photographic memory

Hi folks,

I am happy that i stumbled across this topic, i know a lot about this photographic memory, it has been something that i have been into for a long time now.

Do you remember the movie Rain Man, well Tom Cruise plays this guy who never knew he had a brother which is played by Dustin Hoffman and Dustin has a few problems, i am not sure what the name of his problem was, he never liked water and got very scared, but what he had was a photographic memory. There is a scene where Tom drops a box of matches and quickly Dustin says how many are left in the box. That’s because his brain can pick up the number of matches out of the box and then divide it from the number which is in the box, and he gets his answer. When Tom finds out about this rare talent, he gets happy and they go to a casino and he is able to win every time on the blackjack table, because every card that is dealt on the table, Dustin’s eyes very quicly picks up on it, and to Dustin it is second nature, it is like his eye absorbs the whole table.

Now photographic memorys are possible and there are poeple out there that have them, and i am sure it has been proved and that it is nothing new.

Now there is 2 kinds of photographic memory there is one in which your mind takes photos of everything and holds it somewhere in the mind which nobody really knows as of yet where this information is being held.

Then there is something called photoreading where you can take a book and look at one page in a second and go through it, like for example a 300 page book in 20 mins and then you can recall the book, not word for word, but you will know it pretty well and will understand the story.

There are home study photo reading courses that you can take which costs between 200-300 dollars. Also there is a 2 weekend lecture where they teach you how to learn it and in one of these lectures that i have read about they basically won’t let you leave until it really works for you or its your money back.

Now this is different to speed reading or mega speed reading, thats where you can read 25000 words per minute but your actually not picking up a mental picture of the book. In speed reading your reading part of the book very fast, its like your letting your eyes wander across the page really quickly.

Now having a pohotographic memory is possible. The CIA for years have been training their spys to have them. Like for instance, what the top spys from around the world have to be good at is absorbing information on a very high level. I know this, as there was a documentary on it, on the discovery channel a few years ago. Also you would also see it in the occassional hollywood movie, any way in the documnetary the ex spy said we would be trained by opening up a fridge for 10 secs and see exactly what kind of fruit and vegetables were in it and then recall everything back and they would keep on repeating this until they could recall everything in the fridge. What they do is by looking at this briefly then a image is held in the mind where you can recall it.

Now back to speed reading, i bought a course a while ago called mega speed reading and it says on the course box that you can achieve 25000 words per minute. I of course was not sure if i was doing it correctly, but i could scan the pages quite fast but it did not mean that i understood the book. So i think it varies upon peron to person but the guy who made this book was the worlds fastest reader i cannot remeber the guys name but he could read even faster than 25000 words per minute and he showed it to the wolrd on live tv and he has been in the news all over the world. He is also in the Guiness Book of Records. So i do believe it is possible but i think i would of learnt better not from a home study course but from going to a seminar or lecture.

Now one of the reasons i am into all this and know so much is because a few years ago i was very much into magic and illusion and mind reading these days i am more into hynotherapy. But anyway in that time frame i was blown away by the abilitys of this pyschological mind reader in my home country and in one of his tv shows he visited a libary and asked the libarian to pick out any book and he then read it for 20 mins by scanning each page in his mind for a few seconds and then he aksed the libarian to name a page in the book and then any line. Then the mind reader demonstrated photo reading and said the words on the sentence after just scanning the book for 20 mins and this was a random choice, that just shows photreading is real, and it is all part of having a photographic memory.

Also when i was a kid my teacher said to me. How do i think? i cannot remember what i replied back, but i remember her saying that you should think in cartoons it makes everything easier to remember, and by thinking in cartoons you can remeber things like a movie reel. Then from that day on i was developing a sort of movie reel in my mind and then it went from a cartoon like to the every day looking images that my eyes pick up.

Now i do not know if this next bit means i have a photographic memory but i will tell you, sometimes i am able to see something for a while on TV. Like today it happend and i was watching the Tennis and as i am writing this i can see the image still in my mind even though i only saw it for 30 seconds i believe because on the tv it looks big it is easier to remember. I was watching the womens final in tennis on the olympics and there was mauresmo playing this belgium women i cannot remeber her name, but i do remember this image in my mind, which was telling me how many aces and doble faults had happend in their game, and the total percentag between the two, and i can tell you that just by me thinking about the room i was in.

Anyway when i was at school many years ago, there was this sweedish boy sitting next to me just before the Geography exam and he told me to test him on this table to do with the exam and he handed me the table and he faced the other way and started reading what was off the table and i was saying if it was correct or not and constanty he was getting everything word perfect in that chart and i was blown away and said what is it, do you have a photographic memory? but he would not tell me his secret but it was amazing and i believe it was a photographic memory.

This topic has brought a lot of info on what the human mind is capable of
I also have a few questions, i would like to know if this is normal, i always wanted to ask becasue i believe that sometimes the way my mind operates is a bit above normal and that is why maybe i feel depleted of energy because my brain has to process so much more. Okay what i am trying to say is this.
When i think about something i see it with perfect clarity in my mind but it feels projected infront of me, it’s hard to describe. I also can get lost in my thought because i have incredible visualisation skills but the problem is when i put it towards obe or lucid dream development it becomes a lot harder, but in general i can basically be somewhere and during that moment in my mind, during that basic day dream it feels just as real as when i am in the late part of my dream you know the part when it has been about 6-7 hours of sleep and you are in your final really long REM stage where it feels so real, well that is the exact feeling i get when i get lost in my thoughts and also when i just think about something.

So is all this energy power depleting me and is this normal or is the way in which i think is ultra amazing or the same as anyone else?

Well this draws to the end of this very interesting topic, i hope i have given some very valuable information and i hope that someone could answer my question.

Thank you and all the best regards.

Honeyjigga

I have photographic memory.

My chemistry teacher would flip on me as would my anatomy teacher. I’d never take notes in class and when I’d take test I’d ace them.

My teachers would always say “Matt why aren’t you taking notes” I’d tell them “I don’t need to.” They’d then be like “you’re going to regret it on the test.” Well, I’d usually just look at the material, fall asleep. Then when the test came around I’d get anywere from a 90% to 100% and my teachers would be shocked.

It’s also a reason I’m so great at math.

I also remember all my class mates since kindergarden but I only remember there first and last name after seeing their face.

Like in my freshman year I had Earth Space Science. I sat next to my friend from Kindergarden named Joeseph. I asked him, “hey did you have miss Singarelli for kindergarden?” He then asked me how the hell I knew that. I then told him that I was in his class and that my cubby hole was right next to me.

He didn’t believe me but brought in his kindergarden year book the next day, sure enough, there I was, right next to his picture.

It’s very weird to say the least but I enjoy it. Also, it was never affected during my Marijuana smoking stint from 8th to 10th grade which is pretty cool.

It’s also awesome knowing the answer to everything when my teachers ask.

The only thing I do not understand is why it doesn’t work for English. I can’t seem to get A’s in english/foreign language. It’s the weirdest thing in the world and most frusturating.

i ve photographic memory.
eveyone has some kind of memory. ppl ve general memory, hearing memory, and photographic memory. i ve both - photo and hearing memory.
its like i take notes and c the photo of my notes in my eyes. i know what i wrote and where, where i put sth. some times at school i forgot the date (in history lesson) and i just told my teacher " i dont remeber the date, but its in the 3rd paragraph, on the right side at page blahblahblah… i can recall ppl that i met for one time only, and when i c them again after long time, i wont remeber their name, but i remember that i met them somewhere.
to some extense everyone can develope their photo memory. but u need the skill itself. if u just dont c that u dont ve the skill of good photo memory, u probalby wont succeed to much… i ve been aware of haveing photo memory since i was a kid, so i could use it all the time - doing only homeworks, not repeating, coz i remebere all stuff that i took notes for the first time, and i remeber what sb had said - i can recall somebody’s voice, and the whole conversation - or the whole lesson that i participated… there is one exercice to develope ur memory . u should do this :
when u want to learn sth or just remeber it, 1. repeat it (read it) the very next day (24 hours a man forgets 60% of stuff that he learnt by hard)2. repeat it next week.3. repeat it next month. 4. repeat it in next 3 months…
it works, but if u ve problems with concentration ur lost… and be self confident and aware that u r a skilled person. if u learn different stuff, from various parts of knowledge etc ur brain develops and creates new paths and connections betweet neurons. the more u learn and gain knowledge, the more connectins between neurons r built = u r more skilled, u can remeber them better, and ur brain works :->>
about fast reading… ill write sth about that next time after ill be back from shop. i attended special classes how to read fast… i succeeded… but u need lots of time to achieve for ex 3000 words per min… if anybody is interested how to do that… heh… write a post.

True photographic or “eidetic” memory as demonstrated in controlled (laboratory) settings has been demonstrated only a few times, always by children, and cannot be learned.

In the experiments, the child is shown a piece of paper with dozens of tiny little dots in a (seeming) random configuration. Much later, the child is shown another piece of paper with the random dots on it. Sometimes there is a third paper.

The child is then told to call up the memory of the first and second series of dots and mentally put the images on top of each other. If the child can literally see the images in front of him/her and it is a perfect memorization of all of the dots, they will see a letter or letters of the alphabet vaguely formed by all of the dots together.

There are also a few individuals in the world who can memorize lists of thousands of numbers. However, even these individuals are unable to perform the dot test because their memory (impressive though it is) is not photographic.

um i don’t mean to brag but i have photographic memory and it is extremely easy for me to remember anything that i’ve seen and remeber the image and recall it from memory at any time, i just thought everybody could do it until i read this and found out how special i am

O.O
Holy shit!
…since so many of you have photographic memory, can you exlain in depth exactly how you use it? it might be a strange question, but just think about it and try and write as much as you can.

I believe we can all develop photographic memory…its just a matter of, how?

This is what I’m trying to find out, and since there are 3 people here with this ability I’m sure if we work at it we can find a way.
Just image us being the first to find a way to develop this amazing ability, imagin all the benefits that would bring to everyone! (not to mention the benifits it would bring to our math tests :razz:)

Come on! Lets get to work :happy:

Mystery

PS: honeyjigga, DAMN that was one huge post!!! thanx for all the info!!!

Mystery

well I have the same as paula - I can remember things as an actual picture…that’s why I learn scripts for plays well - I visulise where it is in the script then think ’ I remember this line goes THERE on it’.

I can do tests with next to no revision. My friend Victoria is way more organised etc etc than me and spends ages revisin and I did better than her in KS3’s. It’s quite cool actually - my mum said that my late grandfather had one so obviously it skipped a generation.

I am disorganised and quite lazy so this quality makes up for it :content:

I’m thinking that if photographic memory is a subconcious ability, which it seems that it is. It should be able to be unlocked through hypnosis, therefor, I was thinking of using the BWG or the NNS for hypnosis, and then we can find someone with a nice voice, to say something like “When you hear the beap, you will wake up with the ability to remember and recall anything you see with complete precision, BEAP
Is anyone willing to be the voice? Editor? writer?

Is anyone willing to try this at all?

Mystery

HEHE Mystery…
i can be that volunteer :wink:) i dont know if i ve a nice voice, but i can try. But i can try after when ill be back in poland again -so 20 september… will it be ok then?

Thats great paula!
Thanx

I can do the editing myself (unless anyone els is intrested)
and we need a guini pig to test it on :wink:

Mystery

Heh, I have horrible visualization skills. I couldn’t even recall my own mother’s face if I wanted to. Of course I recognize her when I see her, but still… I think faces are the hardest thing to visualize actually.

If it’s any consolation though, I have an incredible “audio memory.” I can pretty much replay (in my head) any song I’ve heard, conversation I’ve have, or just random sounds. Sometimes I’ll play my own little mental recording of something and pick up on subtler and less obvious frequencies. Then, if it was something that could be played back to me again, I’ll relisten to it (physically) and sure enough those frequencies are there. This started happening to me a couple years ago when I started getting into music a lot, so it’s not like I was born with it. Seeing as how I’ve trained myself to remember sounds, I see no reason why one couldn’t develop a photographic memory as well. It would be a lot of hard work though.

I think my memory is actually a curse of sorts though. My thoughts have started shifting from spontaneous images and ideas, to sounds and voices. As a result I think much slower now because I can’t play these sounds in fastforward or anythingor anything like that.

yeh, I forgot to mension that I can replay music/sounds in my head aswell, its like having a personal sound recorder in the head :happy:

I guess that all people have a memory like that, but it varies, some can replay music some can see images (maybe others abilities too!).

Anyway, I want to really concentrate on Visual Memory first of all and if this works then we can improve any other memory :smile:

Mystery

A lot of people can replay sounds.

Whiel I do not have a photographic memory, I seem to follow the trendso f what Garlic described. I am very good at maths, science, I.T and basicly all my lessons.

I am not so good at, but still quite good, at English and French. I am really bad at PM, but prehaps I don’t put in as much effort as I should.

I often remember things based on feelings I get from my subconscious. For example, when ever I think about a lesson, I get feelings associated with them, and it often reminds me that I have forgot this, or not done that. This is normal, and most people get these.

I think people can train to have photographic memories. I can recal colour images in my head, if they are simple, and without detail. I think with practice I could change my current memory structure to a photographic one, by improving my memory.

I think it is a matter of getting your brain to recover the whole image. You have to practice, and show your sub conscious this is what you want.

Can someone explain to me, do you actually see the image, or is it just in your mind’s eye.

This is not photographic memory. The light causes your retina to retain the image for a few seconds.

Yes, I know that.

Both acctually, eidetic memory is being able to memorise something and then project it onto a wall, or the place where it was originaly (we could all do this when we were little) the thing is that only 1 in 1000 people retain this ability as they get older, but when you “project” the image onto something its still coming from your mind and so if you close your eyes you’ll still be able to see it.

Mystery

uhm, i think my somewhere around 148. It’s pretty pointless though. Can anyone classify my type of memory? I can’t remember this one park but i know it’s got a big sign with a green squirrel and i can recall it mentally. Also, i know there’s a missing bolt in an archway beam from my high school. i remember exactly what a crushed cookie under my foot looked like from two years ago. my friend had beans in their breakfast a year or so ago. I remember words people say and when i refer to them they don’t remember it. that sometimes goes a long with a short 2 or 3 second clip. It’s a pretty good hear or photographic memory, but it’s of the most useless things (at least academic wise). it rarely catches on to something useful. earlier this week i headed to a meeting but i went to the wrong place. after a few minutes of wondering where everyone was, click i remembered a whole entire email and knew where it was. and then i forgot everything in the email except where it was.
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hhhmmm…well its hard to classify memory types because everyone has a mister of different types. I guess visual memory could be your strongest.

Mystery

Does anyone here have photographic memory?
Yep im one of the ppl w/ a photigraphic mem. If i look at a diagram or a page with notes on it and if its highlitghted, ill remember it easily. This ‘skill’ i guess some would call it is very useful in one of my calsses im taking right now…exercise science. We learnt about the many bones of the body. I learnt all of them by just highlighting the bones and giving them a quick glance.

Do you think its real?
It iS real, many ppl esp. in school will tell ya that.

Do you think its possible to devope it?
I think that ‘trying to develop’ thsi skill is just called memorizing. The more one tryies to ‘develop’ this skill, the more the person learns to memorize thinsg a diff way. I think its something ppl have naturally.

Do you know how to develope it?
(refer to above answer :razz: )

I developed it with playing cards putting them all on the ground and then visualize them one by one and at first u can only do an x number of them but when u practise u can soon do it with several playing decks.
Also with numbers…you visualize them and soon the line of random numbers you can see in your head and that way memorize gets longer and longer. But when you dont practise it anymore after a long time the talent also fades away, for me that is :smile: