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Comment by kinai | Hacker News Reader

I can rewatch every movie/series I have seen in my mind. I always thought that is normal until someone told me it is not. I can't even describe how it works, but basically I can see the movie and forward/rewind. Since I watch a huge amount of movies/series (1500+ movies alone) there is a lot in me head I guess. Can be fun though, if you are bored and got no tv/computer/phone around, I can close my eyes and watch something on demand :)

I also can remember most days in my life like this. As stated it can be a burden, those unhealed wounds of dramatic experiences that you live through over and over again in every detail.

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I'm the same way, but with classical music. I can "listen" to pretty much any piece I've ever played. And in fact I often can't stop it. The second a person or conversation or situation loses my interest, the music turns on in my head, and I'm no longer paying any attention to you. I'm listening to a Brahms quintet or a Beethoven symphony. I hear it just as clearly as if it were playing over speakers.

It's actually kind of a problem. I don't in general have a particularly wonderful memory. It's just that I constantly reinforce.

Interesting, I listen to music all day, all types of genre, lot of classical pieces too, but I can't recall them like I can with video. But I am a very visual person in general, I also see what I think about, even words or numbers.

Now that I can relate to. But am I wrong in thinking that most people can do this? Not for classical music but for popular songs.

Ie if you ask someone to think of one of their favourite songs, couldn't they basically listen to it in their mind?

When you say you can 'see the movie' does this mean hear also?

Is the movie detail to the extent where you could answer something like 'in the scene with x character there is a vase in the background, what color is it?'

Apologies if you get bored of these type of questions but I find this fascinating. I'm interested in the parameters of what is remembered vs not.

Regarding the hear: no, it is different stated before. For detail question: How to answer? I am not sure, we'd have to test it, but I can remember sometimes the smallest details, same goes for real life. I never paid any attention to how detailed my memory is in that regards

If you want to test detail, tell me a movie you watch and I'll shoot you some questions.

Does this also include conversations, word-for-word? And facts told to you in those conversations?

For instance, if as part of a conversation, someone rattles off a long number or nonsense string of letters, can you repeat it back exactly long afterward?

Good question, I doubt that, mostly because the "audio" part of the movie is not like the video for me. I don't remember it as a stream. But I'd be curious enough to test that. I never thought about this much.

What often happens if that someone asks me if I have seen movie/series X and then I recall and fast forward through the video to remember the plot and characters. That must sound very weird/unrealistic but can't describe it better.

To try to understand what this feels like, there are some movies I can do this with, like Star Wars or The Matrix because I've seen them so many times.

Can't imagine being able to do this for everything I've watched though!

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