AMA photographic memory

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I have it similar, I remember my friend's always memorising stuff and using all sorts of tricks to help them and I didn't really get it because I would just remember stuff by reading it and usually it stuck.

I used to have a photographic memory.
I have memories from 3 years old in nursery and can still remember my first day of school at age 4.
It was useful in school and I didn't need to study for exams until I was a teenager and even then I would study a bit and could regurgitate all the info the exam. But as I got older and studies became harder I started struggling as I struggle with motivation and concentration a lot despite being clever besides for my memory.
I do really well in quizzes since I hold onto nuggets of trivia pretty well.
I'm still young, in my 20s, but my memory is no longer what it used to be.
I'm still pretty good at remembering things in relation to nearby holidays or events, not always the exact date, so I might remember something as happening two Tuesdays after Christmas of 2015 or so.

Mine is definitely innate - I've always been this way.
Even now my manager thinks I'm crazy as I'm always wanting to do more qualifications. I passed an exam a few weeks ago, he questioned how I had time to study whilst working on a tight project deadline and I said I don't study, I just skim read the material then can pass the exam. Maybe it makes it all a bit hollow, but I love taking exams/tests.

Do you think it was largely innate or developed through practice?

I never thought I had a photographic memory but developed one when revising intensely for my law exams - I could picture huge numbers of flashcards etc it was hugely helpful! Now I can't even remember what I had for dinner today

My friend has a photographic memory and can recall a film by rewinding it in their head. Can you do that? Does your head get too full.

I'm able to recall phone numbers, lists and so on by remembering what they look like as an image. When I have to remember something, I need to write it down and look at it. It was very useful for exams, having pages of notes stored like PDFs. I'm not saying I have perfect recall for every book I've ever read, it's a conscious thing tucking the images away.

My mum calls me a super recogniser because I have a great memory for faces too, although this isn't a deliberate thing I don't think.

I'm useless at remembering things with no specific image attached to them though. If I go to the shop for three things to buy having not seen a list I'll forget one of them. I'm no good at remembering conversations or special events either.

Is this similar for you, op? Or do your clear memories include more abstract things? I don't really know what a photographic memory is to be honest.

What an interesting thread, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a photographic memory. I guess for a career like law or something it would be fantastic. Less so for a job that requires you to have a deeper understanding of the words you can recollect with ease.

Thanks for this thread! I strongly suspect DS has a photographic memory, which is really interesting me because I am the complete opposite, but I did wonder if it was going to affect his comprehension. It has been very helpful hearing about your school and uni study.

what are your job and hobbies and does your memory help?

Do you earn heaps?

I had a photographic memory, I say had, I may still do, but if I wrote it down I could remember it, reams and reams of it, I got 100 percent in my first year at uni for all my exams and was called in by the course leader and told if I did it again they would fail me, as I had regurgitated the answers word for word from the course work and shown no understanding of the subjects, so they had recognised it was due to a photographic memory . My friends were fascinated and would pick subjects out of one of our study books randomly and I was able to recite the paragraphs, or even pages,, word for word.

im older now and haven’t tried it for a long time, but I think I still could if I wished, maybe a little deterioration, but I don’t really think much.

pictures I can’t do it. And I have limited spatial awareness. The info didn’t stay in long for long either, a few days max, and then it would start to fade. So for 24 hours after it was 100 percent and every day after it deteriorated.

At school, were you able to demonstrate that you not only could recite, say, a poem but also understand and explain the meaning of the poem?

What do you do for a career?

Ooh, and another question - do you feel you understand what you’ve read / are your abilities to infer altered?

OP, do you think your photographic memory changed (enhanced or hindered) any passion you had for a particular subject?

My uncle had a photographic memory and he could remember what page an incident happened in a book. So he would say..do you remember on Page 123 when the character did this...it was exceptional. Can you do this?

How do you forget things? My ds has an incredible memory,so for example, he could sit in a uni lecture write a couple of words as a prompt and then recall the whole lecture many weeks or months later. He would also play footbal manager at the same time. His notes generally consisted of four or five words and the odd "do not remember" for him to cut out anything unnecessary. What do you do to forget or not save anything inconsequential?

Do you have to make a conscious effort to remember things or can you just access memories on demand? So would you need to purposefully scan a room to take everything in or does it just go in if you are there?

And do you remember everything you've ever read?

Oooo not a question but I also have a photographic memory.

Very useful for exams but the downside was my exam results made people think I was intelligent (I was penned as an oxbridge candidate etc) when I'm really not intelligent, I just have exceptional recall skills. Teachers were very confused by me when I didn't want to go to uni at all.

When did you begin to understand that your brain/memory worked in a different way to most other people's?

Do you remember things as pictures or videos with or without audio?

hope that makes sense :)

Very much so, thank you.