Skim the text quickly and find out…
1. How many people in the world have a memory like Rebecca’s
2. What is Rebecca’s earliest memory?
3. Why is Rebecca not a straight-A student?
4. Why is it hard for her to forgive people for things that
happened in the past?
5. Why is it hard for Rebecca to enjoy some foods?
6. Why is it hard for Rebecca to go to sleep?
Read the text carefully and put these extracts into the correct place in the
text.
1. "I have been taught how to forgive by my therapist,
but I can never forget,"
2. Then there's the issue of food.
3. But Rebecca Sharrock can remember every single day of her
entire life.
4. or H-SAM
5. It takes three months for Rebecca's memory to 'encode' so
to speak
6. The 29-year-old can recall what it was like in her
mother’s womb.
7. She also remembers leaving the hospital after she was
born.
8. She can relive her first ever dream as clearly as the day
she had it.
9. Rebecca also finds it hard to sleep.
10. children are truly smarter than adults give them credit
for.
What’s your
earliest memory?
Maybe you
can distantly remember the bright colours and sense of excitement of your first
children’s concert. Or recall a particular park where you really liked the
swing.
I think my
first memory has something to do with my fairy bed sheets. But I can’t quite
work out if that’s just because I’ve seen photos of it as an adult.
The point
is, you can probably only remember snippets or moments from your early
childhood – if you’re lucky.
A)_____________
She is one
of just 60 people in the world with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, B)____________.
Rebecca is
the only person in the world who can remember life before she was born.
C)_____________
“I can
remember having my head tucked in my legs and being in a dark environment. I
was comfortable and content but I didn’t really think much about my
surroundings or my existence,” she told Mamamia.
D)_____________
"I was
wrapped up all the time and the blanket covered a lot of what was going on
around me. At that age I didn't understand what a hospital or a home was. I
remember the different environments. At that age I was just excessively curious
as to my surroundings, but life was a novelty," she said.
As Rebecca
describes what life is like through a child's eyes but with an adult lens, you
start to get a handle of why young kids act the way they do.
"As a
young child I didn't think in words. I just thought in pure feeling and senses.
It was much quicker to think that way. I've tried retraining myself to think
that quickly now and I can't. I can't not use words when I think now," she
explained.
From
learning how to talk to deciding she "might try walking now" to what
it felt like to be held by her mother as a baby, Rebecca remembers it all.
E)__________.
"It was
a cold night and I was one and a half," she told Mamamia. "I found
myself in a room with ball and shoot machines and funny noises and balls
running down tunnels. I woke up crying and thinking where am I? But not in
words, in feelings."
When Rebecca
was three and had developed the vocabulary, she asked her mother why every
night she was taken away from home. Her mum explained that she was dreaming and
it was "in her mind".
Most of us
would struggle to recall how we felt and what we did every day of our lives
when we were this little.
Rebecca can
recall every single school lesson she's ever had. So you'd assume she was a
straight A student, but that's not how it works.
F)_______________.
So her short-term memory isn't that amazing, it's her long-term memory that's
crystal clear.
If you ask
her what kindergarten was like, it's too hard for her say. There's too many
memories to harness in her mind. But if you ask her what she did on her first
day of kindergarten, she can focus her mind in an instant.
She'll tell
you what she was wearing, thinking and doing from the moment she woke up and
excitedly put on her new school uniform to when she lay down her head on her
pillow that night. Hell, she can even tell you exactly what her bedroom looked
like at that point in time and what the weather was like outside.
But emotions
and feelings are hard when your brain refuses to give you the gift of being
able to 'forgive and forget' as the saying goes.
G)_____________
Rebecca said.
For example,
if Rebecca sees someone years later that she had a fight with as a child, she
will relive that fight as if it's happening today. Her mind will be thinking
"I hope the teacher gets that person in trouble for breaking my toy"
but then her conscience and reasoning will remind her, "this is
ridiculous, why is this an issue right now, that was ages ago."
H)_____________
You know how your tastebuds mature? Rebecca remembers exactly what it tasted
like to eat Vegemite for the first time when she was three. It wasn't pleasant.
Now as an adult, that first experience gets in the way every time she takes a
bite of her Vegemite toast.
I)_____________
She has to play soft classical music to give her mind something else to focus
on, otherwise she gets too distracted by flashbacks.
To calm her
mind and focus her thoughts Rebecca draws, reads and writes.
She knows
every single word of every Harry Potter book by heart. Give her a chapter and
she'll just start reciting.
But one of
the most interesting takeaways is the truth behind the fact that J)____________
For at least
a year before her father left the family, Rebecca knew he would eventually go.
She was only a toddler. And when Rebecca's mum said to her age two "we're
leaving now," she knew that meant to a new house. She'd been expecting it.
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