This is more me just wondering about how other people remember things. I tend to remember things in the third person, especially childhood memories. If I remember myself bumping my head on the table, or watching my dad put the framework of the second story on my house, I'm always watching myself bump my head on the table, or watching myself watch my dad. Occasionally I have a first person perspective memory, but they're usually interspersed with third person perspective, weird angles that I couldn't possibly have seen from, sometimes like, movie-esque crane shots.

Anyway I didn't think anything of this until I met a girl a couple years ago who was astounded that I remembered things like this. Mostly because this was how she remembered things, and all of her friends made fun of her because they remembered things in first person perspective only.

How do you remember stuff? Are there more people like me? Or are there more people who remember things in first person prespective only?

Stuff from early childhood is all third person. Stuff from later is all first person. :)

As for angels… In 3rd person it was mostly directly above, ant's eye view, or eye level.

ozoneocean
Stuff from early childhood is all third person. Stuff from later is all first person. :)

As for angels… In 3rd person it was mostly directly above, ant's eye view, or eye level.

I've wondered about this too and I think the first-person thing might partly be because half of what we think we remember from that age is actually something that someone has told us- but we can either remember it enough or imagine it well enough that it becomes a memory. I also think it's because of photos. I can remember certain christmases, etc, but when I begin to think about it, they're the ones we have the most photos of, and the photos are always 3rd person. So I've remembered it in terms of the photos I've seen. Lastly I think it's because from so long ago, we might remember WHAT happened, but don't have any specific memories about our own role in it, so we remember it more like a movie or 3rd person view which is more factual than based on sensation. I only have a very few memories of me at a young age from 1st person (but many from 3rd) and they're all things that I'd have a particular reason to remember in that way. (Being angry, etc.)

I have the complete opposite that I remember my childhood memories in first person, but the more recent ones in 3rd. It's more that from the past years I still know EXACTLY what I looked like, the world was normal and I can easily imagine what it would look like if you would see me walking somewhere in that movie-crane-shot-thing. My childhood memories tough I see from my perspective back then. The world was a lot more weird.. the world was BIG, really big and life was an adventure. I'm not really the type of person that reminds pictures, but I remind certain atmospheres. Also the bad ones. When I see a picture I immediately recall the atmosphere of that time, or what it probably would've been. I can FEEL it, SMELL it and HEAR (in toher words: sense) it more than I can see it. Along with this feelings doesn't belong a 3rd person view, but my very own 1st person, low to the ground, watching the world and it's magic type of viewing…
Where DID all that magic go? :(

kingofsnake, you're type of memorization isn't weird at all, but I'm kind of beginning to worry about mine ;)

Well, I tend to forget things easily. Not just absent minded easily, I actually have problems remembering things that happened yesterday so I only the sources I really have are other people (whom I don't trust) or written sources, and sometimes old videos. So I don't have many visuals as memories, just words. I usually write them in the first person (I hope i'm getting my perspectives right here, I tend to mix them up) so I remember things I wrote down in the first person, but things others have told me in the third. There are things I do remember, but they are rarely directly associated with my personal history, so I won't bother talking about them.

Custard Trout
Well, I tend to forget things easily. Not just absent minded easily, I actually have problems remembering things that happened yesterday so I only the sources I really have are other people (whom I don't trust) or written sources, and sometimes old videos. So I don't have many visuals as memories, just words. I usually write them in the first person (I hope i'm getting my perspectives right here, I tend to mix them up) so I remember things I wrote down in the first person, but things others have told me in the third. There are things I do remember, but they are rarely directly associated with my personal history, so I won't bother talking about them.

you're like that dude from memento.

Oh short and medium term memory will always be problematic. It's often hard to remember specifics of things… I only remember about 0.02% of the stuff I post in the DD forums so it's lucky it's still there so I can occasionally catch something I wrote ages ago and see how great it was. lol!

Long term is the interesting one though. We all have specific memories from way back, for various reasons and in different ways.

Skoolmunkee
I've wondered about this too and I think the first-person thing might partly be because half of what we think we remember from that age is actually something that someone has told us

Well, I dunno. I do have those pieced together and jogged memories from conversations and photos, but that's more because they've been jogged: the photo or person supplies a bit and all the rest comes from me. They may or may not be 1st person. Most of my 3rd person memories are very, very old, but they were still 3rd person close to the time, (I remember thinking that and thinking it was strange).

Maybe it has something to do with emotions like you say, or maybe a lot of very young kids just think a lot more visually when they're young? They're not so abstract, they don't even think in language yet so thinking in a movie style with them edited into the picture is probably a lot more natural, even though logically to us it wouldn't seem so… I'd say they think in “scenes”, if you get my meaning?

I've always remembered everything in 3rd person. My memories, all of 'em. I thought that was how humans remembered stuff. Weird.

deep stuff king' write a page and submit it for “one third” ghehe.

Phantom Penguin
I've always remembered everything in 3rd person. My memories, all of 'em. I thought that was how humans remembered stuff. Weird.

me too, thats why i was so surprised when she said her friends made fun of her for having wierd third person memories.

Maybe it has something to do with personality type. Most of her friends were in the popular cliche in highschool. she dated the quarterback and all that. Maybe theres a fundamental difference in the way some people think.

Most, if not all the people here are creative/artistic. Maybe it's all those people who are do-ers rather than dreamers who have first person memories.

memory isnt really like reading off a DVD and producing a movie
your brain takes down sensations, but it's not perfect. sometimes your brain adds extra stimuli that wasn't there or ommit some.

your brain imagines the sitution that happened in the past. but sometimes the memory can become organic and create small changes everytime you recall it. maybe someone was talking about that particualr situation and subconciously adds itself to your memory. maybe someone lied about an event, but your brain doesn't know that and adds a lie in with the truth as long as it doesn't conflict with the presenting memory

here's fun experiment in memory:

Someone
Working with Christopher Chabris at Harvard University, Simons came up with another demonstration that has now become a classic, based on a videotape of a handful of people playing basketball. They played the tape to subjects and asked them to count the passes made by one of the teams.

Around half failed to spot a woman dressed in a gorilla suit who walked slowly across the scene for nine seconds, even though this hairy interloper had passed between the players and stopped to face the camera and thump her chest

However, if people were simply asked to view the tape, they noticed the gorilla easily. The effect is so striking that some of them refused to accept they were looking at the same tape and thought that it was a different version of the video, one edited to include the ape.

Prof Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire recently repeated this experiment before a live audience in London (as part of his Theatre of Science, performed with the author Dr Simon Singh) and found that only 10 per cent of the 400 or so people who saw the show managed to spot the gorilla.

I don't remember most of my childhood… which is bad because it only happened… what, eight or nine years ago?