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I Have An Amazing Memory

Thalassa

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I remember actual physical details from my early childhood, things like looking at the wall, the clothes hamper, what our dogs were like, the clothes that I had, etc. I have a vivid sensory memory.

I remember things that very occasionally other people either don't remember, or are very unhappy that I do recall, and so try to deny it. And to me, what I'm remembering is so stupidly matter of fact that I can't believe they'd even deny it, unless they have a head injury or a drug/drink problem of epic proportions. You know, things that have happened in the last three to five years, really common sense stuff, nothing obscure.

My ESFJ friend once marvelled that I could repeat back things that just happened or were just said with stunning accuracy, she's like "it's almost like rain man."

My mother refers to me as "the walking dictionary/encyclopedia."

I've even noticed when I'm telling people something, I'll sometimes throw in other related facts.

Is this related to being Sensing dominant? It's not Si. Si is not memory, and I did think I must have Si for a very long time because of the sharpness of my sensory memory, but this would be improbable in an ENFP who rejects Si for the first part of life.
 
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WALMART

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Despite your wishes of an alternative explanation, strong socionics Si is my guess.


I'm new to the theory, though.
 

UniqueMixture

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perhaps cognitive abilities are simply proportionate to the development of various structures in the brain so you could have a good visual recall and that would not be "contradictory" to whatever parts of your personality you do not see that to be integrative with
 

gromit

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It's not Si. Si is not memory, and I did think I must have Si for a very long time because of the sharpness of my sensory memory, but this would be improbable in an ENFP who rejects Si for the first part of life.

Why do you think it not Si? I had thought Si was related to memory. I honestly have given up on functions as being really that useful, but that was my understanding of it.
 

Thalassa

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Despite your wishes of an alternative explanation, strong socionics Si is my guess.


I'm new to the theory, though.

I don't have wishes of an alternative explanation. I type myself as ISFp in Socionics.

HOWEVER, I'm talking about Jungian Si.
 

Thalassa

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Why do you think it not Si? I had thought Si was related to memory. I honestly have given up on functions as being really that useful, but that was my understanding of it.

Si isn't memory. It's kind of a ...world view.

Such action has an illusory quality in relation to objective reality, and therefore has a very odd and strange character. It instantly reveals the anti-real subjectivity of the type, But, where the influence of the object does not entirely succeed, it encounters a benevolent neutrality, disclosing little sympathy, yet constantly striving to reassure and adjust. The too-low is raised a little, the too-high is made a little lower; the enthusiastic is damped, the [p. 503] extravagant restrained; and the unusual brought within the 'correct' formula: all this in order to keep the influence of the object within the necessary bounds. Thus, this type becomes an affliction to his circle, just in so far as his entire harmlessness is no longer above suspicion. But, if the latter should be the case, the individual readily becomes a victim to the aggressiveness and ambitions of others. Such men allow themselves to be abused, for which they usually take vengeance at the most unsuitable occasions with redoubled stubbornness and resistance.
 
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Infinite Bubble

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Although a clear attribution of memory to one function is unrealistic, the type of memory you mention is most likely Se, in my opinion. To my knowledge, Si builds up a worldview of how they think/feel about past sensory details, whereas in the OP you are mention imagery such as looking at the wall etc. Seriously though, not everything is related to typology... you simply just have a great memory. So do I, and Si is apparently my last function. If you used these memories to aim for consistency in the present, or trying to acquire similar situations from the past, then perhaps it is Si. It's what you do with it and your motivations.
 

Totenkindly

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Well, one thing to remember (ha) is that we will remember things that are important or vivid to us.

I have some occassional strong details that stick in my head, but not nearly as many details as internal subject states as well as ideas. I remember ideas, and I remember how I positioned myself to the ideas, and even sometimes some of the emotions attached to that experience.

I never really focus much on external sensory cues, except as pointers to my inner world and processes, unless the detail was vivid to me BECAUSE it was so strongly impacting the inner. I've tried to memorize extremely sensations and just have a hard time.
 

Chaotic Harmony

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Well, one thing to remember (ha) is that we will remember things that are important or vivid to us.

Well, SOB... What is wrong with me then!? How come I can remember my class schedules from 6th grade to 12th grade!? Like that's important... Although, I guess I remember those and not K-5 because of hallway interactions. In K-5 we never left the classroom except at lunch and for gym... But 6-12 we changed classrooms and I can remember who I walked to class with and stuff like that. I guess perhaps it's not so much that I remember the class schedule, so much as I remember the details of heading to certain classes, therefore it's easier to remember the schedule? :shrug: :shock:
 

Snoopy22

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We all have great memories, and everyone else are ignorant buffoons for not recalling things as we remember them. Memory is subjective to the individual.
 

Totenkindly

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Well, SOB... What is wrong with me then!? How come I can remember my class schedules from 6th grade to 12th grade!? Like that's important... Although, I guess I remember those and not K-5 because of hallway interactions. In K-5 we never left the classroom except at lunch and for gym... But 6-12 we changed classrooms and I can remember who I walked to class with and stuff like that. I guess perhaps it's not so much that I remember the class schedule, so much as I remember the details of heading to certain classes, therefore it's easier to remember the schedule? :shrug: :shock:

If you think in details more normally, I think the details are prone to stick. I'm pretty notorious for abstracting and only focusing on details when they are crucial for pinning down the abstractions.

But there's probably some extraneous stuff as well. I mean, when you mention schedules, I can almost remember what my middle-school schedules looked like, it triggers thoughts of the faces of my middle school teachers and particular classes I had... but then I get bowled over more by non-tangible thoughts about the teachers and what my experience was with them... things I normally don't think about but just popped back into my head. Usually I remember the most if my experience with either really good or really bad.

The brain is basically taking in a lot of input and it gets dropped into those memory locations / gets imprinted just because it's like a security recorder/camera. if stuff isn't overlaid by other memories, it will linger just like scraps of data from "deleted" files in a hard drive.

... and of course I'm just making all this up, but it sounds like a potentially sound theory, doesn't it? :smile:
 

Chaotic Harmony

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If you think in details more normally, I think the details are prone to stick. I'm pretty notorious for abstracting and only focusing on details when they are crucial for pinning down the abstractions.

But there's probably some extraneous stuff as well. I mean, when you mention schedules, I can almost remember what my middle-school schedules looked like, it triggers thoughts of the faces of my middle school teachers and particular classes I had... but then I get bowled over more by non-tangible thoughts about the teachers and what my experience was with them... things I normally don't think about but just popped back into my head. Usually I remember the most if my experience with either really good or really bad.

The brain is basically taking in a lot of input and it gets dropped into those memory locations / gets imprinted just because it's like a security recorder/camera. if stuff isn't overlaid by other memories, it will linger just like scraps of data from "deleted" files in a hard drive.

... and of course I'm just making all this up, but it sounds like a potentially sound theory, doesn't it? :smile:

You're just using your fancy abstract way of speaking to confuse my detail-oriented-tangible-item-loving brain! :cry:

It's funny, I can remember my class schedules for years, but could I remember my locker combination after spring break, hell no. :dry:
 

Totenkindly

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You're just using your fancy abstract way of speaking to confuse my detail-oriented-tangible-item-loving brain! :cry:

It's funny, I can remember my class schedules for years, but could I remember my locker combination after spring break, hell no. :dry:

I was bummed because I found my old middle-school dial combination lock when I moved and couldn't remember the combination thirty years la --

wait a minute. I think it was 2-16-34. HOLY WOW! I'll have to try that!!

if I can find the lock again. :doh:

.....

memory is weird. I find that if I try to hard to remember directly, I just get stuck; but if I kind of "side-swipe" it and don't pressure it, sometimes I'll trigger the data to pop up almost unconsciously.
 

Chaotic Harmony

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I was bummed because I found my old middle-school dial combination lock when I moved and couldn't remember the combination thirty years la --

wait a minute. I think it was 2-16-34. HOLY WOW! I'll have to try that!!

if I can find the lock again. :doh:

.....

memory is weird. I find that if I try to hard to remember directly, I just get stuck; but if I kind of "side-swipe" it and don't pressure it, sometimes I'll trigger the data to pop up almost unconsciously.

Yep. Memory is weird! I love when I see someone that I know, but can't think of their name... And then like four days later while working out or cooking I'm like "Oh that was Seymour Butts!" how could I not remember that before?! :D
 
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garbage

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[MENTION=7]Jennifer[/MENTION]'s way of processing is pretty similar to mine--in that it's mostly principles and ideas that get teased out.

My memory is notorious for sucking hardcore, and I'm trying to fix it. It causes problems sometimes, in that it'd be nice to be able to use details to back up or recall why I came up with the principles that I have; use actual facts and figures in conversation; draw patterns more easily; and so on.

I've been on ginkgo biloba for a lil' while, and it seems to be improving. I seem to be recalling facts that I have no business actually remembering, such as buildings' room numbers, specifics in conversations, and so on. It might be a placebo; who the hell knows.
 

Thalassa

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Well, one thing to remember (ha) is that we will remember things that are important or vivid to us.

I have some occassional strong details that stick in my head, but not nearly as many details as internal subject states as well as ideas. I remember ideas, and I remember how I positioned myself to the ideas, and even sometimes some of the emotions attached to that experience.

I never really focus much on external sensory cues, except as pointers to my inner world and processes, unless the detail was vivid to me BECAUSE it was so strongly impacting the inner. I've tried to memorize extremely sensations and just have a hard time.

So I remember physical things or experiences or factoids because that's what matters to me?

So that would be Se in relation to memory probably, like [MENTION=17266]Infinite Bubble[/MENTION] said ...
 

Thalassa

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Well, SOB... What is wrong with me then!? How come I can remember my class schedules from 6th grade to 12th grade!? Like that's important... Although, I guess I remember those and not K-5 because of hallway interactions. In K-5 we never left the classroom except at lunch and for gym... But 6-12 we changed classrooms and I can remember who I walked to class with and stuff like that. I guess perhaps it's not so much that I remember the class schedule, so much as I remember the details of heading to certain classes, therefore it's easier to remember the schedule? :shrug: :shock:

I can remember more like the physical sensations of being in certain classrooms, the way they felt, where the window was, things like that...

However, I have an entire catalogue of 80's music in my head; not just the lyrics, but the artists names, the styles of that time period (even though I might have been five years old at the time) ...I also expanded this in a vaguer way to pretty much the entire 20th century.

I thought for a long time that this was some weird tert/inf Si/Te or Te/Si hobby, like sensory details organized into coherent categories and boxes of time.

But I realized that I liked my supposed "Si" too much to be an Si inferior, that I was either an INFP or an ISFP with sensing in a more prominent place. It's also how I write, I am better at remembering things that happened and making points with those incidents anecdotally rather than working from straight or dry theory, or completely abstract metaphors; I'm one of those people that believed I had to experience things in order to have something to write about.
 

Thalassa

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We all have great memories, and everyone else are ignorant buffoons for not recalling things as we remember them. Memory is subjective to the individual.

I know what you mean, but like I remember this thread where I was talking about how much I enjoy remembering physical aspects of my childhood, the way things looked, felt and smelled, experiences and so forth, and then Ns posting things like they have gray memories except for this one light over their crib when they were two that they thought looked like a man with long arms or some shit.

Like they remembered things, but they remembered them in a more vague or symbolic way. And even my ESFJ friend saying, "omg you just repeated that back nearly verbatim" and people have said similar things even about my posts on this forum, like me almost repeating things word for word, and claiming I was an SJ because of it.

I also did well in elementary school and made straight As in college; there are lots of reasons for that, but a good memory is quite helpful in these circumstances. I remember reading some MBTI survey that ESFPs actually do well in history because it's fact-related but specifically facts about people.
 

Thalassa

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I was bummed because I found my old middle-school dial combination lock when I moved and couldn't remember the combination thirty years la --

wait a minute. I think it was 2-16-34. HOLY WOW! I'll have to try that!!

if I can find the lock again. :doh:

.....

memory is weird. I find that if I try to hard to remember directly, I just get stuck; but if I kind of "side-swipe" it and don't pressure it, sometimes I'll trigger the data to pop up almost unconsciously.

Yep. Memory is weird! I love when I see someone that I know, but can't think of their name... And then like four days later while working out or cooking I'm like "Oh that was Seymour Butts!" how could I not remember that before?! :D

Ah...this is actually some sort of psych concept, that when you "let something go" it will come to you; it has something to do with how the brain works. If you keep obsessing on it, your brain actually cannot retrieve the information.
 
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