Photographic or eidetic memory is an exceptional inborn skill to remember various things and even sound very clearly and with exceptional details. This kind of phenomena is very often seen in people who are able to recall a chain of objects after seeing them for a short time (a few seconds) very vividly as if those objects were still there in front of his eyes. There is a lot of misunderstanding on the subject as most who claim to have photographic memory in fact simply have a good memory or they simply have trained their memory by means of mnemonic techniques.
Cases of photographic memory are very rare and the people who have it very often are different from those who trained their memories is in the fact that the former have it from their birth and the latter made conscious efforts to train their memories. We can very often observe that people who have trained their memories excel in some specific way to remember while they are not able to do it under different conditions or when they try to do it in some other way.
You should remember from my previous posts that we better remember things which we understand and which we are interested in. A mnemonic would try to find interest and understand the material he studies in order to memorize it (by using various mnemonic devices). The one who possesses a natural eidetic memory would do it naturally without any efforts on his side. It looks as if his mind makes a picture of the thing or some other stuff he looks at and records in his brains.
This kind of inborn ability is considered to be a problem (some sort of mental disorder) by most doctors for the people who have this kind of super memories suffer a lot from the nature’s gift as their minds record almost absolutely they look at and are able to recall that after a long time (especially painful ones). There aren’t very many cases of these kind of super memories, but those that we are aware of are simply spectacular. However, people who have these kind of memories don’t seem to be very happy about the fact.
Bob Petrella for example, when shown some freeze frame from a competition of his favorite NCAA Pittsburgh Steelers team can tell you how the game ended and when the game was played. Jill Price is the lady who remembers absolutely everything and cannot forget it and suffers from it immensely. It is so hard to believe but she can remember every single day since she was fourteen and she remembers each day as if she watches it on a video tape.
There could be many more examples and if you want to read about them you can do it here. Having read these stories you should not be worried about training your memory. People who practice mnemonics don’t suffer from their developed skills. On the contrary, these skills enable them to achieve greater things in life. So, go on developing your memory.
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