mamuzzy | [BRAINJUICE] Eidetic Memory vs. Hyperthymesia

I bless my riduur that she loves my hard work when I don't respect myself. I loved this particular essay I wrote about the Null's eidetic memory so I thought I would share here.

NULL ARCS AND DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EIDETIC MEMORY & HYPERTHYMESIA

While I was writing my ASPD-essay about the Nulls, I realized the book use the term of “eidetic memory” wrong.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

Ordo didn't even blink. “I remember everything I see in complete detail. I have eidetic memory. What I saw was the identical image of the woman we detained and who you took for interrogation. Of that much I am absolutely certain.”

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
He had an eidetic memory, like all the Nulls: just one quick canter through the manual before they set out, and Ordo had the theory down pat. Skirata was ferociously proud of him, as he was all his boys, but he resented the damage the Kaminoans had done to them in the creation of what they were sure would be the perfect soldier. Their brilliance came at a price.
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

They say there is no such thing as photographic memory. There is eidetic memory: it’s an ability to recall images with high detail - FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME after seeing it once. This helps the Nulls look at an entire starship manual, recall the related information WHILE they are in the middle of learning how to handle the ship and not die during the process.

But remembering EVERY DETAIL of your life since your birth and having your mind cluttered with EVERY memory is not eidetic memory. It is condition called HYPERTHYMESIA.

A person with hyperthymesia is able to remember an abnormally large number of details of their life experiences and recall it vividly.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
“I'd like to fast-rope down there,” Fi said. He'd always enjoyed that in training on Kamino. He preferred endless vistas to cramped spaces, as did many of his brothers. They said it was the legacy of being gestated in glass vats; Ordo claimed he could even remember it.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

Forgetting is a healthy function to an extent. The ability to forget helps us prioritize things, helps in decision making, helps us to make place to learn new things, making new connections between information and memories, overwriting old impressions. The Nulls can’t forget and they remember everything since their birth.

IF the Nulls have hyperthymesia, eidetic memory will help them to recall the perfect imagies of past memories no matter how long he read it. Like a medbay manual:

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
Ordo stopped dead because Etain had put her hand to her mouth and her eyes were screwed tight shut. His immediate thought was that she was miscarrying, and while he would never use the word panic, he was stuck between systems in a small shuttle with just a first-aid kit and his eidetic recall of the medbay manual.
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

Why is it shit to not being able to forget?

Because you will have trouble learning to make new connections to shape your impression about things. The Nulls will never be able to forget and heal properly from their own traumas, and that’s why I always say that no amount of unconditional-love can overwrite their previous impressions and life experiences. People often misunderstand why the Nulls are so afraid to disappoint Kal. They think Kal abused his sons and this is exactly how Ny reacts to him in 501st. Ordo failed a mission.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

“He was worrying how you’d take the news,” she whispered. “He’s always so confident about everything else, but he’s scared stiff of you.”

She sounded as if she was asking what Skirata had done to make him that way. “I love that boy more than my own life,” Skirata said indignantly. “He knows I’d never blame him for this. For anything.”

“I know. It’s just sad to watch it.”

Ordo’s need to please him always broke Skirata’s heart. He’d never given Ordo any cause to fear him, but the Kaminoans had already burned the idea into the Nulls’ psyches that failure was never tolerated. Failures had to be reconditioned—terminated. However many times Skirata told Ordo he was perfect, it never erased that lesson from infancy.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Skirata said. Here he was, scared in turn of Ny’s disapproval. “He did the right thing. Pull out, rethink, try again later.”

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

Ordo knowing that his Buir would be never dissappointed is one thing. He knows it, because Kal told him lots of time. But feeling it is entirely different thing and this is how it works in real life too. Kal can't do shit about it aside from just simply accept it that how they are, that's how they brain is working and be there for them.

There is this saying, to overwrite 1 bad impression needs at least 8 good. You can’t do this with the Nulls. The one bad impression will be forever in their memories. Whenever they think they will fail, they will see the kaminoans and with it, their own possible death sentence.