Why does my memory work so well in one way but not any other

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Being visually aware of that which is not there rather than just "knowing" what it would look like if you were seeing it is the difference between a standard thought about something and hallucinating. When you just think and know that you are wearing a red shirt, this is explicitly different from when you "see" the shirt you are wearing with your "mind's eye". Hallucinating is the metabolization of encoded memory. I once had a psychologist describe a schizophrenic hallucination as "The unguided metabolization of encoded memory that never occurred." To which I should have replied "Unguided by whom? Unguided by what? All things happen for some reason." My understanding is that they mean by the consciousness. Conscious direction of the generation of a false memory and the metabolization thereof via imagination versus the subconscious mind projecting the hallucination forward to the consciousness.

I can't make myself NOT see the hallucinations of the things I'm thinking about, so it is considered an unconscious act, I only recently started to understand just how different my schizophrenia makes me, I always thought everybody else was much closer to experiencing things the way I do and then somebody made a thread on here about hallucinations and I did a "Wait, what? That changes my entire understanding of how I operate versus how others operate." I thought the catatonic episode hallucinations were the hallucination, I didn't realize the constant dissattenuated sensory impressions were also abnormal hallucinations.

I believe one of the issues with psychoanalysis is that Freud started from the faulty assumption that the conscious mind should have authoritative control over all other processes of an individual because the consciousness was the key to individuality. I believe in a mutually beneficial partnership between all of my bodily organs and the cells they contain. My conscious self aware portion is just the Democratically elected President who has a responsibility to respect the wishes of the entire system. I believe various so called ND conditions relate to a breaking down of the barrier between the conscious and the unconscious which diminishes the ability to assert dominance over your own body.

Oh my god, i can relate! I suck at remembering certain things, but then there will be other things that i remember in detail when no-one else around does. It takes me awhile to catch on to someone's name. There have been multiple times where someone will be talking about someone else where i work, and i'll ask "uhhh, who is _______?" And it'll end up being someone who's been working there just as long as i have, who i've seen over and over again, just never remembered their name. Birthdays i also have problems with, and remember how old someone is(i mean, it changes every year! lol). But then again, i might remember the name of some obscure disease or something that no one else really thought to take note of. I think it might depend on how much whatever it is interests you, or whether or not it makes you think about it. Like, if i hear something and it reminds me of something else, then thinking about it like that kind of makes a mental note in my mind... whereas something like a name usually doesn't make me think of anything in particular, so my mind doesn't register it.

On the whole face thing.. I'm not as bad as some people with that, because if i see someone a lot then their face will form a really clear image in my head and i'll remember it really well. But with people i don't see a lot, i'm horrible. Maybe it's just because i don't look at peoples' faces all that much, especially those i don't know. But, someone at work might be asking me to get a tv for them, and a lot of the time when i bring it out, i'll completely forget who asked me about to get it. A few times i've even just asked random customers "was i getting a tv for you?" haha.

Memory is an interesting thing. There are many types and people learn better with some methods than others...AS or NT. You should learn what type of memorization styles work for you and tailor your study habits to exploit them.

The way I see it, I have an excellent long term memory and an awful short term one. I can remember things from when I was three years old yet I cannot remember a customer's face in the store that I saw yesterday. It's like I can only remember the important things.

My memory suffers badly under stress.

My memory works fine with road maps, trains and sports but terrible with names.