Recalling Shapes & Forms
/I’ll be sitting on my computer doing something or other – writing, or reading – and the TV will be on in the background. At any point in the future, if I re-read what I was reading or writing, the background textures and colours will return and I’ll remember what was on the TV while reading what I was doing.
It’s a very normal thing for me. Everything I recall comes in an image form, or a textured form, the texture representing context. One day, I came to class and heard someone do a presentation on a certain literary figure; the night before, through complete coincidence, I’d read a Wikipedia article on the same figure. When the presenter gave information that was word-for-word from the article, every texture and spatial reference/scene immediately popped up in my mind as she spoke the words I’d read.
Everything I touch produces an image or texture, and everything I recall produces the same thing. You could call it a poor eidetic memory almost, because imagery is involved but in a very strictly focused way. Someone got down and looked up at me, about to give me words of support. The image I recall is brightness due to the sunny day and her bright green-hazel eyes. Some words she said, all verbal, the tone of her voice. Its colour and accompanying texture.
This whole memory recall is very temperamental. It’s probably the case for everyone that they will remember what they want to remember while disregarding other things. Like being told, last week, to clean the kitchen or the litter boxes. Certainly I’m similar. The thing I find makes my thinking different in part is its spatial awareness. Everything is facing a direction, and there’s a sort of backdrop. I even assign direction to what I’m looking at. For instance, looking at this page in Word on my computer prior to posting, I automatically assigned it a west direction, even though my screen is facing north and I’m looking south at it.
To conclude on this, the interesting thing I find with this is the complete randomness of imagery I’m able to recall. And I mean of the things I find interesting. There’s probably a level of interest to it as well that can be gauged, because I’ve forgotten things of mild interest to me as well as remembered things that were quite boring.
Justin S. Campbell
Justin Scott Campbell (born June 22nd, 1991) is a writer & photographer from Ottawa, Canada. He holds a diploma in Photography and is completing one in writing. His interests particularly include writing songs both lyrically and musically, archiving and taking aerial photos, keeping records, and sometimes researching human attraction. He was diagnosed at the age of twelve as high-functioning with Asperger’s Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum disorder, and was born with Synesthesia. He is an only child, left-handed, hates math and loves uniqueness, or originality.
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