How much of your life do you actually remember?

Munster46 · 15-11-2018 5:37pm #1

I’m trying to recall my youth and I feel like I’m missing years. Wondering how everyone else’s memory is?

Allinall · 15-11-2018 5:39pm

Munster46 wrote: »

I’m trying to recall my youth and I feel like I’m missing years. Wondering how everyone else’s memory is?

68%

Beasty · 15-11-2018 5:42pm

Between 1965 and 1998 around 8%
Between 1998 and 2014 nearer 12%

Since 2014 about 1.8%

Having said that, those percentages are based on the forgotten memory I can still recall...

15-11-2018 5:42pm

I find the more you focus on a specific memory through the years, the better you will retain it. Others have just receded into the background, however a song or a taste can trigger one suddenly.

SEPT 23 1989 · 15-11-2018 5:43pm

If you can remember your youth you weren't there

gozunda · 15-11-2018 5:46pm

I can remember feeling quite annoyed at baby talk directed at me whilst in my cot - thereafter its full glorious technicolor with surround sound ...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 15-11-2018 5:59pm

In effect, it's reckoned we remember less than 1% of our lives. Pick a year at random, say 2007, can you recall one event for each day of that year? Highly unlikely. We'll remember major events and may recall specific items for some noteworthy reason but most vanishes.

yourdeadwright · 15-11-2018 6:10pm

98% of Humans have crap memory
I
n nearly all case your memories of your youth are in fact you remembering remembering something , its a proven thing ,

Your details are not what actually happened but you remembering the story of what happened that you have played over in your head,

Uncharted · 15-11-2018 6:12pm

Bout three fiddy

D3V!L · 15-11-2018 6:13pm

Quite a lot of it, I'm haunted by past memories good and bad.

Steve F · 15-11-2018 6:14pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpTCZ-hO6iI

Sabre0001 · 15-11-2018 6:14pm

The mortifying bits...

victor8600 · 15-11-2018 6:22pm

I would say probably a few days in total. To remember stuff, I suppose you need some memory anchors, like a diary or a photo album with notes. I remember nothing before 4 years old, and only some (20?) scenes between 4 and 12. A bit more from my teenage years.

Dalomanakora · 15-11-2018 6:47pm

Not a lot tbh!

Childhood, I remember plenty. 16-25, I remember very little. I was mentally unwell with trauma and other issues and I've basically blacked a large portion out.

25-now, I remember everything fairly well.

CelticRambler · 15-11-2018 7:06pm

Every so often myself and my three siblings end up discussing some event that happened in our collective past. There are usually four different versions of the same memory! :rolleyes: Often enough, though, one or other of us will have absolutely no recollection of whatever it was, even if we were there. Sometimes the one who does remember has the photos, so it's debatable as to how much is real memory, and how much is remembering what's in the photo.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 15-11-2018 7:42pm

It’s very odd to not remember being in a photo I think, though it has happened to me. Particularly one you actually posed for. And were sober for.

It’s proof that you did something that totally disappeared from memory.

(As an adult or teenager I mean).

AllForIt · 16-11-2018 3:31am

CelticRambler wrote: »

Every so often myself and my three siblings end up discussing some event that happened in our collective past. There are usually four different versions of the same memory! :rolleyes: Often enough, though, one or other of us will have absolutely no recollection of whatever it was, even if we were there. Sometimes the one who does remember has the photos, so it's debatable as to how much is real memory, and how much is remembering what's in the photo.

Memory becomes corrupted over time. Like my SD card.

c.p.w.g.w · 16-11-2018 3:58am

Can remember winning with champions league with Anderlecht in football manager and my starting 11.

Marcos

L.Sartor--Cris--G.De Boecke--O.Deschacht

W.Basseggio

Gilberto-Silva

A.Stocia

Z.Zahovic

B.Goor

A.Gerk

Won the final on valentine's day with a broken leg

gozunda · 16-11-2018 4:20am

Ansley Disgusting Switch-hitter wrote: »

In effect, it's reckoned we remember less than 1% of our lives. Pick a year at random, say 2007, can you recall one event for each day of that year? Highly unlikely. We'll remember major events and may recall specific items for some noteworthy reason but most vanishes.

I must be somewhat of an outlier having committed listened to conversations to memory from a fairly young age ... :pac:

I reckon I could embarrass several people even to this day...

erica74 · 16-11-2018 7:55am

Ansley Disgusting Switch-hitter wrote: »

In effect, it's reckoned we remember less than 1% of our lives. Pick a year at random, say 2007, can you recall one event for each day of that year? Highly unlikely. We'll remember major events and may recall specific items for some noteworthy reason but most vanishes.

Definitely not!

I take a lot of photos and a lot of videos to help with memories when I'm an old lady in my rocking chair. I have a few hard drives full of photos and videos and I plug them in every now and then and have a scroll through and see what story I can put with each photo or video. It's funny how quickly you forget things though. For example, one of our dogs is a rescue german shepherd, and right now, she's very old, she's deaf, she's overweight, it takes a while to wake her up, she's very stiff when getting up and much slower on her feet. She's around 10ish and we've had her for 6 years. When we look at her now, we can't remember a time when she wasn't old but recently, I plugged a hard drive into my laptop and found videos of her, when she first came to live with us, running around, rolling around, playing with our other dogs, it felt strange to have forgotten that so quickly.

Wanderer78 · 16-11-2018 7:57am

Add rocks, how in the hell do I even remember my name

Graces7 · 16-11-2018 9:14am

Far, far too much in vivid dreadful detail.

Actually most of it and it goes back nearly 80 years now. I have the memory most elephants would envy.

It varies from person to person and I think depending on the life you lead. The fuller the life, the less capacity for detailled memories? I have lived mostly in solitude

CelticRambler · 16-11-2018 9:40am

erica74 wrote: »

For example, one of our dogs is a rescue german shepherd, and right now, she's very old, she's deaf, she's overweight, it takes a while to wake her up, she's very stiff when getting up and much slower on her feet. She's around 10ish and we've had her for 6 years. When we look at her now, we can't remember a time when she wasn't old but recently, I plugged a hard drive into my laptop and found videos of her, when she first came to live with us, running around, rolling around, playing with our other dogs, it felt strange to have forgotten that so quickly.

Kind of like my mother!

I have a photograph of her perched half way up the wall of a ruined castle (she was the only one in the family who felt it needed to be climbed

) Hard to reconcile that image of a slim, agile young woman with the Mammy who force-feeds me extra potatoes when I go to visit, but I took the picture, so it was definitely her!

Mrcaramelchoc · 16-11-2018 9:44am

Thank God I'm not alone.my memory is ****e.certain bits and pieces along the way.photos help me remember other things but overall its very patchy.
Id love to be able to remember more.

mackeire · 16-11-2018 9:44am

Up until the age of around 16/17, I remembered pretty much everything.
From then on is a bit of a blur, probably due to alcohol.

Frank O. Pinion · 16-11-2018 10:06am

Remember, when you remember a memory, you not actually remembering the memory, but only the memory of the last time you remembered the memory. So, it's not a true 1:1 memory, plus your brain distorts memories every time you remember them.

Graces7 · 16-11-2018 10:09am

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Remember, :eek:when you remember a memory, you not actually remembering the memory, but only the memory of the last time you remembered the memory. So, it's not a true 1:1 memory, plus your brain distorts memories every time you remember them.

may be so for you. not for others. we live with our past firm inside us which is what memory is. we are shaped and informed and taught by it. precious and painful

Franz Von Peppercorn · 16-11-2018 10:15am

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Remember, when you remember a memory, you not actually remembering the memory, but only the memory of the last time you remembered the memory. So, it's not a true 1:1 memory, plus your brain distorts memories every time you remember them.

I’ve heard that but it doesn’t make sense that the brain would work like that. Not all the time anyway.

With memory I think we are really talking about recall. A lot is stored in the brain but hard to access. Although you probably couldn’t remember the plot of a movie you watched in 2007 scene by scene if asked about it now, while watching it you often start to remember the different scenes.

ouxbbkqtswdfaw · 16-11-2018 10:25am

I used to blame alcohol for the lack of memory over the years, but I am glad to see it is a more general phenomenon.

mariaalice · 16-11-2018 10:33am

What I can't understand is how I can remember the room I was in for sixth year when I sat, the school in vivid detail, yet I can't remember whole decades I have a very happy life for the most part so it nothing to do with not wanting to remember it must be something about how our brains work.

shivermetimber · 16-11-2018 10:55am

Almost nothing from childhood and early teens. Very, very little of early and mid 20's (now mid 30's). If I do remember something it is moreso fact then memory and there is no real emotional / personal attachment. I can never do the 'remember when ... ' thing with people as I simply don't most of the time. Pretty sure I have some form of SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory).

How much of your life do you actually remember?

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