Temporal Memory

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I'm not sure how to explain this.

On any given day of the year, I can remember that calendar date from multiple occasions back to childhood.

For example, today which is the 4th of May I instantly remember at least 15-20 other 4th of May events, pertinent to my own life. I remember whose birthday it was back in childhood, or what I did, or what I wrote in my diary on that date for many years back. Likewise with nearly every date on the calendar. They aren't necessarily bad flashbacks which trigger the memory, it's more like all my memories are sorted in my mind like a rolodex, by date.

Also I'm the same way with scent and sound. I can conjure a recollection of any sound or scent I choose, at will, going back my whole life.

Today I was flipping through all the other 4th of May events, memories and emotions in mind, but then I smelled a scent and heard a sound which went together (one solid memory), although the memory didn't belong on 4th of May. That gave me a sense of dissonance or disconnect. I wanted to move the sound and scent forward to next week where they would fit better with the temporal memories.

I think every moment of every day, my emotions are crafted by memories of that specific date, as well as the time on the clock, or the scents and sounds in my environment.

That is usually listed among savant skills.

Interesting.
My memory doesn’t work like that, everything goes in without me needing to consciously focus or pay attention, I’m not even aware it’s happening: but then it all floods back up when prompted by context.
(I passed the law and economics exams at uni with no studying or revision)
Never perceived any pattern to it though.

Same. That's a better way of describing it. I don't really try for these memories to flood back, but they just do. Sometimes I won't have a clue what today's date is but I will have a certain mood or nostalgia. Then when I check the date I realise "Oh... that's why!" The emotions and memories are stored in me somewhere according to time.

Today the scent of the air made me remember it's the 4th of May. The exact scent, the exact date. Then I noticed the scent of something else and heard a sound, but both of those belong on the 10th.

I have extreme synaesthesia so maybe it's something to do with that, but I think it's just highly attuned sensory recall.

PS: Happy birthday to that girl named Donna I met once when I was 17. She mentioned this was her birthday.

May The Forth Be With You!

^ Ahh, right: so there is a level of similarity, but I don’t have the temporal association, nor have I ever noticed any sensory stimuli summoning the memories.
More my conscious thought stream, it seems to both trigger them and be composed of them.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been told I go off on incomprehensible tangents when I do open up and converse... well, monologue would be more accurate.

Instantaneous edit:
I think text plays a roll: I can remember the gist of, illustrations in and argument of every book I own just by scanning the spines and reading the titles.
And the printing errors and grammatical mishaps.
And then that leaps on to ideas and concepts that my mind has linked as being a similar form, colour & texture.
And where I bought it from, where I read it, the time of year, the weather: webs of association layered over each other.

Maybe that’s why I did well in formal exams without any real effort: the question just triggered the gist and salient facts of the relevant lecture automatically.

I wasn't sure of the true definition of a savant, so I checked.

"Savant syndrome is a condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain abilities far in excess of average. (Maybe in some areas e.g., synaesthesia ✅ )

The skills at which savants excel are generally related to memory. (In some regards, yes ✅)

This may include:
rapid calculation (❌ I can do rapid arithmetic, but nothing at a savant level)

artistic ability (Medium skill, especially with written word)

map making (❌ I'm good with directions, but nothing at a savant level)

musical ability (❌ Not at all)

spatial skill (❌❌❌ very weak)

calendar skills: can name the day of the week of a date, or vice versa, in a few seconds or even a tenth of a second, on a limited range of decades or certain millennia". ❌ -- Nope!!

I don't think that any savant gets ALL the abilities. I wish someone had told me how memory usually works, and why reviewing helps. I tend to look for basic facts that I will be able to use a lot, and that appreciation locks them into memory.

My memories are all sorted in a type of sensory lexicon. I can retrieve almost any memory by trying to recreate the smell, sound, texture or weather in my mind. I store very few visual memories.

I also have temporal memories for each day of the week and the time on the clock.

I wouldn't say I have a perfect memory. There's LOTS of my life that I can't remember, but if I were given a sensory trigger or reminder I'm sure it would all come rushing back.

That list is "or", and not "and".

A savant is usually someone who has just one insanely overdeveloped skill. And an "idiot savant" is a person who has one insane genius skill, but whom is impaired, or ret*d in everything else.

A savant doesn't have all those skills, and indeed might not have ANY of them.

Its just a list of examples of the kinda things a savant might have as a skill.

Obviously you're not an "idiot savant" (like the Rain Man, or countless real people you see on the news). But that skill might be a borderline savant skill.

I realise it's OR, but I wanted to see if I had any of the descriptors. I really don't, except that I have a strong sensory memory and synaesthesia. The temporal memories don't have anything to do with knowing what day of the week it was 1,367 years ago.

Thanks for the vote of confidence but it never once occurred to me I have any savant qualities. I'm just really good at making associations between sensory input and I never forget a date or time from my own experiences, because of number patterns and emotional imprints.

I'm finally realizing that most of the engineering that seems blindingly obvious to me is just fog to most engineers.

Wow, that's got to be some kind of calendar synesthesia or calendar savantism. Remarkable. (Like people who can remember pi to 2000 places because it's a big colored shape for them.) Never heard of that variety before (but I'm not an expert).

You should see if there's research on this particular calendar ability and offer yourself as a research subject.

It's only pertaining to my personal memories, not world history or anything like that.

Synaesthesia is part of it because every date has a certain colour combination, and those colours prompt the memories of things that happened on those colours in the past. Tomorrow is one of the most active days in my repertoire.

Spell-biding, B'ella.

(It does begin to sound like the case of people who memorize large numbers by not seeing them as numbers but as colors and shapes.)

Yes, I have a whale of a time with it.

I can remember telephone numbers and birthdates (and names) by the colour.

People with Extraordinary Autobiographical Memory

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... cal-memory