Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Eidetic memory experience?

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone here has experience with eidetic memories and can offer me insight into what I'm witnessing with my son, whose memory seems unusually sharp.

Parental background: DH has near total recall of information from most sensory input, and I have preternatural auditory--though I don't think eidetic--recall.

So here are some examples of what we're witnessing in DS:
-Verbatim memorization of hundreds of books, often after one or two readings
-Memorization of song lyrics after one singing
-Retention of new words after one hearing (I think this one is pretty standard for this age--thank you, fast mapping!)
-Internalization of concepts after one exposure (eg. solar system configuration after viewing a diorama at a museum).

For instance, while getting changed today, he turned off the light in his room and said, "It's dark. See constellations on ceiling--there's Big Dipper." We don't have any glow-in-the-dark stickers or space diagrams anywhere, just one storybook that we've read twice that features an offhand remark in the dialogue about constellations and...surprise...the Big Dipper.

All these memories persist, even if the information is in "disuse". I pulled out a book we hadn't read for at least 6 months, and he still knew it verbatim!

If you have experience with eidetic memories, does this sound like it fits the bill, are we likely "just" looking at a strong by not atypical memory, or is it too early to tell?

Thanks so much for your feedback!

yes.

It sounds like it, to me. DS6 has an eidetic memory. Although, I read that there is no such thing.

My son first showed signs when he had just turned three, and he received a box collection of 45 books. After a couple of hours, he had memorised every title and its number.

He can also remember songs and however many minutes and seconds it goes for; he can read a 250 page book and remember the exact page number of a particular passage; he has memorised the periodic table, and all the element's info; and every street in his street directory- he's a walking GPS. And all of theae things.were memorised after one occasion.

I have many more examples. I'm not an expert on this subject, I just have some experience through my son. One thing I have learnt is, an eidetic memory doesn't stop them from forgetting where they left their pen.

Forgetting? (Where thy left their pen)

Yes, most children with eidetic memory lose their ability.

Fascinating.

My son has a photographic memory also. It skipped a generation... Lol! My mom had it too. She never lost her incredible memory. As a matter of fact, she was one of the 1st National Merit Scholars in the late 50s with a perfect score... Not everyone loses it.

One example of my son is he memorized "1001 video games you must play before you die" and we would go to a random page, and he would tell you everything on the page... Crazy! It's a 1000 page book!

Here is a similar thread.

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....graphic_and_or_Audiovisua.html#Post92751

I will add that my DD10 still has an amazing ability to memorize and retain, but this only includes items that she is interested in. We are seeing some portions of her memory gradually fade, as some had indicated in the prior post.

It has been an interesting journey.

Tx G Mom's link reminded me of some earlier examples of my son's memory.
At two, my son would take five minutes to put together a 35 piece jigsaw puzzles, then the second time he put it together only to took him 30 seconds. Even earlier than that, my son started to "read" at 18 months, until we realised he was just reciting the words- a great start to actual reading (he then started properly reading at two). I have millions of examples!

It's funny, some of the examples other are giving about eidetic memory in adulthood actually sounds like what I can do. I didn't realise that there were different types.

Thank you all for your feedback! I'm so grateful to be able to pop onto the forum, ask unusual questions, and be virtually guaranteed of supportive and insightful answers. I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing your stories.

Like in Mana's family, my parents, DH, and I all exhibit eidetic tendencies, so it's especially hard to tease out what's normal and what's unusual. I suppose I never gave this aspect of myself a second thought until my son's memory began revealing itself.

Mama-- I completely sympathize with your comment about avoiding grudges. One of my sharpest memories involves feeling slighted on a trip I took with my parents when I was 1.5! My mum thought I was just recalling cues from a video of the trip I saw later in childhood, but I was able to provide lots of details that weren't captured.

Squishy-- your comment about GPS made me remember my half-brother, who I've always thought was a gifted underachiever. Now that I think of it, his memory is phenomenal. His sense of direction is unparalleled. During one visit, we were delayed on the highway getting to a hockey game and he recommended an obscure shortcut that no local knew. He had never lived in the city and had last happened upon the street more than a decade earlier! He also knows every hockey or football statistic going back 30 years, though I do have an advantage on MMA stats...

TX G Mom-- Thanks for including the link. Your comment about memory being linked to interest reflects the shift I've seen in my memory since childhood, too. I can still do some "out-there" things, like hearing a symphony once and being able to disentangle the individual parts afterwards, but I really have to be engrossed in the experience for full retention. It doesn't come as automatically as when I was a child.

Teachermom7-- Those are great stories to hear! Your son has a prodigious memory! As a teacher, you probably have a richer perspective than most of us as to how an eidetic memory compares to most children's memories. I may be asking a larger question than I intend, but how has your son's memory affected the way you approach learning with him? Does he self-pace more/less than most children in your teaching experience?

Maybe I should throw that question out generally--how has an eidetic memory affected your parenting/learning approach with your children?

My ds seemed to have an eidetic memory when he was very young. I am not sure if he really did and it faded a bit as he aged, or if what seemed like an eidetic memory was his visual thinking style. He can describe how he thinks now that he's older and it's all about pictures and movies in his mind. And he still has a few quirky things going on such as never using bookmarks, closing his books when he stops reading, yet being able to open up to exactly where he left off. I've asked him if he remembers what page # he's on and he says no, he recognizes the words on the page. And he definitely still has a very sharp memory and will resell in great detail things that happened or that he read long long long ago.... It's just not as obvious now that he's older and more of his own personality and choosing what he wants to share rather than a small toddler that is all out-there and usually in the presence of a parent

polarbear

One thing I have learnt is: my son is always right! I quite like it, because he is so stubborn and we have awesome debates about everything because he remembers everything- except for the typical kid stuff, like where he put x,y,z.

Learning is quite easy for him; he doesn't really have to try. I am glad that he puts in effort to try to learn things he may be average in, such as some sports (I recently posted about this in the 'brag' thread). I'm lucky that he is a high achiever. I'm not sure if this has to do with the memory, but he is also a speed reader.

About the walking GPS, my son has helped me so many times when I have been lost while driving lol. He is able to visualise sort of in 3D. I can give him a starting point and its address. Then I say, "Turn left, now right, go straight", etc, with ten directions and he can tell me the end address. Crazy! Along with that, he is also a walking calendar lol.

Ohhh! *lightbulb moment*
Thanks for this thread, it's made a few things make sense! Funny the things you get used to and think are just normal are actually not

We are reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series of books on weekends. We have an in-bed morning when DS and his entourage (stuffed animals, etc.) attend the reading.

I've wondered about Laura Ingalls Wilder's memory of events. Eidetic memory would explain her remarkable recollection.

What I have bolded is me. I have inadvertently memorized the location on the page of every entry in a dictionary before. It just happens. I have a very strong spacial memory. I am also a walking gps. I always know where north is. I remember everything on a grid. I can get figure out how to get anywhere I've ever been. I have memories of figuring out the roads and direction when I was still in a carseat. And, I have not lost it at all as I've aged. If anything, I have been able to figure out how to better use it.

But, that's really it. My other types of memory are pretty normal. DH has a very good auditory memory and that is what DD got. I have no idea how to gage what is normal in that department. I don't think they have eidetic memories.

I have also never really considered myself as an eidetic. But, my spacial memory is the best example of a photographic memory I have ever seen in real life.

On which page is the word "spacial"? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

This thread made me laugh. My father seems to have sporadic photographic memory. He can remember exactly how many Oreos were in the package, and how many spoons there are in the drawer, but can't for the life of him remember that his reading glasses are on top of his head. lol

In my defense the dictionary is in another language. I have never been great with words. I am constantly telling DH "words are not the best of me". And, he is constantly poking fun at my spelling. I now purposefully spell words wrong on the shopping lists to drive him crazy--cheeze and Paper towells.

Having a "spatial" memory does not make you a good speller.

I still remember where the root of that word begins (Bottom left of the right hand page.)

My kids are a little...eidetic-ish? DD9 remembers events from 18 months, which I consider unusual but not way out there. What was very unusual about both of them was their ability to memorize and flawlessly recite very long books (like the long Seuss books or other very wordy, lengthy picture books) after only a few readings, as quite young toddlers. This seems to be pretty common among gifted kids. We would forgot how odd this was till other people saw them doing it. It FREAKED PEOPLE OUT. DD also has memorized the entire scripts of the plays she's been in. Yet I do feel her ability to do this is fading. And I don't know if DS can do this as much anymore, either. I think it was something they needed more before they could read.

I shouldn't even post this. It's weird and I don't know very much about it.
I have always had a very sharp photographic memory that has came and gone throughout my life. An example my mother told me was when I was 9 I visited an apartment I had visited when I was 2. Somebody else lived in the apartment. I described the furniture that used to be there. At this point in my life I sometimes get visual pictures of memories, but they're blurry and if I try to look closely at them they disappear. I can recognize what the scene was and the place or event. An example is, I just tried to think of an example and i saw a blurry photograph (literally) a photograph in my mother's photo album of a blond girl I knew at one point with our hands up on a dragon rollercoaster. It's likely that I saw that photo album three years ago, and of course I've seen it many times. Then I remembered the name of the town we lived in then. The picture was there for a second, verry blurry, and I can't be sure the rollercoaster looked like a dragon. I can be sure of the placement of the arms and the front of the rollercoaster in that scene, if I were to draw it from that flash of memory. In fact that excercise was part of how I sharpened it those years ago when I meditated on sharpening it.

When I was a teenager I practiced meditation and was able to sharpen it. It might have been through effort and intention or it might be that certain ages are more likely than others. Right now sometimes a visual memory will flit through my head. I wonder if other people don't do that (must not be if there's a word for it). If not, then what kind of memories do other people have? I also remember stories of events, it's more like knowledge. Like you know 2+2 or the story of Red Ridinghood, but it's in words not audible or visible. Is that the normal kind of memory?

Regarding the eidedict memory I know that when I try really hard or care about "righteousness" I start to have less incorrect memories. I have to judge my memories and decide it's unacceptable to get the details wrong, then my memories become more accurate and everytime I have a memory where the details are wrong it starts to stick out like a sore thumb, then I get less memories with incorrect details. There's been a couple of times in my life when these things interested me and I worked on them and I involved whoever was around me to check my progress and accuracy.
I notice that I remember things that family or long time friends don't remember, and they remember things that I don't, and we remember things differently. I remember them saying things years ago, and saying a different thing now. At the level I'm functioning at I know that I could be right or wrong or they could be. This is how normal is.

I just tried again. My brain is being literal today. I visualized another photograph. It was of my neighbors kid. The details of the kid were crisp and clear. (but now the details are gone) but while it was there the kid in the photo was clear like in highdefinition photos, the boarder was a little less clear, andI know that the photo has another kid in it that was missing in my visualization. But the details I did see was a picture perfect copy of the picture. When was the last time I saw that picture? I added some photos to an album a couple of days ago, so I probably saw it then, but I can't remember. If I sit here and think about it I can probably remember wether I saw it or not then, and either way I might ir might not remember a few days from now (without trying) exactly what was happening the last time I saw that photo.

I should probably rewrite this post for readability, but it's already embarassing enough because it seems too "woo-woo" or personal and it seems like something the internet might mock. I "shared" a facebook meme that said something like, "I'm the type of girl that will bust out laughing at something that happened yesterday.

There's two more related funnies. I tried to remember a recent example of a visual memory, because I know I've had one in the last two weeks, but I got impatient and just thought of another one instead of trying to remember.

The other funny is now I'm sitting in front of the school waiting for my kid. I'm reading the latest Robert Jordan book, but because I tried to use my minds eye earlier a few other visual images flitted through my periphreal vision. One was just a miniskirt and midriff and upper legs only. That reminded me of a C.S. Lewis book I read years ago (you know he wrote more than Narnia and apologetics, right?) and in that book a guy somehow looked inside the mind of a woman he knew. One thing he was surprised by was that in his mind faces were sharp and clothes were blurry, but in her mind all the faces were blurry but the clothes were sharp. Everybody has memories. How else can you remember if it's not audible, visual, or story? I guess the difference is accuracy and the amount of detail.

That's interesting, La Texican. I love reading about others' memory. My husband gets no audible or visual memory (he literally has to read out loud or count on his fingers), but he has an amazing short term memory. I get it all, even the words. I'm not sure what counts as eidetic, since there seems to be so many different versions, so I don't know if I have it.

When I write a shopping list, I can visualise everything in the supermarket. I walk myself down the aisles and I can see all the food on the shelves. I can also "see" where I'm going after I turn out the lights, as I remember where everything is in its exact spot. I don't know if this is what everyone does, or not.

Maybe more along the lines... I remember past dates and events, and what everyone was wearing, songs playing, names of everyone...

Y'all might enjoy the book "Pieces of Light" written by a current memory researcher. He weaves interesting anecdotes of his and others in with contemporary research on how memory is constructed and reconstructed. Good read.

Oh, DD also remembers things like what day of the week her 5th birthday was on.

Yeah, my reference to my son also being a walking calendar is about knowing every random date and its day for the past and future few years. Although I read in this forum that it may be savantism. I don't know the difference, to be honest.

Well, there are a few areas in school where he truly shines with this gift. He attended a school that had the children memorize a passage every 4 weeks. He hated studying at a younger age (he was 8) and he had to memorize a 2 page passage. He refused to study it, looked at it once, maybe twice, the night before, and that was it. He was chosen as best speaker for his grade too. I try very hard not to do repetition with him because it is like fingernails on a chalkboard. He now attends Stanford's Online High School, and while the work load can be a bit heavy, it still doesn't seem like it takes him very much time to study. I found it very unusual at a very young age, so I have been aware of it for a while, but it does continue to amaze me. He knows more about music history than anyone I know. At 9 he was obsessed with guns (gun history and construction) and once in an airport, the pilot, also a very gun knowledgeable, saw his encyclopedia and began to talk to him, then quiz him. They talked for over 30 minutes, and he turned to me and said, not only does he know more than any child I have ever met, but more than any adult I have ever known.

To be honest, he was very challenging for me to challenge. I am glad I have people who have PhDs in their fields instructing him now!

My DD cannot do this, which I do think of as a sort of savant ability. However, she remembers days of the week for significant events. Like, she might remember that she had music class on her 5th birthday (she is now 9), so it was a Wednesday. I find this amazing, but my own memory is terrible. She remembers other little details of this type. Also, the main subject that requires memorization in her present school is science. I have noticed that when she takes science quizzes with questions like, "What is evaporation?" she answers with the exact words she wrote down in her notebook during class. (She never studies for these tests.) It's just really easy for her to memorize stuff. Still, I don't think she really has a photographic memory, per se.

My son started off remembering coinciding days, but turned into ... by the time he was five. He used to put all his teddies' "birthdays" into my phone and just remembered everything

Memory is a tricky thing. It is hard to distinguish an eidetic memory and an awesome one. I used to have a great memory, and I was like your DD in not having to study for a test and just remembering the answers. Since having children, I now have a terrible short term memory, but still a good long term one.

DD had incredible memory when she was tiny. REALLY amazing stuff.

She has lost most of it now at 13, and recalls very few things from before she was three. A few, but they don't have the sharp clarity of detail that they did when she was four and five.

She also seemed to have an AUDITORY and temporal version of it-- it wasn't for print text, ever. She has a very strong spatial memory, and so do I-- we don't remember text, we recall WHERE something is. Sometimes that is sufficient to recall headings or clear enough that I can "zoom" to see what I want to recall. But often not, too.

It's pretty much savant level, in my case. ANYWHERE that I've been, I can find again. I recently found a little restaurant in the Latin Quarter (tucked into an alley) that I'd been to once the week before (led by a school tour guide through the streets for about a mile), and managed to find it using landmarking and just... well, okay, this sounds silly, but a sort of internal compass. My DH no longer doubts my ability to act as navigator. I can almost do this from maps.

I also always know what time it is. This was a fun parlor trick for my friends in middle and high school-- to cover my eyes and ask me what time it was. I was always right-- usually within a minute or two.

But I do not have a good auditory memory, and my DH does. That's where DD gets that one from.


ETA: I'm convinced that most people have one or more savant-type skills/abilities. I'm a human homing pigeon and I have this... thing.... for color. Like perfect pitch, but visual. That one is TRULY eidectic. Not useful, but interesting. I can match paint colors from memory. Even years later. LOL.


DD just reads at superhuman speed and reads people-- she's like an empath. I think that's her savant thing.

My DH did find my spatial ability useful when he was in a foreign city and trying to walk to his hotel while on a business trip. It only took me Google maps and five minutes to 'navigate' him while he TOLD me what he was looking at.

I never really know what DD will have perfect recall of and what she won't. It can be frustrating, because she does NOT remember what she has been TOLD. She does recall what she reads, so much as it annoys her, I still give her to-do lists via text or e-mail. LOL.

Howler, are you a tetrachromat?


I have an internal compass, too, but I have to calibrate to a map. I have to have a sense of where I am in the world, which way is north, etc. Plonk me in a new city and I'm unsettled until I've seen a map.

There was a piece on NPR about the journalist spending time with people who use directional tags in their language (I greet you from SSW of your position, or The tree to the north of me is beautiful). At first she could not keep track of directions, then it clicked and she described it like having a headup display bird's eye map inside her head. That's what it's like for me.

Found it! Radiolab, of course. http://www.radiolab.org/2011/jan/25/

Thank you for sharing everyone!

Just stumbled upon this article; I'm not sure what this means in relation to my son. He has no 2e issues. He is also at least two years ahead in literally every area.

http://www.autisticsociety.org/news/article/sid=163.html

I think that it's a distinct possibility.

A few years back, this made the rounds at another community that I'm a part of-- I was the only person I've ever known to get a perfect score, and... well, honestly? It was easy. The entire thing took me under five minutes-- the abbreviated version linked below more like 90 s.

Hue Matching Test

Now, if they had wanted to make it HARDER, they could have asked me to remember colors and select/order without the original in front of me. THAT, I think I could have done, too, but maybe not perfectly.

My son could memorize songs and scripts faster than much older kids when he was four. I remember an older kid in his musical theater class telling me he must be "autistic or something" to be able to do that. When he was about seven he could listen to the news and remember all the main points and even paraphrase what he had heard so I knew it wasn't just memorization. When people would ask me if I had heard something in the news I could ask my son to tell us about it and he sounded so much smarter than I did that I let him answer. This stopped when he saw the reactions of people in our small town. As he got older he became more guarded about what he would say in front of people he didn't know very well.

He could remember enough about typical things someone he was imitating would say and use this to do really good impressions of them. Combined with his sense of humor he could do comical improve scenarios with his impressions. He has an extremely good memory for sounds and smells.

My mother had a really good memory for jeopardy type trivia. She read all the time. Her memory was good until she was in her 60's and had surgery. I am trying not to think about that right now.

I scored a 16 on the hue matching test, and now my eyes are broken

I wonder if my son's abilities are just simply eidetic abilities, rather than savantism. He could do most of the things on the list, but not to the extent that the other savants could.

Yeah, my only problem with that is that there are couple in there that aren't differentiated only by HUE, but also by saturation/shade differences as well.

There are about six samples that are like that-- so even when they ARE right, they still bug me, but I can't get them "better" because they aren't in the right continuum in the first place. LOL.

HK I also had a perfect score on that test when I did it about 6 years ago (also quickly). I was confused that all these people who had so much more vocabulary for discussing color than me did not find it easy. I didn't really think that test was a measure of anything more than being able to see well? It was so obvious and easy, I do recall having a couple that troubled me but felt there was no better option than what I had done. You honestly think it comes down to more than decent vision? And a decent screen?

I keep meaning to add that I also had the perfect recall of where's in a book I had I had read something so could always pull out the reference to prove I had remembered a quote correctly when arguing with someone over the content. I have lost that skill. Not sure if I lost it through age or through 11 years of sleep deprivation and parenting 3 little forces of nature?

Ok my post just appeared twice, despite being submitted once and when I tried to delete one it just says it was edited. I'm confused.

Yes, I think so. I mean, most people genuinely don't see some of those colors as "different" from one another, even side-by-side like that.

Me, on the other hand, I can tell you which ones are the outliers. From memory. There are two in the top band, both on the yellow-green side... etc.

I can actually see which color selections I'm referring to when I write that, though. It's my experience that when I do things like that (for example, matching paint chips without reference samples, buying thread of a particular color from memory, etc) other people really notice. So I think in my case, it's only partly better vision. I think my brain is actually adapted to it somehow, as well.

I, on the other hand have an appalling visual memory. I have a 30" canvas of a photo I took and won awards for that's hung in my office for over 6 years that I can't perfectly describe. It's embarrassing. I have to "speak" what I see to myself in order to be able to recall the data later. For example in a card game of memory I need to name the cards with words as I flip them in order to remember them, no such trouble with the spatial placement, just the visual of what was on the card.

That said, while looking at a piece if clothing in a store I can generally make an excellent assessment of its match for another item in the kids wardrobes at home. Although I would not say I can "see" the item at home that I'm matching.

I have an impeccable, savant-like memory for movie scripts where I can outwardly declare them verbatim.
I also have phenomenal spatial memory where I can remember precisely where a cd is located amidst 100 on a shelf (for instance). I remember the layout of houses and location of furniture, books, and any items even if it has been years since I last saw it.

I also have trouble taking MC tests because I feel an overwhelming amount of memory for the content being measured.

this does seem to be the extent of my memories though.... It's not even "useful".