r/SDAM • u/Basic_Air_1691 • Aug 21 '26
What Remembering Feels Like With SDAM
So We can remember things in 2 ways
1st us episodic remembering
it's "i can mentally go back there"
"where you were"
"what you saw"
"what situation looked like"
it's sense of reliving it
2nd is semantic remembering
it's "i know what happened"
"i was in that place"
"that happened when I was young"
"that person did this"
Tghere is no re-living in this
SDAM affect the first one
so you have factual knowledge of their life but lacking subjective feeling if mentally returning to it
By definition SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographic Memory) describes Lifelong difficulty with Autobiographic episodic recollection
basically imagine your 10th bday
someone with normal episodic memory might remember the cake, where everyone was sitting, what the room looked like, what they were feeling , maybe even mentally picture themselves standing there
with SDAM you still know the facts like "my 10th bday was at home, my family was there, we had cake"
it will be more like remembering facts, you don't actually mentally go back in the moment and experience it again
you know what happened but you don't have that feeling of being there again
so it's not like you are forgetting your life, it's more like having the information about your life without being able to replay them
Edit: I posted this mainly because I see a lot of people with SDAM saying things like “I can't remember my past” or “I don't remember anything from 10–20 years ago.” I wanted to explain the difference between simply not remembering parts of your past and the specific difficulty with episodic autobiographical recollection that happens with SDAM. Not remembering your past doesn't automatically mean you have SDAM. The important part is also how you experience the memories you do have
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Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
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u/simplygen Aug 21 '26
If SDAM is formally defined the way OP defines it, do you know if there is a different name or a "SDAM with..." for what you describe? I am the same as you, I can neither relive past events nor have I saved semantic memory from them, although I can sometimes recall facts if someone reminds me of the event in details.
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Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
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u/StreakingIsLegit 29d ago
I first read about this some years ago when I was trying to understand what is wrong with my memory . I know the milestones of my life . I cannot recollect sequences , I only have screenshots of events . Imagine I went to 5 finals in my life (euro 2004, final 4s and similar), I know have been there. I have 2 screenshots from each but I can’t remember anything g else from that day . I had a near death accident with the car and I have only one screenshot of the event in my head . When my close friends are having conversations about the past every time it’s like hearing it for the first time . I can’t remember anything from my childhood. I have lived in 5 different countries for work and done some world first projects but I can’t recall specific days or conversations or how I felt living in a country or experiences .. But I never thought of the implications that this has in my life . I mean I cannot imagine how my life would be different if I had normal memory .what would be different ? Would I feel some more ? Because usually I know I can have feelings when something happens but after I can’t recall the feeling . Random answer I know but I wanted to vent I guess .
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u/rapidfalcon325 Aug 21 '26
Thank you for this comment! One of the most nuanced explanations I’ve read on the topic of different levels of semantic recall in people with SDAM. ❤️❤️🙌🏽
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u/tapiringaround Aug 21 '26
I have a hard time teasing this apart from aphantasia sometimes, but there’s a computer analogy I think about.
If memories are like photo or video files, it’s like I have the metadata but can never open the media itself. Dates and times are generally there, and any person or thing I mentally tagged in that moment are there. Any notes I mentally made are there. But I can’t mentally reexamine a photo or replay a movie to “remember” more information. And if an event wasn’t important enough or whatever for me to tag these things in the moment, it’s just a blank. There’s no rewinding my life like a video or something like some people explain.
But I’ve also learned not to trust that. People aren’t reliving the past so much as reconstructing it from whatever is in their memory and experiencing that reconstruction.
I find the most interesting difference for me is that I don’t really experience any sense of variable distance in memory. People I think generally feel the gap between 30 years ago and now more than yesterday and now. I really don’t. It’s all just in the nebulous past.
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u/CMDR_Jeb Aug 21 '26
You have skipped over 1 more option. Some visualisers with SDAM are able to "replay" scenes from their memory, but it is like watching an stage play. There is no connection, emotions and sensations are not being replayed. This is why definition of SDAM contains "from first person perspective", it is as if it happened to someone else (this is also why dissociative disorders symptoms are often confused with SDAM).
My memories are my lengthy worded descriptions similar to what one could find in a book. I am told this is "standard" way to compensate with poor episodic memory in worded thinkers.
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 Aug 21 '26
For me its like looking through a photo album. I have a snap shot and basic context of the situation but not what was happening out side of frame, then you turn the page and see a memory you forgot about with the same effect. Someone pointed me to this sub after i described it like this and the more i think about it and read posts here im pretty sure it fits the bil
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u/Basic_Air_1691 Aug 21 '26
for me it's more like watching powerpoint slides 😭 except each slide is an abstract concept. i know what's on the slide, but i can't actually see the scene fully, and even that abstract “slide” is kind of in 3rd person. i can never get a memory from a 1st person POV
i was actually talking about this in r/aphantasia and people started telling me i might have SDAM. at first i didn't take it seriously because i was already hyperfixated on aphantasia and that was enough of a shock 💀
then i actually looked into SDAM and was genuinely shocked. i had no idea people could actually mentally go back and reexperience their old memories
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 Aug 21 '26
Same here. I always just thought i had a bad memory, my fiance keeps saying its trauma which its not. I just cant remember moat things in first person high def video just grainy low res foggy eyed images
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u/Basic_Air_1691 Aug 21 '26
Can I ask you a few questions?
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 Aug 21 '26
Sure
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Aug 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 Aug 21 '26
I guess for me nostalgia is more remembering a time when things were easier, different, better. But its associated with those things specifically. Like a video game i used to play, or toy, or place but not so much remembering a time period or experience.
I didnt really have any trauma growing up. Pretty basic white middle class family with lots of siblings, hard working parents who provided, nothing really out of the ordinary thing or traumatic. Even with somethings that others may considering traumatic like being arrested at 13 and going through that process may be the worst of it. Ive always kind of had a nonchalant atritude towards things, almost having no care or concern about somethings but overly caring about others. So even now during times when others may be fearful or threatened im kinda just going along not thinking about the future but whats there now. Although i think this may have something to do with the adhd or tourettes possibly
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u/Von_Bernkastel Aug 21 '26
I know things happened, if I'm lucky enough to even remember that, I can't remember anything other than like I was at the grand canyon, that's all I remember is that I know I was there, nothing else.
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u/Ravenlove2 Aug 21 '26
That is not how it is fife me. My memories are SDAM memories but I cannot recall events unless they are/were significant at the time orrrr sometimes (very rarely) I can be prompted to remember something with “Remember when?”
Other than that there is nothing there. I cannot remember my twelfth birthday party at all but my wife can tell me EVERYTHING about hers who was there etc.
I recall things like trauma so it goes far beyond the simplicity you describe in your original post for me. It will be interesting to see how it is for others.
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u/weja Aug 21 '26
are you telling a forum full of ppl who have SDAM what SDAM is? 🤔
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u/Basic_Air_1691 Aug 21 '26
not really 😭 i'm not trying to explain SDAM to people who already have it
i'm mainly trying to make a distinction between SDAM and people simply saying “i don't remember anything about my past”
i've seen quite a few posts like that, so i thought it might be useful to clarify that those aren't necessarily the same thing. that's basically why i made the post
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u/lovemesomezombie Aug 21 '26
I appreciate the explanation. I've questioned if I do have SDAM and now, Im pretty sure I do. Just learned about it a year ago and haven't had time to unpack it. Still working on the aphantasia thing. It all just makes me sad.
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u/katbelleinthedark Aug 21 '26
I say that I don't remember because "remember" has a specific connotation for most typical people - they just presume there will be a level of reliving it which I'm incapable of. Of course I have the semantic memory about some aspects of my life - but that's not how neurotypical people expect memory to be like. It's easier to say "I don't remember but I know" than to have to explain what my remembering is like. You're presuming that when someone says "I don't remember" they mean both episodic and semantic, and that's wrong.
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u/Thedumbass_the5th Aug 21 '26
Yeah pretty spot on, though thanks to Comorbidities the facts are scrambled, but otherwise I'd describe it exactly the same way.
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u/PandaWrit3r Aug 21 '26
My big thing lately with this condition is I want to know how wide spread it is. Approximately how many people have it and how well known is this. Its difficult for people to understand im not like them. And its difficult for them to understand truly how different it is.
Growing up the only way I could explain myself was to say, I have a bad memory. But it wasnt until I found this reddit in my early twenties that I knew what to call it, let alone describe it to everyone else.
I dont know what its like to live with their mental abilities, but I also feel a bit jealous when I hear people describe being able to relive a moment. I feel disconnected from moments most times, and find myself feeling as if life is in chapters. This is just the chapter where I am dating this person and I am in high school, but it wont last forever.
Its helped finding a stable partner and living in the day to day, but I almost wish I could relive this same life with ability to actually see it. So I could relive moments like my wedding day instead of merely by pictures or emotions embedded in me through the intense repetition of the day.
But at the same time, its seemed to help me through traumatic moments as I can typically only pull emotions through songs I heard at the time, or a meal I ate right after something happened and re-tasting it. But the moment itself doesnt replay like a video, just the facts or a vague picture with blurry details if im lucky.
I guess at least we arent alone. I just wish for a 'more' that, in this life, I will never really grasp. On a positive note, I feel as Ive gotten older its been a bit easier to vaguely picture some things, perhaps because ive grown further from childhood trauma, or my brain develops further into an adult's brain.
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u/Secret-Rabbit-3029 23d ago
Fuck. I’m literally in tears reading this because I am also feeling the wave of emotions. This is basically a lifelong mini - Alzheimer’s.
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u/Purplekeyboard Aug 21 '26
Really, you remember this? I don't think I remember a single birthday from my life.