PHOTO: SCREENGRAB BBC
KARACHI: How do you like the idea of remembering every single day of your life? It could certainly be a blessing or just unfortunate.
Turns out there are in all 60 people in the whole world who have this ability of vividly remembering each day of their lives. Scientists first began studying these people some 19 years ago and termed it ‘highly superior autobiographical memory.’
According to Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, University of California, individuals with higher superior autobiographical memory have a superior ability to recall specific details of autobiographical events. Such individuals also tend to spend a good amount of time thinking about their past and have an in-depth understanding of the calendar and its patterns.
“It’s not as much as we’re remembering more, we’re forgetting a lot less, compared to the average person,” 68-year-old Bob Petrella from Los Angeles said in an interview to BBC. Petrella has the unique ability to recall any moment from his past.
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He describes it as having a time machine, where he can go back to a certain day or a certain period in his life and almost feel like he’s back there.
Petrella who teaches screenwriting at a college in Santa Monica, told BBC that the ability does help having memories because I don’t feel the loss as much as other people. “It’s very therapeutic to go back to these times and these memories,” he said.
In 2010, California-based Jill Price was the first person to report to a doctor about her memory “problem.” According to Time, she had gone to doctors and complained that her extraordinary memory was a burden. She said that whenever she would see a date flash on the television or anywhere else, she would automatically go back to that day and remember where she was and what she doing. “It was non-stop, uncontrollable, and totally exhausting,” according to the article.
