Walking Dead - Do some zombies have memory fragments?

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My impression so far is that some do demonstrate memory. The times I thought it suggested were:

Jenny Jones (Morgan's wife) tries to get in the house where Morgan, Rick and her son are for no apparent reason. Does she know that is where Morgan and son are holed up and is drawn to them?

The Undead Tank Crewman ('Days gone by') rests, or whatever you call their inactive state, in his tank.

Two zombies ('Days gone by') rest in the burned out bus. They get out to follow Rick who passed by on horseback. Is that where they were when the crash happened?

Three zombies sit in a rural church ('What Lies Ahead'). Were they once parishioners?

There is also a slight indication that zombies can show some sort of reduced agression with people they knew in life. Examples are Mishonne's two armless zombie escorts, the Governor's daughter, Karina (Web episode 'The Oath').

The memory if it is that, seems an indistinct type. Like the zombie is drawn to something, but does not know why. Like the sight of something familiar puts it on a memory auto-pilot. It does cross over into the question of how much intelligence to the zombies possess. I do not know if that will become a factor in coming episodes. But one recent example, that of the zombies massing at certain spots at the prison fence suggests some intelligence is possible. It may only be that they mass there because someone was feeding them mice, etc, but that still is a learned behavior.

Hmm... That's an interesting idea.

I think I remember reading in a letters column (in the comics) that Kirkman wasn't interested in exploring how the zombies work... The only rules in the comics are (1) zombies are attracted to sound, and (2) if you smell bad enough or have stinky escorts, zombies won't attack you.

I think that's how it is... I also think I'm getting the memory of a zombie.

Anyway, it could happen in the show. On TV they did come up with the "zombie virus theory." That's more than they ever did in the comics.

Maybe you'r onto something. Jenny did seem to walk around her old house in a very calm manner, trying to get inside with seemingly not a purpose to hurt whoever was inside. But that was in a earlier stage of her being a walker. Later on, we know that she attacked her son Duane.

What i can imagine is that some of the zombies in earlier stages of their transformation can feel some connection to people they knew (memories still laying around in their unconscious mind) - take for example Amy, she seemed to analyze Andrea upon having turned, as if she tried to understand where she knew her from. Then not so many seconds later, she "snapped" out of it, and went into attack mode.

So yes i don't really disagree that this could be something, that the walkers in some cases might have maintained some of their "memory". Though like mentioned, if so, it almost seems like it's just for a short period after they've turned.

I noticed that too with Amy now that you mention it, and perhaps a few other times. Its like a shadow of recognition or confusion that crosses their expression. But its hard to say if it is a planned thing or is something each actor/actress does differently and in an improvised way.

The Woodbury scientist Milton believed they retained some form of memory, though his experiments failed to find any evidence. In the one experiment shown it seemed like Milton was expecting lucid thoughts from the new zombie, but the zombie acted more in a animistic way. I kind of think of them in that way, as animals now but with fragments of memorys tripped once in a while. Kind of like having a very dangerous wild animal that might for a moment have a instinct tripped in a postive way, like if something triggered a motherly instinct in a Female Tyranasaurs Rex. Say a cowering human suddenly reminded her of a T-Rex baby. So she pokes tenderly at it. But its not lasting. As soon as the more dominant interpretation that it is food returns. Well Sayonara.

Is there any evidence that the walkers respond to their own kind? I am trying to think of examples. You could could see this in a couple of lights:
1) Walkers responding to each other in some manner, the way various mammals do. This would indicate some sort of consciousness.
2) Walkers responding to other particular walkers who had been part of their previous, pre-apocalypse, existence. This would indicate a memory at work.
This being said, I am only in season 3 - 2/3 of the way through on DVD - wherein the governor and his mad scientist are trying to get intelligent responses our of their walker 'collection'.

Well, in the issues of the comic that I did read a while ago (don't know about the show, since I haven't watched it) when Rick and the Chinese kid went into the city to get the guns from the gun store, they 'disguised' themselves and their smell by wearing old clothes and smearing zombie goo and zombie parts all over themselves. When they went into the city, Rick 'tested' the disguise by waving his hand in front of the face of a sitting zombie they came across, and the zombie "Rawrhed' at him and smacked his hand away. The zombie didn't attack them, and ignored them once more once they backed away.

To that zombie they might as well have been other zombies, and likely is a clue as to how they 'interact' with one another when humans aren't around.

You have some interesting ideas about this, but let me say why I don't think the zomies have memories from when they were alive. What I do think is that the zombies have some animalistic instincts, and maybe aren't all exactly the same, and maybe have some rudimentary memory creating abilities in their post-zombie state. But I don't think they keep any memories from their pre-zombie existence.


She was probably just "zombified" near the house, and zombies don't tend to really roam around much unless attracted by sounds. The only sounds in the area might have been some faintly heard ones coming from inside the house, from Morgan and his son. Being in the close area anyway, it seems reasonable that she was attracted to the house because of that.


Some zombies are shown as less active than others. This could be due to various reasons. Like if they go too long without eating they seem to lose their bloodlust to an extent. The last episode actually showed evidence of this, in the hospital where the Governor went to get the oxygen tanks. The zombies there were obviously holed up without food for qutie a while, and we could see that they started out really lethargic and not much of a threat to the Governor (he was basically just walking right past them), until they finally started getting more and more active as they were around him, and their bloodlust eventually returned and they did start trying to attack him more actively.


I don't really remember specifically what you're talking about here. But again, zombies don't seem to roam too far on their own unless "guided" by something (usually sound). So it seems logical that zombies will often stay around the area where they first became a zombie.


Again, we see how zombies aren't always active and can get lethargic. It seems like some of them might be "resting" some of the time, especially when they go a while without any food. This is what was probably happening there.


I think Mishonne's is a clear case of basically "domesticating" a zombie by simply depriving it of food long enough to eliminate its bloodlust, as well as "de-clawing" them by removing any means they had to catch or eat their prey. At that point the zombie would probably subconsciously "learn" that it's pointless to try killing anything anymore, after I expect some initial repeated futile attempts. In the case of the Governor's daughter, she seemed lethargic but still somewhat hostile. Being a child however let the Governor not really be in much danger from her, since he could easily overpower her. He still kept her locked up most of the time time though, showing that even he probably considered her somewhat potentially dangerous.


Yes, I do think they have some primal animalistic instincts going on, that can result in some very simplistic learned behavior. They obviously know how to react to sound, and also maybe store some rudimentary memory, but it seems like their "pre-zombie" and "post-zombie" memories are completely different and unrelated, and I haven't seen any real evidence that any carryover of memory actually occurs.

This subject is also covered in George Romero's Land of the Dead, where not only do the zombies have some slight form of memory (the reenact habits of their old lives) but are also seen to have some form of intelligence and emotion (but at most it is equivalent to a group of animals being/feeling threatened).