Erikka Askeland: Total recall would be totally unwelcome

But if I really think about it, I can probably fillet out a few details of the day without having to refer back to my diary. It is not like it was that long ago. But then again it was probably like numberless other Tuesdays, which involves that most contemporary of occupations – sitting at my desk staring at a computer, then having wine.

But what if you could remember the full details of what you did that day in full, breathing and smelling technicolor? And not only this one, but all days of your life, stretching back to childhood? If you did, you would have a condition known as hyperthymesia, which is also known as highly superior autobiographical memory.

Cases of this form of total recall are rare. It has been estimated there are only 20 people on the planet that have it and only two cases that have been documented by science. One is the case of a young man known as “HK”, who is blind, but when asked by researchers to describe what happened on 2 January, 2001, he can recall the details vividly.

Of course as this is science, the dweebs chose a number of dates, cross-checked them with family, friends, newspapers and other sources and then quizzed him. His answers about the independently verified details were 100 per cent correct, particularly those that occurred after the age of 11.

The lucky thing was he seems pretty calm about it. He revealed that he enjoyed waking up thinking about what had happened to him in previous years on the same date. He told the researchers that during the day memories would often enter his consciousness, triggered by news, smells, sounds and emotions.

Quite frankly, I couldn’t think of anything more distracting. People with this ability talk about how real their memories are, as if they were experiencing them again like they were watching them in a cinema.

So while they remember pleasant birthday surprises, walks on the beach and their first kiss, what about recollections of those painful, frightening or excruciatingly embarrassing times?

Imagine being able to relive for the rest of your life, and in the most scintillating detail, the day that you wet yourself after getting a bit carried away on the neighbour’s trampoline and being mocked by their evil progeny. Yes this did happen to me, possibly when I was seven, or maybe five. In fact I can’t remember. But I can still feel the mortification of it. If you could choose to relive any memory, surely the danger would be that you would be drawn to the intensity of the awful ones and worry them like a sore tooth.

Maybe the worse things about bad memories, what gives them their power, is the way they can sneak up on you and clobber you from behind when you are feeling vulnerable. Or how they leak into your dreams when your waking vigilance can no longer keep them at bay. For those who are habitually anxious or depressed, wallowing in past disaster is a real concern.

Another person who claims to have superior autobiographical memory is actress Marilu Henner. Best known for her role in a hit TV sitcom of the late Seventies, Taxi, she has published a book about her unusual talent. She has surely experienced up and downs – currently she is on her third marriage – yet she recently told an interviewer that her ability to remember everything makes her feel that her life is “significant”.

Our man in the report, HK, told his interrogators that while bad memories came to his mind just as often as the good ones, he was able to choose to focus on the ones that were more pleasing. And although most of us don’t have the ability to process our memories in the same way as these unusual human beings, perhaps that is the trick.

It even suggests that having a clear recollection of the events that terrified you, or that made you angry or confused, would in fact have their sting removed, knowing you survived them, or by being able to frame them in the light of being older and wiser.