Eidetic Memory.

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Does anyone else have an eidetic memory/photographic memory in terms of 100% accuracy of recall?

Is it more common in autism?

I can learn a train company's entire map in one sitting and I can remember it weeks later without practising it. I learnt the First Capital Connect train map in under half an hour and I can draw the map on a blank piece of paper and label all the stations and thier connections, with 100% accuracy. I can recite the 54 stations from London Waterloo to Weymouth as rapidly and easy as counting from 1 to 54. In fact I have committed the whole Southwest Trains map to memory in one go.

Does anyone else have a skill like this? If so, what is your speicality?

i don't have it, but i know an NT woman who used it well. she became a physician.

Dr. Spencer Reid is the only one I know with it. My brother might also be eidetic. He's a trauma surgeon. I should ask him one day.

Nope. I don't have it. I wish I did though. I have known non autistic people with it too.

I don't think 100% accuracy of all recall is possible or been proven.

eidetic memory doesnt have to be perfect, it comes as a spectrum.

as i understood it it actually hinges around the sensory information being presented while remebering, might be wrong though.

do i have it?

no idea, i have a good memory, but not a stable one, my memorization is dependant on stress levels and enviroment as well as subject matter.(fairly normal?)

as for 100%, never heard of it either, what is feasible is near perfect memory in a certain subject matter or form, ie visual memory of particular studied details, like a train map.

i have heard of cases where only a few dozen words out of a several hundred pages long book were mistaken, with smaller sample sizes and observation bias that would easily be mistaken for 100%

Is your recall 100% for all major senses (ie. visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory)?

Could you reproduce a painting by seeing it only once?

Can you type out lectures from having heard the Professor deliver the content?

Could you reproduce written material that is written in languages that you do not know?

I can do repair procedures and play most songs after seeing/hearing once. If anything my personal best wouldn't pass the 90% mark, I'll forget something important like what color shirt the drummer was wearing.

The people who has that, have it at a great price, there was a documentary about this dude who could remember pretty much everything, but simple stuff like talking and putting clothes on he could do.

As far as i know, nobody has that and all is normally fully function on anywhere near normal levels.

I think the dudes name was something with kim maybe, he was living with his dad, pretty amazing dude.

Ok sorry for the use of "100%". I'll say 95%

Thinking about this again, perhaps not eidetic and probably photographic. As I don't remember so much of the sensory bit.

I appear to have the ability to remember the number of every train I've been on, like the 319379 and the 319442. I also saw the DR89816, which was an engineer's train, a week ago, which was pretty cool.

I have an eggstremely good memory, part of the reason why I never write anything down, but I wouldn't call it eidetic memory, that's too eggstreme.

You're a lucky person and it is not a common trait shared by us (although by some). I *wish* I had it.

I don't think I have a photographic memory, certainly not 100%. But I have by far the best long term memory of anyone I know. My short term memory is probably above average too.

I remember back to when I was one year old, and I remember almost everything that I've ever experienced. I think my memory is more verbal/word-orientated than numbers. I've heard of people who can tell you what happened on any given date. I'm not so good at that, but I can repeat conversations I had years ago word for word. I can recall large parts of books I read years ago. I remember entire song lyrics and poems - I hear something once or twice and it's in my brain for good. It made passing school exams very easy. Just read the text book and memorise it and repeat it in the exam (good enough for the level of exams that just require you to know facts and not be creative anyway!).

I used to assume every average person had a memory like mine. I'd get frustrated when people wouldn't remember things - I'd say, but two years ago, you said this, and now you're contradicting yourself! And they'd tell me there was no way anyone could remember a two-year old conversation. Sometimes people would even seem to have false memories - I've noticed that some people seem to remember themselves in a more flattering light than the reality, or replace mistakes they'd made with versions in which they'd done the right thing in their memory. I'd always know my memory was the right one. (The fact that I had so many memories, being able to validate my memory by checking things like knowledge of books and lyrics, occasions where I could go back and check photos/videos, etc. convinced me that I wasn't the one misremembering).

So words seem to be the strongest aspect of my memory - whether written or aural. My memories involve all the senses - I remember what it felt like to be experiencing something - touch, taste, smell, look, sound. But not actually photographic.

I don't know if this is related to having Asperger's or not. From the responses so far to this thread, it seems it's not common to autism.

I had heard a theory that if you have a good memory you are more likely to be a depressed person. Because you remember the bad reality and don't insert false happy memories, just like the people I've obseved do! And you remember your mistakes where the average person forgets and so assumes they didn't do anything wrong, so those with better memory have low self esteem. I've no idea if there's any truth to this theory - I think I have plenty of reasons to be depressed or have low self-esteem, even if my memory was average.

I have an excellent memory for numbers, maps and lists. I often memorise my shopping lists easily (no need to take the list with me). Maps, as I said above, I'm excellent with train maps. I have train maps for different regions stuck on the walls of my bedroom and I can memorise them easily.

If you give me a chemical symbol of any element on the Periodic Table, I can tell you what the full name of the element is, and where it is, without even having to think, it just appears in my head in about 0.2 seconds.

As for numbers, I rarely use my contacts list on my phone, I just dial the numbers into my mobile phone as I know most of them off by heart. I memorised pi to 400 decimal places a while ago and that wasn't difficult. I could have gone further but I lost interest. I can tell you telephone numbers that I heard in an advert a week ago, or any numbers people say to me.

But then my memory is rubbish for people's names, and verbal instructions. I often forget people's names, even if I see them often. And if someone gives me directions, or a verbal list of instructions (say, in a practical at university), I will go away and three seconds later most of the directions/verbal instructions will be lost from my memory.

I also struggle to remember fictitious stories, or any type of story really. I struggled with history and English Literature at school because not only could I not understand the plots/characters, I also struggled to remember the general story (history = his story).

There is usually extreme compromise in my brain: I am either a genius at something (psychopharmacology, train maps) or rubbish at it (history, English Literature).

I noted that I can remember about 90%, it's the other 10% that causes me grief; misplacing items, forgetting my purpose for shifting focus, taking too long to return calls. Frustration is when you survive a shopping trip with every item in the basket you came for, to reach the checkstand, only to realize you failed to bring your wallet

Kim Peak.

He is dead.