Memory?

[Otis]

Just wonder I am new to trying to find out about being an Aspie just been living/coping.

I can remember so much in such great detail right back to 3 to 4 years old. It's pretty crowded in my head. The main thing i struggle with is my emotions are so strong and with all the memories emotions are attached. I'm not saying I'm still heart broken from the past.

But when it comes to conflicts or any anguish if the memory is triggered by a mood or just life often if I'm driving I can find myself reliving the negative feelings attached to memory. It can be a drag.

I do find cannabis helps with this. Which i hadn't had much of for years. But recently I have got a vaporiser cause its the most healthy way of having it. I have been micro dosing every other night. There's something about the way it will effect short term memory,I'm not saying I'm stoned all the time but if I just keep on this pattern it seems to break some kind of teather and allows me to just be present. Have no idea what kind of brain chemistry is going on their. Or if it just comes down to at the time I am using cannabis it I can't keep any loop going so I just move past the issue. I find this is really good for just current issues. past stuff passes as quick as I feel and remember them.

 

[mangodude]

i don't know what to say about the memory stuff,

but i hate the idea of me being unaware of my surroundings, losing control, or numbing my emotions or forgetting memories

 

[Otis]

Holy crap buddy. I guess you are someone that has never tried cannabis. Theres a reason so many western worlds are legalising and using it for medicinal purposes. I am never unaware of my surrounds and i don't forget memories! I was just referring to the fact that in high does and usage it can effect short term memory. So in a very mild dose it just enables me to not think about one thing. Because of the focus i have i can really zero in on an issue. lets be clear where not talking about doing crack here. I don't think you read or understood my little piece at all. Im just talking about taking my mind off it and relaxing. No different to someone having a glass of red wine! As an example in my younger days I used to smoke a lot a weed and then we would ride the biggest best waves. Wouldn't do that if unaware of surroundings

 

[LearnedCoward]

I absolutely understand about memories being insidious. Many times in life I've wished I had a worse memory, so bad experiences didn't keep flooding back. When I remember things, it's not like remembering that Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh or other such trivia. It's like I'm being transported back to that unpleasant place and having to relive it all over again. It's very vivid.

i don't know what to say about the memory stuff,

but i hate the idea of me being unaware of my surroundings, losing control, or numbing my emotions or forgetting memories

I take cannabis because I struggle with intrusive thoughts. Most people get these, and just let them slide in and out of their heads. I am unable to do this under normal conditions. I get some seriously dark thoughts, and they stick in my head, and I ruminate over them and drive myself crazy. With cannabis, these thoughts don't stick like they usually do, so I am much less depressed.

I have been feeling a little lethargic lately, so I should probably not smoke as much. I only want to use as much as I actually need, and not allow myself to become dependent. For me, this is medicinal, not recreational.

 

[Pats]

Not sure what exactly this thread is about. LOL My sisters and I smoked a joint that one of my sisters had brought to one of our sister get togethers. I hated it. I freeze easily under the least bit of stress - example: feeling dehydrated on a hot day at a social gathering but completely unable to get up and take 4 steps across the porch to get a glass of punch or bottle of water. So with the pot I froze and I hate freezing so I would never do that to myself again.
As far as memory, I think on the spectrum our memories are more vivid because we have absorbed so much from the events. I know exactly how I felt and what I was thinking and what my surroundings were like in all my memories. It sticks with ya because it affects ya more. Sometimes when I talk about certain events I get frustrated and am like, "how can you not remember that?"

 

[Otis]

I know what you are on about there. My wife constantly tells me not everyone remembers things like I do. I'm not saying smoking some weed is for everyone much like I hate alcohol. The glass of wine reference is just that I get a head ache if i drink one glass. Although I don't freeze on some weed I only have at home. I know only use micro dose its just a tiny little bit. I only just feel it on a psychoactive level. Getting off track the cannabis thing was just one little reference when I was really interested on peoples experiences on memory. this is the first time I have started making an effort to talk to others on spectrum. I got diagnosed in mid thirties and did nothing to help just carried on. My memory wears me out and was looking empathetic comparisons and advice. The smoking weed thing is one method I discovered. As I realised I never used to find myself diving deep into the past when i used to do it all the time yeas ago. I don't have it to that level but Im not going to lie I do enjoy a bit of weed. Only at night I don't go into massively crowded situations. Cannabi was not the point it was just a method I'm exploring. But I do thank the replies it is good to hear other people are remembering like me.

 

[onlything]

It wouldn't really work for me. I've been dissociating for most of my life due to past trauma, so my memory tends to be very poor most of the time. In fact, I'm working on improving it to remember facts outside academical pursuits. Part of the healing process I suppose.

Cannabis will always have its people. If it works for you when your memory is so vivid, I say enjoy it. Some smoke, some drink. Everyone is different and likes different things, just like you said. Although, if my mind is running too wild, I find theta waves rather helpful since they don't strain my senses outside hearing. While stressed I can't stand any smells or tastes.

 

[sidd851]

I also have memory issues.
I have near eidetic memory.
It can be quite the burden.

Luckily, it has lessened, a little, over the years,
the memory only slightly, the burden
slightly moreso.

I have been lucky, also, in that my
buffer-dumping system is rather good at separating
the wheat from the chaff, i.e. where the
memory contains pertinent information,
I remember; where the memory is some
frivolous piece of information(what I had for
unremarkable lunch on some unremarkable day),
I'm not so cursed by it, and it fades with time.

To this day, however, when I am asked the definition
of some word,(less and less frequently, though) I
can close my eyes and call up and "see" the page of the dictionary
where I first read it. Pronunciation, multiple definitions,
etymology, all of it. Sometimes I can call up other entries
from the same page.

Sounds great, but in reality can become exasperating
when I watch recountings turn into something
entirely different from the reality, especially
when everyone around me has edited their memory
to collectively agree on the new, preferred reality, often
multiple times, to become a baseless fiction.
If I am able to act without explanation on my accurate
memory, I appear as a psychic genius, and am lauded as a
miracle-worker.

If I must explain first, I am shunned as a "r****d".
And sometimes, sometimes, I am ridiculed,
then have to spring into action, using my accurate memory
to prevent or mitigate some calamity. (I wish you
could see their faces, the very definition of "dumbfounded")

Afterwards, they begin to prepare yet another new reality,
wherein dumb luck prodded me to surgical precision that no-one
else was able, somehow, to explain or reproduce or understand.
I know I shamed them.
They know I shamed them.
It has to be enough.
===
I have found cannabis to have therapeutic effects.
It eases symptoms that for many years
I didn't know existed, or couldn't quite put my finger on.
It also eases more recent, physical symptoms, as well.

I find that anecdotal hearsay has shaped much of the research
previously done on cannabis.
For years, it has been said that one gets stupid, giggly,
hungry, tired, uncaring and incapable under the influence of
cannabis.

The truth of the matter is:
Whatever you desire, or expect of cannabis, is what it will do.
I have held multiple jobs wherein human safety depended upon
my every choice.
Jobs where complex mathematic functions and formulas,
analytic skills, physical strength, speed, persistence, determination,
and thinking on the fly were critical.
I. Always. Smoked. Cannabis.

I have, more than several times, worked for an employer
for anywhere from three days, to three weeks,
asked if they liked my work, then Told them that I smoked
cannabis, all day, on the jobsite, and that, if they wished me
to continue, that I would need the guarantee that I would
never be urine-tested. Every single time I received the identical answer:
"Get back to work", sometimes with the added "Don't get caught".
Even during company-wide urinalysis, I always seemed to find myself
on "emergency jobs", miraculously unavailable for testing.

Now, I must tell you that some of the jobs where this has occurred were at:
N.I.S.T., N.S.A., Boeing Aircraft, Fort Dietrich, the list goes on.
I have one jobsite injury.
For a short time, I was unable to use cannabis.
Guess when that one jobsite injury occurred.
(It also was not my fault.)

Also:
Until I tried, and liked cannabis, at the age of 14, I had been in a sort of "fog",
Not really aware of my consciousness, not critically so.
I really "woke up", at that point, and my abstract and analytic skills,
as well as my self-awareness came alive.

It is also not lost on me that we have an endocannabinoid system,
and that since time immemorial most animals that we eat ate it,
and was thus available in our diet. With the advent of "Reefer Madness",
and the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act, the U.S., and then the rest of the world
effectively removed cannabinoids from our diets by removing it from
the diets of our livestock.

This is not to say that decarboxylated THC is not beneficial.
Simply it's anti-oxidative effect, and it's ability to increase the body's
oxygen level and storage capacity vouch for it's healthfulness.
You may be able to cheat mother nature, but you can't beat mother nature.

Interestingly, I also have always mini-dosed(not quite micro-), using far less
than most of those who sought only "inebriation".

Sorry if I am slightly tangential, here, it seems relevant to the OP.

May you be well.

 

[Otis]

Wow that was quite the read. i am finding it amazing to hear how so many using cannabis to ease the mind. You must realize when i use the term micro,im using it very loosely and in a relevant way to me. Micro meaning compared to a whole joint,micro meaning
just an inhales worth. So wondering about anti oxidant effect and carring more oxygen? Is this why some injuries have recovered quicker for me?possibly

 

[sidd851]

Wow that was quite the read. i am finding it amazing to hear how so many using cannabis to ease the mind. You must realize when i use the term micro,im using it very loosely and in a relevant way to me. Micro meaning compared to a whole joint,micro meaning
just an inhales worth. So wondering about anti oxidant effect and carring more oxygen? Is this why some injuries have recovered quicker for me?possibly

Yes, I strongly suspect this to be the case, with me as well, on the healing.
I dose similarly, one or two "hits", small ones. Alone, not "socially".

All of the above referenced information is easily accessable(Yay, Interwebs!).
I will also add:
I am a (tobacco) smoker of 34 yrs.
2-2.5 pks per day, slowly tapered to about1-1.25-ish presently.
I still bang 99's on pulse-oximiters(99% of the oxygen entering my lungs
enters my bloodstream). Drs are routinely astounded.
I have no macular degeneration(a recent eye exam had the opthamologist
tell me that I have the eyes of a 32 yr old) and have 20-15 vision, x2, corrected.
I have no hints of asthma, COPD, or breathing problems.
B.P. low/normal.

Aside from a catastrophic accident(23-ish bones broken, coma for a week,
multiple surgeries, 7wks of hospital, 8mos of nursing homes,
healing well and quickly, though I'll never completely recover, it was bad),
I am quite healthy.

I am also well aware that cannabis "normalized" me, and sharpened my senses,
and thought processes, so long ago, and to the present day.
I do everything better with cannabis.
I have had snobbish(and intelligent) people tell me that they can tell that
I have never touched a drug(especially "reefers"), sometimes right after I had smoked.

Beware, though, some nasty side effects are appreciation of classical jazz,
philanthropic tendencies, a tendency to appreciate experience over profit,
understanding subtleties, and fraternizing/dancing with the "ethnics".

 

[SusanLR]

I've never tried weed, so I've no idea how it would make me feel.
Before I started taking meds that don't mix, alchoholic drinks was my choice.

The memory issue is totally understandable.
In fact I have a thread on here about that very issue.
My memories go back to birth. Others do too.
It's like having a hundred years of thoughts that emotions are attached to and they are never forgotten.
They can just pop up too, so clear and vivid.
I'm 60 and still remember the peaceful moments in my mother's arms, her rocking me and singing to me
while I played with her hair and sucked my pacifier!
SO yeah, I can really relate.

My thread is: Memory. Do Aspies remember earlier?

One thing I remember that I couldn't really figure out is remembering thinking in words way back to
shortly after birth. I was annoyed that I couldn't speak, but, I could think.
No one could explain that, not even myself.
Recently I found new scientific research on how babies think and it seems they
know a lot more than we thought.
Here is a link to the new research:
https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130102/babies-learn-womb#1

I don't know how to link to my thread, but, I gave the name if you would like to see how many responses were given. It's amazing.

 

[Otis]

I've never tried weed, so I've no idea how it would make me feel.
Before I started taking meds that don't mix, alchoholic drinks was my choice.

The memory issue is totally understandable.
In fact I have a thread on here about that very issue.
My memories go back to birth. Others do too.
It's like having a hundred years of thoughts that emotions are attached to and they are never forgotten.
They can just pop up too, so clear and vivid.
I'm 60 and still remember the peaceful moments in my mother's arms, her rocking me and singing to me
while I played with her hair and sucked my pacifier!
SO yeah, I can really relate.

My thread is: Memory. Do Aspies remember earlier?

One thing I remember that I couldn't really figure out is remembering thinking in words way back to
shortly after birth. I was annoyed that I couldn't speak, but, I could think.
No one could explain that, not even myself.
Recently I found new scientific research on how babies think and it seems they
know a lot more than we thought.
Here is a link to the new research:
https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130102/babies-learn-womb#1

I don't know how to link to my thread, but, I gave the name if you would like to see how many responses were given. It's amazing.

The difference with weed is it is continuing to have a lasting effect for few days even. Where as with alcohol the effect is only the half life of the drink then detox and hangover depending on amount you have consumed. If you are thinking of giving it ago my advice would be to try it with somebody who uses it so it won't be too strong. Also only have one little inhale then wait for a while. People consuming to much first time and the body having no tolerance is what causes people to freak out.

 

[sidd851]

I've never tried weed, so I've no idea how it would make me feel.
Before I started taking meds that don't mix, alchoholic drinks was my choice.

The memory issue is totally understandable.
In fact I have a thread on here about that very issue.
My memories go back to birth. Others do too.
It's like having a hundred years of thoughts that emotions are attached to and they are never forgotten.
They can just pop up too, so clear and vivid.
I'm 60 and still remember the peaceful moments in my mother's arms, her rocking me and singing to me
while I played with her hair and sucked my pacifier!
SO yeah, I can really relate.

My thread is: Memory. Do Aspies remember earlier?

One thing I remember that I couldn't really figure out is remembering thinking in words way back to
shortly after birth. I was annoyed that I couldn't speak, but, I could think.
No one could explain that, not even myself.
Recently I found new scientific research on how babies think and it seems they
know a lot more than we thought.
Here is a link to the new research:
https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130102/babies-learn-womb#1

I don't know how to link to my thread, but, I gave the name if you would like to see how many responses were given. It's amazing.

Thank you, SusanLR.
I will most definitely try to find your
thread. I always believed that I was
a freak, for "thinking" that I could
remember my birth, even though
there are no pictures and my mother has
corroborated particular visual oddities
that I have related.
We just keep surprising me.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Thank you, SusanLR.
I will most definitely try to find your
thread. I always believed that I was
a freak, for "thinking" that I could
remember my birth, even though
there are no pictures and my mother has
corroborated particular visual oddities
that I have related.
We just keep surprising me.

I remember the birth of 'me' the first moments I thought this is '' me'
Standing up in my cot.

Have read about it before.

 

[Otis]

mine start from the 1st day at daycare.