Remembering things

Not just things but people. I have had people greet me as though they know me and I haven't the foggiest who they are. Even one chap who said he sat next to me in every English class at school. I didn't remember him at all but he knew a lot about me.

I told my daughter in law that I hadn’t seen a link to the house my daughter is thinking of buying and 10 minutes later had a flashback to a picture of the house and looking back I found the link. Embarrassing.

When my grandson asks me for the name of something, bird or plant or a synonym for instance, I often have to tell him to give me 10 minutes to open that particular file in my brain and it then usually pops into my head.

However I quickly put an inherited ring somewhere out of sight when I had workmen arrive last year and months later still haven’t been able to remember where I put it😢

Yearoff- yes i can remember having a pic taken at a fair with a monkey- he sat on my shoulder & he was wearing a red fez hat- they seemed to do those a lot in those days (late sixties i think maybe 1970?) I dont know what happened to photo though i never found it amongst her things when my mum died.

I blame Google and the ease of finding anything you need to know far faster than my brain works

And now you mentioned it yes i can recall that fair & having pic taken , but wouldnt have instantly thought of it without the reminder maybe.

I can remember a monkey being put on my 3yr old son's shoulder by a photographer in a market in 1970s.
Poor lad . He was petrified!
I have the photo somewhere.

I’m so glad it’s not just me! Thank you for the reassurance 😊

My DH had an incredible memory of his childhood years and of the village where he lived and so did his older brother. His younger siblings did not at all. I myself was always in trouble because we'd meet someone from the past and he'd say 'You know who this is!' and I wouldn't have a clue!

I was married very briefly in 1990, we split up in 1991 due to his infidelity. I swear my brain has hidden/blocked all my memories of that marriage as I have not a single memory (even bad of which I’m sure there were many) I think it must be a mechanism in my brain which is protecting me from remembering.

I too have a picture of me as a very little girl holding a baby chimpanzee in Harrods (I think - not entirely certain of the shop but a swanky one in London). I remember the dress I wore (pink) and that the chimp wore a nappy and clung onto me.

VenusDeVillendorf

I find my memory improves when my inflammation is low.

If I eat carbs and sugar I can’t remember things.

Eating a low carb ketogenic diet has me remembering poems I learned in school!

This is very interesting. I’m currently low carb/keto, but haven’t noticed any improvement in my memory. I have recurring episodes of amnesia and seem to lose a bit of memory storage each time, but mostly newer memories. I wonder if I’ll also see an improvement due to diet?

I don't think, Daddima, that what you describe has anything to do with aging, unless you know you remembered these things formerly.

None of us remembers everything we have always done. However, good or bad an experience was, it does not need to have made a lasting impression.

How very odd. Over the past two days I have been going through old photos and found quite a few of me with others at events I have absolutely no recollection of, such as my Nana's 90th birthday. Try as I might I cannot recall anything at all about them yet I was definitely there. I am so glad to read this and know that it is obviously quite normal.

At a talk on Alzheimer’s I was once told that memory is like a bookcase- maybe an IKEA Billy Bookcase, not renowned for its sturdiness
Your oldest memories are on the bottom shelves and the bookcase fills up as you grow up and get older.
Now imagine a strong wind bowing hard at your Billy bookcase and it starts to sway a bit.
The memories /books at the top start to fall out of the shelves but the ones at the base are secure because that isn’t swaying as much.
That was the analogy with memory loss and dementia and explains why we often remember fine detail from our childhood but have no idea where we left the car keys.
Diet?
I’m not so sure. Cognitive ability- certainly.

I went into gas station and paid for the gas and then went outside got in the car and drove off-forgetting the gas.

I think the memory is just a Lottery, or Lucky Dip, as we get older, and clearly from accounts on here, no 2 people are alike! I can sometimes remember odd things from school (secondary and even primary) and the youth club I went to, but whole swathes of my 20s & 30s are pretty much a blank!

I'm occasionally reminded of weddings or parties that we've attended, or trips we made on holiday, and I don't recall them at all. Other odd things I get flashbacks from, it's quite weird, and pretty much random (though the "depends what you eat" comment was interesting, may have to check that out?).

M0nica mentioned “odd partial memory” which I seem to dwell in these days. 🤪

Certain incidents from long ago seem to pop up in my head at the oddest of times, but I can only remember the occasion - please don’t ask me for a lot of details! Those seem to be missing.

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

I remember events from about the age of six but I'm not sure about before that because my mother used to tell my much younger sister long wonderful stories each evening. They were about myself and my brother when we were younger than 6, so I'm never quite sure whether they are stories or true memories..

U have a photographic memory for most things. Unfortunately this is something of a curse because . as well as happy memories, I can remember, in minute detail, very sad events. The only thing I know that I completely forgot ( until a childhood friend reminded me) is taking a neighbour’s dog for walks - with the said friend- and exploring old lodges and disused railway tracks. I perhaps selectively forgot these adventures because my parents wouldn’t have approved . Since the start of lockdown I have kept a diary , quite detailed, because I feared for my sanity- as did a lot of us .

My friends laugh at me, because I can still recite part numbers for the products we bought when we worked in a large factory, but ask me what I did at the weekend I miss out half of the activities. This has been something I’ve done since childhood

Evidently I have a phenomenal memory, family members tell me, but to me it is normal. I can recall long ago events, and have crystal clear memories of family moments, even the conversations that took place. Almost every detail of my third birthday is in my memory, and I stunned my cousin recently by telling her what she wore to her wedding reception, which she had completely forgotten after about fifty years. I was a child at the time , but could still see her clearly, dancing with her husband and looking pretty in her pink outfit. Not always a good thing, though - there has been much unhappiness and stress, and all of this comes back with awful clarity in the small hours.

VenusDeVillendorf

I find my memory improves when my inflammation is low.

If I eat carbs and sugar I can’t remember things.

Eating a low carb ketogenic diet has me remembering poems I learned in school!

Oh my life, this is so interesting. I read your comment and it felt like a million pennies dropping. You could be describing me.

My friend was sorting through some photos found amongst her late mums things She asked me if I remembered going to a party with her dressed as cowgirls aged about 15/16 I said no no memory whatsoever and neither had she Well she brought the photos to show me and neither of us had any recall of ever going to a party dressed as cow girls with cowboy hats neck scarves etc etc We couldn’t work out the venue, she had about twenty photos we couldn’t recognise anyone else in the pictures and it’s a complete mystery to both of us
But we looked as if we enjoyed it

Tricia2

I went into gas station and paid for the gas and then went outside got in the car and drove off-forgetting the gas.

How did they know what to charge you if you hadn’t put any fuel in your car?

My two good friends and I remember different things from our childhood, youth, motherhood, up to present day. We started school together at the age of 5 , so it’s almost 70 years ago, and we have seen each other regularly throughout our lives.
If one of us wants to remember something we phone, text or meet up to pick each others brains. It’s very handy 👍