Mnemosyne pt.2

Due to my abnormally strong memory, there are times when I could recall a certain information from absurdly small details. I will give two examples:

1. There was this one time when my friend is visiting Tokyo posted an instagram story where she is going somewhere. It was just a short 5-second video that shows a sidewalk, a sidewalk of no particular significance nor any landmark to reveal further information other than just a small stubs of weeds on the side of the sidewalk. There are practically no other information included in that short video, but my brain somehow just kicks out and I made a guess out of the wild, "it seems like she's going to Shinjuku-Gyoen isn't she?", and a few hours later she posted another story showing that she's exactly in Shinjuku-Gyoen! I was like, see!?

If one may ask how do I guess it correctly, I don't know but even in that short 5-second video with an insignificant sidewalk and a weed, it just seems it fires a certain memory in my mind that recall a certain nuance that I feel when I walk from a station to Shinjuku-Gyoen. But of course the sidewalk and the weed itself is not unique to the sidewalk that leads to Shinjuku-Gyoen, it could be anywhere. This is where my logic works to patch the missing information, where I recall that it is springtime and being a visitor to Tokyo, I assume that there is a huge chance that she might plan to do hanami on a park, this is where the pieces fall together and I deducted that it might she might be visiting Shinjuku-Gyoen, and I was right.

2. One summer I was joining my friend to drive outside Tokyo, and at one point on a street I saw a certain parking lot. Again this is not a particularly impressive parking lot, it has no special characteristic that makes it different from other parking lot. basically it's just a parking lot just like any others, only that it is located at the end of a T junction, but there are obviously numerous others parking lot located at the end of a T junction.
However, I just had this familiar feeling and I just spurted and said to my friends "hey if we took a right turn does that road leads all the way to Shimokitazawa?". And their answer? Obviously it is a "yes" as you might have guessed. 

Now I myself wondered, how did I know it? How could such trivial, nothing special not worth memorizing parking lot could allow me to recall a place with such precision? If I trace back how does my mind came to recall such memory, I might assume while it was indeed the parking lot that became the particular "trigger" for the memory of the place, but I guess even before I saw that parking lot, a few hundred meters before I saw a junk shop. That junk shop seems to have a certain nuance that although again, there are many junk shops scattered around Tokyo, but there's something about the arrangements of the junk shop facade that made me remember as if I've went there before. I remember there were time a couple years back when I went with my friend to Shimokitazawa and we walked towards Yoyogi-Uehara, I remember that I went to a certain junk shop. Therefore my brains has been primed to a certain memory related to Shimokitazawa, and finally when I saw the parking lot at the end of a T junction, my brain recalls another piece of memory, that before I visited a certain junk shop, I turned left in a certain T junction, and on at that T junction there was a parking lot. Now the information has been completed and my brain immediately identified the place being close to Shimokitazawa, and it was confirmed by my friends.

There are also other occasions where I could remember things perfectly in detail even so many years back, when others had forgotten; there are other times when I could guess a certain place just by watching an image of it under 2 seconds, like this one time I saw one video about Vietnam where when the video started, the showed a certain view of a city, without any symbols or letters that could identify it as Vietnam. Just a city which could be any city in the world, the city looks a bit warm, and seems to be not from a developed country as seen from the design of the buildings or the people clothing of the people in the background, and I have had determined all those information and conclude that it might be Hanoi, Vietnam; all just in 1 seconds after the video had started, and yes..I was right again :D

For me personally, this kind of memory on one hand has become a certain pride for myself. It made you feel like you have a certain super power, I mean it made you feel like Sherlock Holmes or something, and in fact when watching the modern BBC Sherlock Holmes series, I sometimes could already guessed who the characters are or solved the mystery earlier than before Sherlock had solved it or when he still had it wrong on the screen. And if you think I have read the original manuscript of Sherlock Holmes that might gave me a headstart, unfortunately I have to admit that I have never read it.

Let's quit self-boasting, because on the other hand of having this kind of memory, as with people other people with hyperthymesia (please note that I have never been diagnosed with such condition) it often become a hindrance for my mental health. But then again, if you feel like this is your superpower and you might be a superhero, as with other superheroes, your power is your gift and curse.