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Memory

Some memory loss is natural, because our brain will “sort out” memories based on how important we think they are. This means that if we don’t feel something is very important, we’ll easily forget it. There is a specific area of the brain that we use when we do store new memories, however, called the hippocampus. Situated toward the middle of our brains are two small raindrop-shaped components that are responsible for storing new memories. In fact, if we were missing this part of our brain, we wouldn’t be able to create new memories, and we’d be constantly living in the present (no awareness of the immediate past). This is what happens to some people who develop amnesia. One type is called anterograde amnesia, where a person is unable to remember things that just occurred. A man in a hospital, for example, may greet his doctor as a stranger every time the doctor enters the room.

One man in England who has this type of amnesia was tested and found to have a memory that lasts only seven seconds. In fact, every morning, he would wake up and say the same words: “I haven’t heard anything, seen anything, touched anything, smelled anything. It’s like being dead. How long have I been ill?” He would write the same words in a journal, “Now I am completely awake, for the first time in years,” but would deny being the author and even get angry when someone showed that the writing was his handwriting. When he went out with his wife, he would ask people questions like “Are you the Prime Minister?” or “Are you the Queen of England?” Another man with anterograde amnesia cant’ remember the date (saying that it is 1942 or 2013, for example) and doesn’t know how old he is; while one woman was convinced she was living in Kentucky and would look out the window and wonder where the mountains were, even though she was living in Florida.
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