing significant at all, something like driving down a street on my way somewhere, standing in a store looking for something. Very weird. Then it stopped happening. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/6 "2012-01-21T04:00:45Z")
Many times, a syndrome occurs that is a normal characteristic of the psyche which has gone outside its controlling boundaries… For example, a tendency to make certain all the locks are locked, leaving home and fearing they weren’t all locked and returning to the house to make certain they are. If you did this all the time, you would have OCD. You drive down the street, and you are not “running dirty” and yet when you see a LEO, your heart-rate increases, your mouth goes dry and your palms start to sweat. If you did this all the time, you would be diagnosed as paranoid. If you are looking for your keys and say out loud to yourself, “Where the heck did I put those keys?” Well, if you talked to yourself all of the time, then you would probably be diagnosed as suffering from dissociative disorder. Most of all mental disorders are intensifications of the normal complex workings of our minds. This is probably one of reasons why people are weirded out or just plain scared by folks who are mentally ill. We see ourselves in their ailments. I have seen this from both sides now, and honestly, we are a frail lot in many ways. The human mind has remarkable functionality but the canyons and arroyos of the cerebral cortex have yet to be surveyed in any coherent manner. Perhaps, in this magically advanced century we may yet produce a logical model of the human mind. Delve into the component subprocessing units that give us our sense of personal continuity. Figure out a way of tuning our individual minds to make us better people. Or, else, find a way to completely subvert other people’s wills in a manner that leaves them completely willing to follow the commands of their ‘leader’ (Oh, and yes, if you do this you are probably going to be diagnosed with ‘narcissistic personality disorder’) heh heh heh Which leads us back to the beginning. … Yeah, I have had that happen to me. What about it? … punk. \ \ ‘Tough Guy’ realizes he isn’t armed… blanches, then flees into nearby woods. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/7 "2012-01-21T04:09:32Z")
I don’t think most people are scared of individuals with the common neuroses you’re talking about. It’s psychopathy that’s scary. And psychosis (almost by definition, IIRC) is _not_ an “intensification of normal processes.” ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reliving-past-memories-as-if-theyre-happening-now-or-just-happened-yesterday/610129/8 "2012-01-21T04:14:03Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I don’t think most people are scared of individuals with the common neuroses you’re talking about. It’s psychopathy that’s scary. And psychosis (almost by definition, IIRC) is _not_ an “intensification of normal processes.” Oh yes, I agree. I WAS just talking about neuroses. Except, perhaps, the last example. Thank you replying to my post. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever reads what I write.