I literally only remember like the outlines of events, I don’t remember like the colors of clothing, or exact words of converasations, or like smell of the room. How the f do people remember that stuff? Like, no way they have photographic memory, do they just partly invent detail?
James Frey has entered the chat
You may have aphantasia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
Read https://archive.is/iMdvd for more info about it
On a related note, I don’t remember the best resources I’ve come across, but here’s something for a bit of an idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_errorLegally, there is the concept of contemporaneous notes in many countries. Meaning if you write something down shortly after the event occured it can have legal validity.
There is also hypnotherapy, EMDR, and other forms of therapy, where many people can access memories that they couldn’t. I was surprised myself how many memories I could access with EMDR.
I find the concept appears to be similar to meditation and lots of sensory information + association. How stuff felt, sounded, smelled, where you felt in your body etc.
Less related, but there’s also Method of Loci etc. to remember lots of very specific things
Many autibiographies are personal whitewashing. So it is more a question of creativity than of memory.
Almost all, would be more accurate. And some even unintentional, we tend to unconsciously modify our memory to make ourselves look better
Some people keep journals. When those people write their autobiographies, they can check the records.
Other people have good memories.
It’s probably also more important for it to be a good story than for it to be 100% accurate.
It definitely varies between people as well. For instance, my sister (with no genetic relation to me) has much better memory than me, which seemed almost superhuman to me when I was growing up. Although, I have since realized that my memory is much worse than average, to the extent where I probably have one or more memory disorders. I’m sure that some people have memory that is much better than average, whether or not my sister is one of them.
Human memory is quite unreliable. Even if they remember, a significant portion will be fiction.
I’m guessing a lot of it sort of comes back to you as you’re writing your memoir. My grandparents both wrote one and it also helps that they had a lot of photos to jog their memories. They also grew up in Europe during WW2 so a lot of memories stood out to them 😅
I’ve been trying to write a memoir and this is legitimately true. I have basically no concrete memory of my childhood, but when I start writing what I do remember it opens some floodgates. Admittedly I still have to fill in a lot of gaps with what I think is funniest.
My understanding is that a lot of memoirs are ghost written, so rarely actually authored by the person they are about. They interview people and then most likely invent detail to fill in the rest. That or they find actual photos of events or things and build out the detail that way. If you have a picture of an event and can see the decorations you can probably guess or imagine the smell. Likewise if family members have selfies or things like that you can fill in their outfits from there
This is very much true. Ghost writing is also done to keep the voice of the author, as much as possible. Doug Stanhope, notable comedian, drunk, and drug abuser, has a very entertaining book called Digging Up Mother. There’s no way he remembers all this stuff, and he admits it. But in the audiobook versions, he adds meta-asides that indicate when a name is fake, for example, or add a story that contextualizes something, or he’ll straight up say “I’m tired, so-and-so is taking over” and let someone else read, making it a much more authentic experience of how an “autobiography” comes together.
You talk to people you shared those experiences with. Someone is bound to have remembered something different you didn’t
