A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering

This report describes AJ, a woman whose remembering dominates her life. Her memory is “nonstop, uncontrollable, and automatic.” AJ spends an excessive amount of time recalling her personal past with considerable accuracy and reliability. If given a date, she can tell you what she was doing and what day of the week it fell on. She differs from other cases of superior memory who use practiced mnemonics to remember vast amounts of personally irrelevant information. We propose the name hyperthymestic syndrome, from the Greek word thymesis meaning remembering, and that AJ is the first reported case.

We are indebted to AJ for her eagerness to share her time and her story for science. Her willingness to be queried, probed, tested, and videotaped has been unwavering. AJ knew that she possessed a unique memory and told us over and over that she hoped understanding it might some day help others. We thank Endel Tulving for his help with this conceptualization of AJ’s remembering. We thank Spiros Koulouris for his input on naming the syndrome.