Photographic Memory

October 5, 2009

I’m in the library right now. And I just got done talking to a very interesting man named Jimmy. Well he did most of the talking, I did the listening. But I was at first helping him with a problem on his computer and after I fixed it he thanked me and said I was a very sharp young lady. Well after he said that we got onto the subjects of Autism and how he knew a man with it who was incredibly intelligent. This man- Herb- had a brilliant photographic memory. Jimmy told me how one day Herb and himself were talking in Herb’s library and Herb told him to get a book and open it and read a bit. So he did.

Then Jimmy told me that Herb then told him to go to any page in the book and tell him the number of the page. So he did. Herb said he’s only seen that page once and starting talking about what the page said- word by word.

Is that not incredibly amazing? That would be helpful to have in school, no? Jimmy told me to never let my mind go dormant for it was very hard to get it back into shape in all sort of aspects.

Anyways I thought I’d share all this. Usually I don’t like talking to people, but he was nice to talk to. My mom would probably freak if she knew that I actually offered to help a stranger with his computer and then talked to him. For two reasons- One, he’s a stranger. And two, I’m a distant, sometimes shy and direct person.

I learned quite a bit from this Jimmy though. It was an interesting experience. I actually remembered a phrase I’d heard once as Jimmy and I were talking about photographic memory. “Everyone has a photographic memory, most just don’t have film.”