However, I see a blurry image in my mind for the things that I do remember. This only helps me in 2 rare aspects of my life.

• Every time I tell you a piece of information, I can tell you what medium I read it from, and what it was called. So I could mention something I read from a newspaper in conversation, and tell you what newspaper I read it from. This has got me nicknamed encyclopedia at times
• In exams when I’m answering questions, if I have revised for the exam beforehand using an old exam paper, I will see a blurry image with some of the words, including the words I wrote on the page, to help me answer the question.

This comes with disadvantages.
It is hard for me to take in lots of information at once.

• When revising for 2 exams at once, everyone revised 75-100% of the old exam paper. I could only revise a third of it. I failed both exams and now have to resit those modules. I am absolutely rubbish at exams, and I have to revise 2 months in advance to have a chance of passing them. I couldn’t meet the 40% pass mark, getting 1 or 2 marks off, a maximum of 15 questions. I don’t know how I’m going to pass university.
• I am rubbish at remembering numbers. Yet I remember important phone numbers and my pin code because they’re important.
• When talking to me with lots of words about new stuff, you might notice that there’s a part of your message that I obliviously skipped. Some of the sentences I know you’ve said, don’t actually compute in my brain. It takes me a while to realise that I’ve overlooked something, so I have to think back to remember what I’ve overlooked.
• I am not observant in any way. I walked out the Fish and Chip shop and dropped my change on the grey concrete. It was right in front in my face right next to the copper coin I picked up. I couldn’t find the silver 20p coin, no matter how hard I looked. I’m rubbish at noticing changes in things. Another time some Muslim girl in my class had a newly acquired headscarf on, to dedicate herself to her religion. Her and some other girl asked me to spot what was different about her. I couldn’t get it no matter how many guesses I did. The irony is that I had trouble recognising her when she said hello to me earlier, because her face was covered. My brain just skips that sort of stuff.

So I would like to say, that there are no advantages or disadvantages to having my type of memory. It takes with one hand, and gives with the other. It’s really good at certain things, but it makes up for it in other ways.

PS. If you’ve ever had a comment thread with me on this website or anything, I haven’t forgotten what you’ve said to me, because I have made an active effort not to forget any of your words to me. That’s how good my memory is. I just don’t have direct access to it now. I hope Gary Rutz doesn’t reply to this answer and talk about Gringotts.

One of the few cool things that I CAN do is that whenever I lose something, I can play out the events leading to it (like, where it was last kept before losing it, why it was taken from that place etc) in my mind and 98% of the time, I usually find it. I can also remember tastes and smells, in a large range and I usually associate them with a lot of memories.

During my early school days, I could remember the entire text from a chapter along with the diagrams and charts and stuff and had no problem replicating it with a few or no alterations just by reading it once or twice. But now I can only remember the gist of  a certain text along with the diagrams, but I can tell, on which part of the book you can find the answer (yeah, not much helpful this way :P)

Also, I can always,always remember a face long time after I have seen it but a few times, I have trouble associating a name with the face and that few times drives me mad!

The fact is, having a ‘better than average’  memory has its perks but the need to connect certain things (such as a place with a memory, a name with a face, an event  etc) can be really overwhelming and it sometimes (all the times) drives me to obsession. I keep thinking about the unconnected things even in my dreams and during important events, like exams, even if I dont want to!! Also, it’s very painful to visit old places (like our first home, my first classroom etc) and finding out that they are no longer similar to what they are in my vivid memory and  it really bugs me several days on end. There are also a LOT of useless information lying around my head which I wish I could erase somehow. All in all, having this kind of memory is in no way, considered by me to be ‘ a gift’. I would rather have a normal memory, that allows me to carry out all my duties  without driving me to unnecessary brooding and obsession every other day

In school, just because I can give many examples to support my arguments in essays and in exams. in one debate speech I used more than 20 examples to justify my stance. In science subjects, I can memorise and recall every formula I have learnt since 1st grade. I don’t really need to study for maths or sciences. When my classmates have a problem, they come to me for the answer and that makes you look really smart. I also remember every phone number I ever dialled.

From another person’s point of view it looks really good, but there are several problems:

1. Every time I see something disgusting or horrifying, I remember it forever. Since the age of 6, I have been collected these scary moments. Sometimes on the street I recall one of them and it sends chills down my spine. I still remember being scared in a circus when I was 8. Only until very recently have I manage to overcome the fear.

2. I have very serious ear worms. I listen to half a song in the car and the song is stuck inside my head, until I replace it with another song. The problem is, because I only know half the song, my head constantly replays the last line of the music before I got off the car. It disturbs me allot.

3. Visual memories pop up at the wrong time. During my exams I suddenly recall a full scene from movies. I remember the entire scene, the way it was edited, the dialogue. Only last Monday when I was in my history exam my brain replayed the entire Siege of Gondor from Lord of the Rings, which lasted around 30 minutes. I could not concentrate and ended up writing much less than I usually do.

4. I can never go to bed. Once my head hits the pillow I start replay recent events. Since I am very fond of audiobooks, I replay them in my head when I try to sleep. I go to bed at eleven, but in the past two weeks I have been constantly reciting the process of German Unification and Bismarck’s diplomatic victories. That is not particularly helpful when there is a maths exam the next day.

So I hope you don’t get too excited about photographic memory. It does make you look cool when you manage to recite a phone number or a random scientific theory; but when you are alone the bad memory starts to freak you out. By the way, sometimes I look at the picture and a skimmed over it briefly and I didn’t study the entire thing, the fragmented pictures consumes a lot of my energy to fill in the missing bits.

I remember everyone‘s faces I come into contact with. EVERYONE. If you tell me your name, most likely I’ll remember it too. In Vegas, I ran into an old classmate I haven’t seen for six years, I instantly recognized him, as a small example. It also means I get easily annoyed because I remember everyone’s faces, and I get irritated when I can’t remember everyone’s names.

Believe it or not, although I’m the queen of typos on the Internet, it means I’m a good speller and very nitpicky about spelling(in real life). It led me to the fact that before I knew perfect English, I already did  well in spelling bee, because spelling to me, in terms of  words, feels “right”.

If  I paid attention to something, I will remember these specific details. My friends say I remember the most random non obvious details–but that’s only if I made some kind of a note of it. I can remember years later.

I wasn’t too good in math, but not surprisingly, I did well in geometry and enjoyed geometry.

History and poli sci classes were not too difficult in terms of dates, facts, and remembering what happened, I absolutely loved it and grasped that quickly  ^ ^

I’m not super human or posses super special abilities, but I do have to some degree a photographic memory.

HEY!
it is the original Google Glass!.. lol..

some examples: during exams, all i had to do was to reproduce the answers/pages of the book from memory.. VERY handy if you ask me..

but i would say that’s even more useful now, in my adult life:
– at work: reading contract and legal briefs, making notes on legislative changes, etc..
– at home: it is invaluable.. as any other parent/spouse would confirm, many times the house appears to turn into the Bermuda triangle and things go missing.. so all that’s needed is just retrace steps and recall mental pictures of the environment, and voila! – i think i am the walking-and-talking “Lost and Found” department.. haha

• I remember books in the form of pictures and hence it’s pretty easy for me to retrieve the important parts which I prefer to keep in my mind. I can remember the location of a line in a page of a book (basically which side of the page does it lie) apart from its color, size and vertical position in the page.
• Sometimes it gets weird for others to understand. Ex – while searching for a place I would start giving directions just because I had seen that electric pole or a particular house, or a hoarding the last time we came here on that route. These easily passable things get fed into my mind even though I never try to absorb them.
• I never forget faces, I’ll tell you a funny instance about it. When I got hooked to FB, I started looking for all my long lost friends, one of whom I had last met 12 years ago. Luckily she was there on FB, I sent her a message furnishing details about us like  our school’s name, class and teacher’s name. She first refused to acknowledge these details as a proof that I was her genuine classmate. After that I had to tell her the color of hairband, the types of shoes she used to wear and our common friend. She was a bit puzzled knowing all these fine details but she accepted my request. We still talk to each other and she still does not know who I am.
• Similarly, I caught hold of one my friends who had lost contact with me many years ago. We were travelling in a bus and I could not shake away the feeling of seeing that face before and bam it struck me! Unlike the case above, he got easily convinced.
• This also helps in improving my sports abilities. ex – I would keep playing a particular shot, swing in my memory until I feel that it has become perfect and it could be executed as it is. It is quite exhausting but benefits are worth reaping.

• Things are also painful for me. I have to run a cycle of pictures on my bed before I go sleep. If I wake up in the middle of the night, the same process has to be repeated. Unlike Christian McConnell, I dream every night and can retain very specific dreams for a very long time. I often wake up quite exhausted in the morning since I feel that dreaming too involves mind  engagement.

– Go backwards through memories as if I’m reading a book (I need to stare straight ahead and sort of “fade out” of conscious reality for this to work, but it let’s me “tab” through each memory until I find what I want. I’d call it a memory palace, but it isn’t quite detailed enough for that)

– Rewind memories (Same as above, but in video form. I simply focus on a specific point in time and play around with it. Around about last year I managed to go through the very recent past [~1-5 minutes ago], and I can now do that somewhat reliably. Clips of memory can be viewed in third person, but they normally take the form of ~1080p unless I’m in a very, very peaceful environment)

– Navigate regularly-visited environments as if I’m viewing them through a camera w/ perfect (aka human-eye level) display (This needs to be somewhere I visit more than once or twice a week, but I can see literally anything I’ve looked at i that area. I proved having an eidetic/photographic memory to a friend by reciting features of a school art room from memory)

– See myself in third person (requires TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE CALM or extreme boredom. Otherwise, I just hit a lot of mental fog and don’t really get anywhere. Doing it intentionally in realtime is f*cking terrifying, so I generally avoid that)

– SUPER OMG EXTREME lucid dreams, including one where I was a fish. Every single human sense except sight experienced the dream (this happened when I was in the bath, and it’s actually the only one of these I’ve ever had. I’m sure I could trigger one again though, if I took the right steps.)

– Lucid dreaming (Been possible for a long time, possibly since I was born)

Tradeoffs

– Repeated night terrors in the form of visual hallucinations + paranoia. They might contain sound, smell and hearing one day, but they haven’t yet.

– Almost useless memory for names and a possibly poorer than average one for words.

– I’ll sometimes spend entire days “out”, unable to really participate in any maths despite being very strong creatively. This is going away now and becomes less common alongside stress + lack of sleep, so it might just be normal tiredness.

Unrelated to topic (aka random bragging because why not):

– Manipulating pain/perceived temperature

– Deep (aka non-thinking) meditation (only experienced so far during cold baths in Winter [I live in Melbourne, don’t worry], so this could have been temporary hypothermia).

For example, I don’t have the best orientation and I can guarantee that I’m not the guy to guide you through an unknown location. However, having a good memory helps a lot by recalling the exact path and locations to actually draw a map in my mind without any effort, and being a motorcycle rider I can say that on the streets I rely a lot on my memory.
This skill also helps me a lot in my work as well. Being a software developer it’s really a huge time saver to recall the little things everyone has forgotten.

One of the disadvantages I often see is that for example everyone in the classroom or in a work meeting has their little notebooks to type information or write down ToDo’s and stuff like that. Of course, you, having a good memory, are just sitting there without writing down anything and this may cause bad impressions of people who doesn’t know about you and your memory. The first impression is that you might be uninterested in your education or your work.

Some boss I had once tested my memory because of this. He didn’t buy the idea of me remembering the details of the meeting, so we record the next meeting and we did some tests. I repeated the entire dialog while he was hearing the recording with one headphone. He didn’t bother me again.
But still, for me was a problem, so I bought a little notebook to “write down important things” (that I’d never read again, I didn’t want to spoil my memory :))

Another important disadvantage is the amount of information since anything could fire a lot of different visualizations, sounds, images, etc. It’s a problem that you might not notice while you’re a kid but it tends to annoy you when you have a lot of worries in your mind. Meditation helps with this issue, sometimes it feels like a “reset” of your brain.

Everyone would want to forget the bad things you lived through, however this it’s impossible for people who has a good memory, and it can really annoy you. When you have bad experiences, you would probably remember them, and it can be sad and annoying. But, when you can remember them in detail, then things feels wrong.
The opposite it’s also true, you can recall great experiences in detail, even when people already forgot them, and despite this being a good thing, sometimes it feels a little sad…

And last but not least, one of the major disadvantage is that when people know about your skill, they think you can remember anything at will and it really doesn’t work that way. You just have the skill there, like a receptor storing memories and a good index to get them back, but you can’t just say “I want to recall the entire cities in the world right now”, at least not with my brain.

For that I started to use some memory techniques like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met…  that can really improve your memory even you have a really bad one. With these techniques I learned to control it a little bit, by knowing how my memory works. Despite that there’s a lot of things science doesn’t know about the brain and the memory process, you tend to do the recall process consciously when you have to, and it feels fantastic.

I would have to change many things in my life if one day I loose my memory. Of course, eventually I will, but let’s hope that I’ll be old enough to care!

I have become a book of secrets with the only advantage of being able to provide facts if needed.

There are many many memories that I would love to have erased from my brain.. yeah.. it sucks a lot.

Same problem applies to books. I typically read it twice, then it will rarely be read again. If it wasn’t that great or was rather simple, I’ll read it once and it will go back on the shelf. Ask me to recall the plot line and I’ll give you a summary of the entire story, and can expound on points throughout.

Then there’s things I’d rather not remember. Unfortunately, forgetting for me is not an easy thing, so I consider it a miracle when I can finally avoid dredging up a memory I would rather never recall again. Not to mention that often the slightest thing can essentially bring up the entire file cabinet related to that item, so to speak. It can be handy when someone needs information, or it can be a royal pain.

But it has it’s pros: I can count on one hand the times I’ve actually studied for an exam, at least longer than a simple 10 minute review. That’s not always a good thing, I suppose, but I really haven’t needed it.

If someone has a question on anything, I’m usually the one they turn to.

I also find it useful and nice to be able to simply picture a memory, and review it as if my mind were a DVR with no storage limit.

I can also recall conversations with ease.

That being said, it all requires a good deal of tact, and learning when to correct and when to let it pass. It’s something I’m still working on, as my personality type (INTJ) tends toward being poor at recognizing emotions, as well as being forthright.

I manage.

Wouldn’t trade the memory ability, though. Very glad to have it.

In school, I barely had to study since I took highly structured notes and, while reviewing them for a test, could envision and recall everything the instructor said during that discussion. I’ve also studied a wide range of topics, from history to computer science, and have a strong ability to recall and synthesize information from all these disciplines. The only learning issue I’ve ever had involved higher math (surprisingly) because my talent seems more focused on the written and spoken word than on numbers. That said, I can recall phone and other numbers along with the people and addresses with which they’re associated. Many of these date from high school or earlier and are just as fresh in my memory as the day I learned them.

I also can recall details of maps and locations, which is very handy when traveling. If I look at a map of a major city for maybe half an hour, I then no longer need it and can visualize the structure with a high degree of accuracy.

Likewise, I can recall details of mechanical devices I’ve worked on. If I disassemble something (I restore old radios as a hobby) my brain automatically maps the steps, so I don’t need a diagram in order to re-assemble it correctly even if dis-assembly happened months or years earlier.

One good thing is that, unlike some who simply cannot sort through memory by relevance, my own storage is prioritized and context driven. I’m not constantly re-living memories unless they’re relevant to a given situation, and can then recall what’s needed. The bad part of it is that, if reminded of anything “bad” I’ve ever done (from early childhood onward) I immediately re-experience the event and the attached negative emotion as if it’s in real time.

From a personal perspective, people find this ability both fascinating and somewhat intimidating or uncanny. People who know me well are used to my recall abilities, but new acquaintances often find them creepy or off-putting. When my mother passed away, family members were sorting through her things when one found a small shell ornament she owned. This person mused “where did she ever get this?” because my mother never traveled. I reminded her that SHE had bought the ornament as a gift for my mother, adding the year and in what context. She looked at me like I’d just sprouted a second head.

My ability to recall nearly accurate quotes is very handy in debate, but I have to consciously control its use in social contexts so as not to offend people.

For roughly the last five years I’ve been on medication for depression, and have definately noticed an effect on my memory.  Many things that would previously have been laser-etched in my memory are now vague and fuzzy.  I think its mainly effecting newer memories than old.  I’m still unable to reread a book without mouthing words or mentally preparing for the updoming scene tho.

I will say that being on the meds is better than being off them, as a subjective judement call.  Even if they are changing me, me on them is better than me off them.