Over the past few weeks the topic that has struck me and frightened me more then perhaps anything I have ever read before is Amnesia. Everyone has heard of Amnesia and has some fantastical view of it from movies or television in which some super spy has no memory of their past. But what happens when someone in the real world has no memory, or has lost the ability to form them, and are they still…themselves. Who would we become without memory, would we remain who we are? Would we still truly be alive?
According to the Mayo Clinic amnesia is the loss of memory, information, and experiences, not the loss of self we see in the movies, and television. When someone has amnesia they are still themselves, they are lucid, they know who they are, and even remember at least parts of their past. What amnesia does however is rob them of the ability to learn new information and forming new memories? (mayoclinic.org 2014)
How might the loss of creating new memories and experiences effect a person? One of the most dreadful aspects of amnesia and one that I had never considered is the fact that someone suffering from amnesia will not truly know what they are suffering from, without the ability to form new memories, it is impossible for them to form a memory of their own suffering. So an individual would in turn be left to discover in every waking moment that something seems off about their experience that something is wrong with the world and they just cannot put their finger upon it. This sensation could be maddening on its own, but couple that with the inability to even carry a conversation to completion and you might engender the type of paranoia only seen in Hitchcock movies.
The worst recorded case of amnesia is a gentleman by the name of Clive Wearing, in his forties Clive suffered from a brain infection that left him with the inability to form new memories. His memory was so devastated that he only had a window of a few seconds before he would forget. Imagine that every time someone leaves the room and walks back in, it is as if you were seeing them for the first time. Clive describes it as being dead. That his inability to think, or carry a thought for more than a few seconds is like being dead. That without building new memories he is gone already, his consciousness trapped in his body while his mind (at least part of it) has passed away. (Sacks, 2007)
While Clive’s situation is sad and a frightening, he has still retained his sense of self, he knows his wife, remembers who he is, but lives in a constant state of forgetting. In rare instances often because of a brain tumor or stroke one can lose their memory, just like in the movies. This is where memory loss is truly frightening, because this is where one loses oneself. In the article “Amnesia and the Self That Remains When Memory is Lost” tells a story of someone he knew that suffered from a brain tumor that would cause retrograde amnesia. In this tale he refers back to a psychology class in which his professor was telling the class of a friend of his diagnosed with a brain tumor that would take his memory. This friend understood that we are greater than the sum of all parts, that it is the bringing together all of the memories of our past into our present is what makes us who we are. That without the ability to remember why someone prefers spicy food, or enjoys rainy days one would lose an essential part of themselves. This friend so feared the losing of himself that he walked into the ocean and never returned.
Loss of short-term memory forces someone to live in a constant state of only knowing the present moment. Never able to hold a moment long enough to form the memory of it. Not being able to read a book, watch a movie or even carry a conversation. Loss of Long-term memory though rare does happen, and it leaves a person with a loss of identity and self, for without the memories we accumulate we lose a crucial building block of ourselves. The foundation of who we are is found locked away inside those memories. Both forms of memory loss are devastating to an individual and their loved ones, and I find both more frightening then any horror movie ever filmed. Next time someone wants a good scare I’ll just hand them my Cognitive Psychology textbook.
References
Levitin, D. (2012, December 31). Amnesia and the Self That Remains When Memory Is Lost – The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/amnesia-and-the-self-that-remains-when-memory-is-lost/266662/
Mayo clinic Staff. (2014, September 4). Amnesia – Mayo Clinic. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/amnesia/basics/definition/con-20033182
Sacks, O. (2007, September 24). The Abyss – The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/24/the-abyss