I have an amazing memory for trivia, for things I’ve read or heard, and for things that disturbed me.
On the other hand, I forget people, things that I’ve done, and often seem to “remember” things that didn’t happen to me. Online, this tendency is exacerbated.
Basically, if I’ve experience it, I forget it. If I learn it, I remember. The exception to this rule is languages. I can learn languages extremely easily, and I lose them just as quickly.
I hate my memory. Why can I rattle off the dates of pharaohs but can’t remember my grandparents’ faces?
What is your memory like? Has it changed through your life? Have you ever tried to consciously change what or how you remember? Did it work?
My sister and I both have very detailed memories of trivia from our childhoods. The earliest memory that I have that I can put a date on is from when I was 25 months old. It was the day WWII was over. I remember not only what was going on, but what I was thinking. I remember at least five other things that happened while I was two and a half and on a trip to Mexico. Again, I remember what I was thinking.
Generally, my ability to remember events continued through high school. In 1963 I had two or three rounds of electro-shock treatments and that has affected my ability to remember much of anything from 1961-1967. I remember bits and pieces, but not always when or in the right order. Depression itself has also affected my memory. And medication too.
Now I have short-term memory problems in addition to some long term problems. I don’t know what all contributes to it – age, medicine, stagnation and all that I have experienced before. It has its advantages. I can order something from a catalog and forget about it. When a package arrives in the mail, I know it’s something I will like! I will tape movies and keep the ones I like. If I see a title I’ve kept, and I don’t remember it, I know I’m in for a treat!
I don’t remember how I found the SDMB or how I chose my user name. My real name is ZogTech3Byte.
I am what I describe as a “font of useless knowledge.” Today, a now-retired coworker said to me, “Do you remember when I asked you what a palindrome was? You came up with a great example.” (This would have been a year or so ago.)
I quickly replied, “A man, a plan, a canal – Panama.”
He said, “That’s not the example you gave me before.”
I have no recollection at all of the initial conversation to which he referred, and I didn’t come up with the same example this time!
My husband regularly says, “Do you remember the time when…” and I don’t.
I don’t remember names of people to whom I’ve been introduced, but I can see an eBay user name and remember that the person bought something from me several months ago.
And, of course, I’m blindsided daily by deadlines I’ve forgotten about, etc.
I am basically the same as you jsgoddess. I can remember trivia and academic stuff very easily but I can easily forget someone that I have met a dozen times. To me, it comes down to what my brain is tuned into. When I walk around or drive, I always have a rushing dialogue of thoughts running in my head and I don’t pay much attention to the outside world. You could probably ask me about major things along my commute that I take to work everyday and I wouldn’t have a clue about most of them. Likewise, I have been going to the same, rather small church for 4 years. We sometimes have fundraisers and gatherings and I am lucky to know 10 people’s names aside from the few that have come into our lives in some way. The same is true with work and my daughter’s daycare that she has been going to for 4 years. It is embarrassing at times and I really need to devote more attention to it. I just tune all these people out. OTOH, I can easily recall things that happened from say, age 3, or in elementary school with no problem. I can also do well on short-term memory tests as long as I try.
I remember incidents more easily than I remember trivia. I can’t always associate dates with my memories, but I can place it within a few-month time period.
Remembering incidents is sometimes useful. My sister was talking about a childhood memory the other day (I don’t remember regarding what). I was able to interject and give details on when she’d experienced that earlier in life.
Sometimes memory can be a bad, bad thing. A fairly recent inebriated camping trip prompted one of these awkward moments. Something had been said a few evenings before. I mentioned it to one friend and laughed. He gave me the oddest look, not knowing what in Og’s name I was referencing. I’d like to state for the records: I WAS NOT HALLUCINATING - IT WAS A REAL MEMORY! Erm, sorry.
I’d like to be able to memorize little bits of trivia. Sis is able to memorize all the tidbits she comes across. I think that would be more useful in real life. Memories seem to be important only to those who experienced them. Or not; see previous paragraph.
I used to be able to do that too! And it really pisses people off, when you give them their own exact words, and the time and situation in which they said them.
But, that, and mental arithmetic, and peoples names are gone now. Ok, I was never all that good at names. But I could do the quote thing, and common arithmetic for three digit numbers with no trouble. I got hit in the head. Couldn’t remember who was president, and could not count backwards by sevens. Never got over it, either!
I can still remember people themselves, by the way, just not their names.
I am awful, just awful, at remembering names. Really sucks in social situations when you have known this person for 3 weeks but can’t remember their damn name.
I, too, am a trove of useless memories.
I really pissed off my brother when he relayed an unannswered trivia-night question to me. Somehow (I’m not sure how) I remembered Lee was heading to Gettysburg for the shoe factory there.
I can usually get back to a place I’ve been to without directions or a map.
But I can’t remember names for the life of me, nor can I remember what I was supposed to do on my way home from work.
I can remember lyrics, the video, and the artist of one-hit-wonders in the 90’s. I have an knack for remembering actors in their various movies, and I’m excellent at the “6-degrees” types of games. I’m good at trivia. Any “real life” stuff, and my memory sucks.
I’m awful at remembering to bring treats in to work for various occassions, despite notes I write and co-workers reminding me. Awful at names. Dreadful at dates. Horrible at times.
My girlfriend tries to get mad at me when I forget her work schedule, or her family’s names, or what time I’m supposed to meet her somewhere, but she sees me struggling with it. I write stuff on little scrap papers and constantly go over her family and their relations every time we meet with them. It probably annoys me more than it annoys her, since I used to be really good at that stuff.
Also, I have a good memory for quotes, especially if they strike me as funny or insightful. I can remember conversations I’ve had pretty well, though If I don’t know the other people in the conversation very well I can have trouble remembering who said what. I’m pretty bad at remembering mathematical formulas unless I’ve used them a lot. There’s a pretty good number of specific events I remember from several years ago, especially events that I connect with strong emotions which I guess is pretty normal.
I still haven’t forgotten one Shakespearean soliloquy that I had to memorize freshman year of high school. I spent 30 minutes memorizing it during lunch right before class and it’s stuck for 6 years. (Hal’s soliloquy from Act 1 Scene 2 of Henry IV Part 1 if anyone cares.)
I’m bad at remembering dates. I have to use notes and tricks to remember the birthdays of my immediate family (I’ve only had twenty years to learn that my father’s birthday is July 17. I still have trouble remembering it.) I’m also terrible at remembering names and faces and even worse at matching them up.
Like many posters here I have a good memory for things I have learned (at least in subjects in which I have an interest) and a bad memory for events. What I find odd is that I know a fair amount about my childhood without anyone reminding me, but I barely remember any of it. For instance: I know that my fifth grade teacher was named Mrs. Hulkow and she kept a pet hamster in the classroom which subsequently died over Christmas break. I don’t actually remember any of it, but I know that it happened.
I’m not sure if that makes any sense or not. I guess the best analogue I can think of is the difference between experiencing something yourself and reading about someone experiencing it in a book. I know about my childhood in the same sense that I know what Prince Myshikin did in the days after his arrival in St. Petersburg. I don’t actually recal the event, but I know that it happened.
I remember pretty much everything since my daughter was born, and I’m a Trivial Pursuit machine, but *my * childhood? Total blur. If someone reminds me of something, I can usually remember it, but if someone says to me “Tell me about your first day of school” I’ve got nothing.
Anything I read or hear sticks with me. What I see, not so much.
That’s it exactly! And then it’s so easy to confuse between what did happen and what happened to someone else, like the plots of two books getting smooshed together.
People are amazed at my ability for remembering song lyrics, trivia and lines. They are less than amazed with my ability (or lack thereof) for remembering anything else.
If I write something down so I’ll remember it later, I’ll forget to look at what I’ve written.
I often forget what I’ve said seconds before in a conversation. Example: I was talking to some friends and someone said “Who do you want to kill?” I was extremely puzzled. I asked what he was talking about. He said “You just said you wanted to kill someone.” I have NO recollection whatsoever of saying that. The implications are a little frightening, to say the least.
I’ll go see a movie and later struggle to figure out what I had just seen. When someone tells me the name of the film, I can then supply quotes and a detailed synopsis.
I should probably be an actor, a singer or a Jeopardy! contestant.
I have a pretty good memory for face and for conversations I’ve had with people. I’ve freaked people out because I met them once, had a brief conversation, and then a year later met them again, recognized them, and remembered what we talked about previously.
I have a pretty good memory generally, but I am also somewhat absent minded. A good example is that I’ll put something in the wash and then forget about it until bed time when I put it in the dryer and I am always misplacing my keys.
I usually leave myself some post-its with a cryptic message to remind myself to do something.
My memory is excellent for trivia. I can tell you within a moment if I’ve ever read a book and give you a realtively good synopsis of the plot. I remember in extraordinary detail historical events, movies, television shows, science trivia and the like.
But damned if I can remember my dentist appointment. My short-term memory is very, very weak. I have extremely poor recall of faces. I spend a good fifty perecent of my waking hours trying to find something I just had in my hands a moment ago. I can’t remember a short grocery list, or anything to do with numbers.
Yes! Whenever I tell people how bad my short term memory is they always suggest that I write things down (as though it is a brilliant idea that had never been suggested to me before). They never seem to understand when I explain to them that I would then have to come up with a way to remember that I had written something down, I’ve even had someone suggest that I write it down somewhere. :smack:
I think visual and verbal memory is different - I’m awful at recognizing faces also, but I have a great verbal memory. I can remember chunks of papers I head decades ago, I breezed through the Jeopardy quiz, and I kick ass at Trivial Pursuit. (At a party two teenage kids and I took on the entire neighborhood - and won. :D) When I was a grad student I knew professors who could reference a bunch of relevant papers off the top of their heads, so this is a talent I’m really glad I have.
