Alexandra M. (ILI) - Excellent Memory for Past Events

In my memories, I always replay events like a movie, with successive actions changing one another. I remember them down to the smallest details. For example, recently my colleagues and I went to Vyksa. Separate episodes of the trip and my thoughts stuck in my memory like frames from a movie:

Here I am at home, getting ready.
Here I am running out of the house.
The sun is very bright.
Here I am at the bus stop.
Here a car pulls up.
Oh, happiness—I’m not late!
We’re driving. The car is beautiful, a silver Volga. The seat is soft, it’s not hot, the windows are tinted, the sun shines through them without being too bright—that’s good already.
We’re going fast. Cool. Outside the window, the landscape. Trees that are just starting to turn green replace one another. In some places, however, there’s still snow.
The driver, unfortunately, is not attractive at all—kind of gloomy, and the dark glasses really don’t suit him. Oh well, as long as he drives well. And he seems to be driving fine. So let him look however he wants. It’s his business, after all.
And anyway, as long as no one bothers me. Otherwise, we’re driving nicely, with the breeze, even pleasantly.

<...> If I watch the film a second time, I can do something useful in parallel (a manicure, for example). That way, I kill two birds with one stone—my nails are done and I get a pleasant impression, or rather even three birds—plus I can stroll through my memories. I always immediately recall thoroughly:

• my state while watching the film the first time;

• all the circumstances of the viewing (where, when, with whom).

I can even name the exact date—for that I need to recall some event from that day, link it to a nearby event, and thus a chain of events is built. Among them there will surely be at least one whose date I remember exactly, and from there it’s not hard to count back.

Sometimes it seems to me that I would be a good witness, because I remember small circumstances and details well.

However, examining details often prevents me from grasping the essence of events.

For example, during my student years I could get distracted from the essence of a lecture by examining the sheets on which the lecturer’s text was written: yellowish—so he doesn’t use a computer, so the lectures are quite old, and so on.

In general, I always remember the circumstances of events better than the events themselves, and I mostly remember all sorts of little things that have nothing to do with the matter.