People who remember every second of their life | 60 Minutes Australia

imagine being able to remember every minut detail of your life you can recall what the weather was like what you were reading or what you wore to the shops at any minute any hour or any day stretching back decades it sounds like some kind of parlor trick but it's actually a real and very rare medical phenomenon so far scientists have identified ten cases worldwide and believe me what these people can do will quite simply make your head spin take a ride with me down memory lane with veteran Hollywood actress Marilu Henner July 22nd / 1978 here we go again I burped my first permit that I moved into it's a hunch it's out feeling me right down this street for little things yeah for sure Mary Lou is no stranger to the limelight in the 1970s she starred in the sitcom taxi see I really like to have one person there that I don't care about impressing but among her family and friends Mary Lou henna has always been famous for remembering everything hey mom what day was Valentine's Day in 79 it was a Wednesday and you're right never explained how you do I don't do it I just see it and you can remember your whole life yes I can remember my whole life and some things come up like right away and then some other things kind of come up a little more slowly but eventually everything comes up I thought I'd see just how far back Mary Lou's memory goes peaking at random an episode of taxi filmed more than 30 years ago I had a look at the taxi episode from 1978 come as you want do you know there is the fourth episode that we shot and I have the blue dress on so that's gonna be my first question so what do you remember what I mean and I remember Tony's line how come we can't go to the party - how come we can't go to the party - you know it's like things come back line - Alex you're maybe my best friend you're meeting my best friend and he turns around you know it's like the episode will come back to me and I'm Mary Lou is one of just ten people in the world who've been tested and proved to have superior autobiographical memory October 1st 8th Total Recall of every day of their lives extremely impressive Delta airline flight 191 crashes near Dallas Texas oh I know exactly when that happened because it was August the 2nd of 1985 it was a Friday such a gift has never been documented before and scientists like Professor James McCord are excited about where it may lead one of them said it's like a Google search that you put it in and and it just sort of come there it is and it it's the year and it's the month and it's a day and it sort of narrows in and it goes bang and they've got it and this all happens very quickly it's just there you have it that's how I explained to you how they do it it's not a scientific explanation it really is like selected scenes on a DVD so how does it work if I throw you a random date say the 8th of September 1985 ok so they I know atha number 1985 was a Sunday it's like 85 all of a sudden kind of lines itself up and it gets completely organized sort of in a timeline way and I see the whole calendar sort of fall into place it's an extraordinary skill and one that Mary Lou is thrilled to have for others though like Jill Price who was the first person to be diagnosed with this remarkable condition it's a burden is it driving you crazy on the inside yeah sometimes it does yeah I mean I really just want to be screaming at the top of my lungs most of the time and I can't do that so I have to keep everything in check when did you realize you had this ability about five weeks after I turned 14 and I don't really know why on this day exactly February 5th 1980 but from that day until now it's every day and so you know you pull a date out boom it's like I'm right there every moment of every day every day yeah don't believe it well let's do it the Challenger disaster Tuesday January 28 1986 and the Super Bowl was the Sunday before John Lennon's assassination that was December 8th 1980 do you remember what day of the week it was Monday I was in tenth grade it blows my mind that you can remember that that crash killed 274 people the chicago plane crash the one in May 25th 1979 that is the one yeah I was in the 8th grade I had just come back that week from having the chickenpox remembering historical events is one thing but this goes a whole lot further or May 8th my grandmother had imagined having instant recall of what you like for breakfast exactly 20 years ago today what if I flip it around I don't give you an event for a date the 28th of February 97 that was a Friday and I was leaving that day to go up to San Francisco but we sort of got sidetracked by a bank robbery in North Hollywood she's right from our North Hollywood was a wartime starting like on that Friday the 15th I gone to a football game and so begins an outpouring of memories plucked from three decades ago as if they were yesterday I will be crossing decades and time and clouds of informations around - yeah it's that's what's in my head it's just all this stuff for years all these stuff as Geo cause it was driving her mad in desperation she contacted one of the world's foremost experts on memory James McGraw he thought it was a hoax so I got out a very large book that was published at the time of the millennium which has a day-by-day report of what happened in the past century and I just randomly opened the pages and said what happened on this day and I was astounded by it because she could just tell me without even taking a deep breath okay by the end of the day doctor Magoo realized he was dealing with something completely unknown to science it's extraordinary it's the ability of an individual to remember in detail what happened to them on any day of their life after the age roughly of ten or twelve and also to remember all of the major public events that occurred on any given day that description struck a chord with another young woman who thought it sounded just like her - I wrote them a letter and I said my name is Louise Owen I'm a 36 year old violinist living in New York City and I have total recall of every day of my life since 1985 the Berlin Wall falls on what day November 9th 1989 which was a Thursday doctor McGauran his colleagues put Louise through hours of exhaustive tests let's move back in time now to 1990 it rained on several days in January and February can you name the dates on which it rained mmm and sure enough she passed with flying colors it was slightly rainy and cloudy on January 14 15 their memory is very much like your and my memory of yesterday so no tricks there's no tricks and they just say it just happens just like that Louise if I throw a year at you say 1991 what happens to you brain 1991 I immediately am thinking about that was the year that I left LA and I moved to Boston do you remember when the Oscars were that year the Oscars I did not watch the Oscars set here I think it was a Monday March 25th in 1991 that is not bad for someone who didn't even watch it's not even really fair to ask best actor and actress Kathy Bates one for misery Kathy Bates in misery and Jeremy Irons for reversal of fortune Jeremy I am [Applause] I feel like a bit of a freakshow is not the right word okay I think it shows sort of a walking party trick Louise Erwin can't explain her gift but says her memory is a bit like a muscle she likes to exercise I think okay today is May 27th what happened a year ago two years ago three years ago on this day and I'll scroll back as far as I can go so jumps into your head very quickly can you get rid of it just as quickly it's sometimes I feel like with all of these dates and all of these memories it's it's almost like I'm in charge of about 9,000 rambunctious little children you know each one represents a different date a different memory and they're all vying for my attention all the times like pick me pay attention to me but I you know I have to keep everybody under control here that sounds exhausting this is where the saliva goes dr. Moog or and his colleagues are getting closer to understanding this extraordinary ability things are very color-coordinated here they notice that the ten confirmed cases are all highly organized some to the point of obsessive compulsive disorder others like Marilu Henner who just have very neat wardrobes I love organizations I like my shoes a certain way right foot going this way with left foot going that way so you can always see the toe and the heel on every pair this is my notebook from senior year in high school all of these subjects who have this strong autobiographical memory have some tendency to do some things in excess so you've kept a Jennifer hello since the last week of 1976 it just swirls in my head until it's written down look how tiny your writing is can you even read it yeah now the scientists are doing MRIs brain scans on their volunteer subjects and they've discovered something astonishing in each subject one part of the brain called the caudate nucleus is enormous up to seven times bigger than normal these people may help unlock some of the mysteries we still don't understand about the human brain is this potentially a cure for Alzheimer's or dementia this information that we provide may well turn out to be useful for understanding all kinds of disorders of memory not just Alzheimer's disease but brain damage from head injury and from encephalitis and all kinds of things for those who live with it every day Total Recall is a mixed blessing what about the sad stuff that's the stuff that has given me like my emotional nightmare throughout my whole life it's I can't just move forward and that is detrimental to my daily life because it's hard to move forward it sounds crippling it is crippling in a way because I do believe if I were like everyone else my whole life would have been very different for Marilu Henner it's been a good life made even better because she can recall every single moment I feel so blessed to have it because I feel like I get to carry all my life lessons with me and what about the bad memories I mean do you think back to relationship breakdowns and feel that every day that question every single it's so funny women always say what about that bad breakup and men always say oh my gosh you must be impossible to be married to hello I'm Liz Hayes thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our channel you can also download the 9 now app for full episodes and other exclusives 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 2,986,160

Rating: 4.8364182 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam, Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Total recall, memory, bizarre, rare medical phenomenon, perfect memory, people who remember their past life, people who remember everything, savant, incredible memory, amazing memory, perfect recall

Id: hpTCZ-hO6iI

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/showmm]

I don’t know if it was mentioned, but I didn’t see it in the top comments. She was discussing this on a talk show hosted by Bob Costas. So he quizzes her, “Ok, what happened to you on July 20, 1969?”

She got all big-eyed, said, “Who told you to pick that date?”
Bob: “No one, I just picked the day we landed on the moon. What do you remember?”

She was awkward for another 30 seconds or so and then confessed she lost her virginity on that day.

[u/matty80]

Meanwhile I went to the sandwich shop near my office to get breakfast, walked into the office, put it down somewhere, and now have absolutely no idea where it is. It's gone forever.

It might as well never have existed. Tbh I'm no longer convinced it actually did.

[u/TheJucheisLoose]

Hyperthymesia is a really interesting condition. There are more than a dozen people in the world with this condition, OP is referring to the number who have been clinically diagnosed.

Marilu Henner is very high functioning, but this condition is not without its problems: the recall is typically triggered by the mention of a date or event, and it is not voluntary. Further, people with hyperthymesia tend to have excellent memories for autobiographical events, but relatively poor ones for other things, particularly rote memorization (though, in Marilu Henner's case, she is an actress, so presumably has no trouble memorizing lines).

They also tend to be highly focused on memories, the past, time, and have some similarities with autistic people in that they can focus on these things for a long time and with extreme blinders. This can lead to psychological issues.

It's also worth noting that even people with extreme hyperthymesia do not have "photographic" memories. They cannot remember everything even about events they see very clearly.

Anyway, this is a fascinating neuro-psycho-biological condition, and highlights a lot of the ways that human memory has evolved to be high functioning for our lives: in many ways, the best memories aren't those that remember everything, but that are good at remembering important info and forgetting the rest quickly.

[u/CrazyCatLushie]

But she wanted Charles Boyle to move to suburban Ottawa!

[u/Therustedtinman]

I remember about 12 different life failures before breakfast, I don't need to know about the other thousand + edit; holy shit this blew up, thanks for my first ever gold kind stranger

[u/notfromhereatall]

There's details of my life I'd rather forget. I couldn't imagine having sevant level memory.

[u/_ludakris_]

She is the only celebrity I've ever met in person more than once. And she is so very nice.

[u/radialomens]

All these people must be so tired of being tested. I mean, I get that it's easy for them but if every third conversation I had was asking me what I did yesterday or what the weather was like yesterday I would get pissed fast.

[u/c-student]

Meet Flo and Kay Lyman AKA the Rainman Twins! They are twins and BOTH have this ability. Really incredible. Here's a documentary on their lives: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/extraordinary-people-rainman-twins/