# @science on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DN6AM3vD9Ut
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/33773881-science-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/f29bee0717.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-08-28T17:01:02.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Science 🧬 (@science) — https://gondola.cc/science

## Caption

🧠 Hyperthymesia, also known as hyperthymestic syndrome or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), is a condition that leads people to be able to remember an abnormally large number of their life experiences in vivid detail. It is extraordinarily rare, with fewer than 100 people in the world having been diagnosed with the condition as of 2021. A person who has hyperthymesia is called a hyperthymesiac.⁠
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American neurobiologists Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh (2006) identified two defining characteristics of hyperthymesia: spending an excessive amount of time thinking about one's past, and displaying an extraordinary ability to recall specific events from one's past. The authors wrote that they derived the word from Ancient Greek: hyper- 'excessive' and allegedly thymesis 'remembering', although such a word is not attested in Ancient Greek, but they may have been thinking of Modern Greek thymisi 'memory' or Ancient Greek enthymesis 'consideration', which are derived from thymos 'mind'.⁠
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Hyperthymesiacs can extensively recall the events of their lives, as well as public events that hold some personal significance to them. Those affected describe their memories as uncontrollable associations; when they encounter a date, they "see" a vivid depiction of that day in their heads without hesitation or conscious effort. While memories are reported as vivid, they are not exact recordings of all experiences, as seen in the case of Jill Price, initially anonymised by Parker, Cahill, and McGaugh in 2006 as "AJ":⁠
- Although she describes her mind as having a movie running, she is not recording her world verbatim in its totality. One day, after several hours together, she was asked to close her eyes and tell what her two interviewers were wearing. She was unable to do so.⁠
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#science #memories #memory #biology #dna #syndrome #hyperthymesia

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## Tags

science, memories, syndrome, memory, hyperthymesia, dna, biology

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