Question I always wanted to ask

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I sometimes get distracted from what I'm doing, and forget what's happened. I forget about events a few moments ago if I'm disorientated enough.

I definitely have the sensation of searching since I can actually see the whole thing in my head. Like taking tests and seeing the text book in my head and actually seeing myself going to the page. I also see lines of code as if I am viewing them.

I just want to have a memory stick that I can plug into my head and back that data up so I can run a purge on my brain and free up some space.

Don't feel bad, I've been known to forget the names of people I knew for years and was actually good acquaintances with at one point. I'll know by their face that I know them, but I won't remember their name or how I know them. I just let them talk (NTs talk to fill up space) and eventually it clicks. Until then, I avoid the name.


I'm horrible at remembering anything about people until I get to know their minds. Until then, they don't register at all with me. I never register clothes or anything like that. I once interviewed a guy for two hours, then my boss had a fit because he interviewed him and the guy had on a tshirt and jeans. I never even picked up on it. I was strictly looking at his skill set.

It IS kind of wierd. I almost see like an aerial view of the whole area, get the feelings I had about how long I walked, what I was thinking(That was the FIRST time in almost 2 years I parked in that lot! I hemmed and hawed, and did it because it was closer.), and the view the first time I looked up.(I usually look at the ground when I walk) I then get a generall area of where I parked. This narrowed my search to 1/4 of one part of one of the three lots. I then basically went down the aisles mentally until one felt right, and saw my car there. The question was then was my memory right?

After I arrived, I went to just a bit before that location. When I first clicked my remote(which only works if I am within like 40 feet of the car), the lights of the car right in front of me lit up!

Steve

SAME HERE! I have all this minutia that I would just love to FORGET! I have better things to remember.

Steve

I have trouble with my long-term memory more often than my short-term memory.

If someone asks me a question, then I really start to worry!

I have terrible memory issues lately, but I think some of it at least is down to an underactive thyroid gland which does supposedly cause memory problems. Both my long and short term memory seem to have become pretty poor. I sometimes forget things I typed or said only 5 minutes ago, and when I try and recall things about Dr Who, which was a major obsession for me around 7 years ago, I find I remember practically nothing...and am left annoyed and wondering what the point is in my reading so much material for it to simply get lost in some cotton wool area of my brain. Yet, I remember thousands of song lyrics and tunes by heart.

Have you considered a career in journalism? Temple Grandin lists that as one of the careers that are suitable for people with Asperger's. Seemingly trivial facts and details that are related can be very important in journalism.

I have a partially terrible memory. It is very weird.

Things I can remember:
Every piece of lighting and sound equipment in the theater department including their locations. For instance I know there are about 20 color extenders sored in the trusses under the fly rail catwalk, a random guitar amp in the attic above one of the labs, and almost every adapter you could think of in a bin locked in a cabinet under a printer.

I can remember huge system diagrams and the specifications of tons and tons of equipment. I read instruction manuals for fun.

I can remember whole songs and sound effects, and play them back in my head as if I were listening to them on a stereo.

I have a somewhat photographic memory. I remember almost everything as either images or sounds.


Things I can't remember:
People's names. It takes me a very long time to learn a person's name, even people I see every day in class or at work, and it can be very embarrassing.

Words: I have to search for words in English all the time making my speech somewhat halting. I am ridiculously bad at foreign languages because I can never remember the words I want to say. I can't remember books I've read very well after a while. For instance, I've read the Harry Potter series twice and I can't for the life of me remember how Sirius died .

I can't remember faces out of context. For instance, I have been in several philosophy classes with a guy who lives down the hall from me. I didn't realize that they were the same person for months.

I can't remember what I have to do and where I have to go. If I didn't have my Big-*ss List of Do (ToDo list) and my calender I would never get anything done and I would probably forget even breaks.

This happen to me alll the time!! I have a really good memory for facts and the most trivial stuff. But I forget to do the most basic things. It cann be sooo annoying!

Ah, the theatre. I love the theatre, worked in stage management for a time, until London became too much for me.

I seem have a short attention span and space out regularly (the more so the more bored and/or restless I am), so sometimes I'll barely remember what someone was just saying to me and they have to repeat it all over again. My parents still till me I have a "hole in my head" and never listen to what I'm being told normally. But I don't think this is an actual memory problem, more like a problem keeping my attention focussed on one thing and not having it switch.

Apart from that, I have a terrible memory for events. My childhood and most of my teens are a blur; I know what was happening and what followed what, but most often I can't retrieve anything specific. I'm perpetually amazed how other people seem to remember whole scenes from the past, entire conversations they had with somebody and the like because I can never manage that, unless I keep a diary. My memories have this obscure, hazy quality - there's only the general outline of a certain event, and the emotions it had triggered, but no details. It's like having had them stolen or something.

On the other hand, I can spontaneously remember very specific things that most would probably regard as insignificant (though they're quite significant to me). I can remember in detail where and how I saw a particular flower I liked, or a cloud of a specific shape and such. It often comes as surprising, given my huge memory blanks when it comes to the more important events in my life. I may not be able to place these memories correctly in a chronological order, either (I generally have a weak sense of time). They are like disconnected snapshots that are really vivid and bright.

My academic memory is quite good, I think. It's easy for me to learn things by rote, it usually takes little time and I can memorize whole chunks of information from a book right off the page. When I remember it, I can "see" the page in my mind's eye, with the number, highlights, position of paragraphs and so on. I'm told that, as a child, I learned poems by heart very easily, and liked to recite them afterwards.

I have a problem with birth dates, names and faces. I appear to be partially face-blind - I do start to recognize a person eventually, but it takes time, maybe something like several months. At first, all faces seem the same, sort of, and I start noticing individual features only after a while.

I have an appalling short term memory. If somebody asks me to do something, I have to write it down immediately, or I won't even remember that they asked me to do anything, let alone what it was. My mother once gave me some extra money and asked me to get something or other for her while I was at the store, so I put it in a separate part of my wallet. I forgot all about the errand, and even when I found the money later on, it still didn't jog my memory - I just wondered why I'd put some money in a separate place and mixed it back in with the rest!

I'm agree with what Sora said; that I tend to remember things if there's an emotional connection. I have a very poor memory for faces in everyday situations and usually have to meet somebody at least half a dozen times before I recognize them when I see them (and even after that I can still be thrown if I see them somewhere unexpected, or they've had their hair cut, or are dressed very differently than I'm used to). But I have a very good memory for TV and movie actors, and seldom if ever fail to instantly recognize somebody I like at a glance, so I clearly don't have a genuine problem with face blindness. So I think in the first case, my brain is somehow blocking taking the visual information in 'all the way' because it's not forming an attachment; it has no interest in remembering said person.

Thank you all. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

My case is (I guess) unusual in that I have been diagnosed with brain trauma that effects my memory. I do remember things that I read out of books, certain facts that I go over repeatedly, very well. But I do not remember effects from my past, even a short time ago, very well at all.

I find that there are certain things that I can remember in painful detail, usually really pointless things like the levels of computer games that I played for months at a time. But I just cannot remember a lot of the things that people have conversations with me about, or what I've done more than a day or so later.

I had a pretty bad accident when I was younger and I'm starting to suspect that the severe concussion could have affected my memory, or that I've always been like this. I had an expression where I would tell people to remind of things that they were promised by me, and that I "had a memory like a sieve".

So yes, I've got memory problems that cause me annoyance.