Isolated in a single moment of being...

[Daft]

Forever now

 

In 1985, the musician Clive Wearing suffered a brain infection that left him with the most severe amnesia ever recorded. But two things were unaffected: his love for his wife and his musical abilities.

 

Saturday November 3, 2007

The Guardian

Jimmie had a memory span of about half a minute; with Clive, it was only a few seconds. New events and experiences were effaced almost instantly, as Deborah wrote in her memoir, Forever Today: "His ability to perceive what he saw and heard was unimpaired. But he did not seem to be able to retain any impression of anything for more than a blink. Indeed, if he did blink, his eyelids parted to reveal a new scene... I tried to imagine how it was for him... Something akin to a film with bad continuity, the glass half empty, then full, the cigarette suddenly longer, the actor's hair now tousled, now smooth. But this was real life."

 

Clive is now in his late 60s. It has been more than 20 years since his illness and, for him, nothing has moved on. One might say he is still in 1985 or, given his retrograde amnesia, in 1965. In some ways, he is not anywhere at all; he has dropped out of space and time altogether. He no longer has any inner narrative; he is not leading a life in the sense that the rest of us do. And yet one has only to see him at the keyboard or with Deborah to feel that, at such times, he is himself again and wholly alive.

 

A really interesting story that I recommend everyone should read.

 

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2204319,00.html

 

Its kind of terrifying...

 

"Can you imagine one night five years long? No dreaming, no waking, no touch, no taste, no smell, no sight, no sound, no hearing, nothing at all. It's like being dead."

 

Our lives are the sum of our experiences, but if we lost our experiences what would that mean?

[Hem]

"Can you imagine one night five years long? No dreaming, no waking, no touch, no taste, no smell, no sight, no sound, no hearing, nothing at all. It's like being dead."

 

Worse than dead IMO.

 

Thanks for the link.

[Dan_Dare]

that sounds like Mememto, only real and utterly terrifying.

[Oxigen_Waste]

that sounds like Mememto, only real and utterly terrifying.

 

Memento was based on his case, btw.

 

You know hat's fascinating?? His journal. Absolutely stunning. It really gives you an insight on how terrible it is.

 

And the chocolate thing? Haunting.

 

The fact that it was him that said "Can you imagine one night five years long? No dreaming, no waking, no touch, no taste, no smell, no sight, no sound, no hearing, nothing at all. It's like being dead." only makes this case all the more fascinating!!

[ipaul]

We were just learning about this in Psychology last month, I really can't imagine anything worse. Incidentally, there was a documentary on Channel 4 about a year back, called Unkown White Male. It was about this person who had been in an accident and could not remember anything before it, apart from practical things like how to ride a bike or stuff like that (because thats a different kind of memory). He could however remember everything since the accident so I guess that is kind of like a reverse of this....weird.

[Supergrunch]

I've seen one of the documentaries on this guy, possibly the one alluded to in the article, and it really is odd. Every time his wife walks in the room he gets so happy, as if he's never seen her for years, saying "look who it is!" This is such a contrast with when he plays or conducts music.

 

It's obviously a horrible condition to have, but it seems that he's come to terms with it somewhat these days, albeit subconciously.

[Blue_Ninja0]

Desperate to hold on to something, Clive started to keep a journal. But the entries consisted, essentially, of the statements "I am awake" or "I am conscious", entered again and again every few minutes. He would write: "2.10pm: this time properly awake... 2.14pm: this time finally awake... 2.35pm: this time completely awake," along with negations of these statements: "At 9.40pm I awoke for the first time, despite my previous claims."

 

Amazing!!!

[ShadowV7]

Read about this stuff in Psychology a couple of weeks ago. Seen a slide with a page of what he wrote down. Most of it was "I love my wife Deborah" and "I'm awake/i'm really awake"

 

Wonder how he remembers his wife though. It's a shame to have, I think i'd rather die.

[DCK]

Wow, that's amazing. The beauty is though, the miserability of his life, he can't physically observe how miserable it is. It must me so hard for his family, however...

[MoogleViper]

I think I saw this guy on TV. (if not him then somebody with a similar problem) He could remember his wife but not his children. Everytime he saw her it was like he hadn't seen her for years.