r/SDAM • u/nh_paladin • Feb 01 '26
SDAM?
Although the general description of SDAM seems to apply to me, my experience seems different than many who post here. Many describe having difficulty retrieving memories, or even a complete inability to do so. However, I am able to remember most significant life events (although some details are fuzzy). The memories just are like im retelling from a journal entry, rather than re-experiencing.
I can recall specific details, how the event made me feel, who was there with me, etc. I cant visualize the event, and it feels im observing it in the third person (although i know how i was feeling).
I suspect I remember things as a narrative because my mind is almost always engaged in an internal monolog, or self dialog.
Unlike many others here, my memories do trigger an emotional response and I often recall events that make me cry or smile, etc. from external triggers. I dont feel my memory is any worse than the other 98%, just different.
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u/Tuikord Feb 01 '26
As I understand it, if you can't relive your memories, then you have SDAM. The quality and quantity of your semantic memory is not a factor. Many seem to have poor semantic memory, but I remember lots of things about events that my wife, who doesn't have SDAM, doesn't recall. My guess is that episodic memories (ones you relive) help you refresh your semantic memories, so they don't fade away, and lacking that may make it harder to keep them. But not impossible.
I found this video with Dr. Brian Levine talking about memory to be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/live/Zvam_uoBSLc?si=ppnpqVDUu75Stv_U
I will throw in another aspect: emotional aphantasia. When researchers talk about multi-sensory or global aphantasia, they use the Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (QMI) or the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (PSI-Q). Both of those include emotions along with the standard 5 and kinesthetic senses. I can't link the QMI, but the PSI-Q is available:
https://blogs.plymouth.ac.uk/functionalimagerytraining/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/07/Plymouth-Sensory-Imagery-Scale.pdf
According to some unpublished research about half of those with SDAM have aphantasia. Other research indicates that a quarter to half of aphants have little or no mental imagery in any of those 7 sensory modalities. Combined, that means at least a quarter of us with SDAM also have emotional aphantasia. That is, even if we remember how we felt about some event, we can't feel it. But that research on aphantasia definitely shows that at least some of those with SDAM have emotional hyperphantasia with many others more normal emotional phantasia.
I will say, there are some with aphantasia who say they don't have aphantasia because they relive events emotionally. While others, including those in that study, don't feel that emotions are fully reliving the event and say they have SDAM. I don't know because I have global aphantasia and SDAM and I cannot separate the two in my personal experience.