Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Eidetic memory experience?

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.