A few days ago, I heard a National Public Radio interview on the topic of autobiographical memory. One thing the interviewee said stuck in my mind: People who remember past events in the "third person" (i.e., as though viewing themselves from the outside) differ from those who tend to remember past events in the "first person" (i.e., as though looking at it through their own eyes again). Among other things, this researcher claimed that third-person memory was better associated with accepting one's past mistakes and growing in response to them.
Several things in those remarks set off my skeptical alarms, but let me focus on one: Do people really remember events in the third or first person? I have no doubt that if you ask people to say whether a memory was first- or third-person, they'll be kind enough to give you a confident-seeming answer. But do autobiographical memories of particular past episodes have to have a visual perspective of this sort?
Some behaviorally quite normal people claim never to experience visual imagery. Let's suppose they're right about this. Of course they nonetheless have autobiographical episodic memories. How would such memories have a first- or third-person perspective, if there's no visual imagery involved? Would they have a first- or third-person auditory perspective? (Well sure, why not? But is this what the researchers have in mind?)
Maybe memories can be episodic and not visual at all; or visual yet not perspectival. The great writer Jorge Luis Borges and the emiment 19th century psychologist Francis Galton describe cases of visual imagery from visually-impossible circular or all-embracing perspectives or non-perspectives (e.g., the front and back of a coin visualized simultaneously).
In the 1950s people said they dreamed in black and white. Now they say they dream in color. People seem to assimilate their dreams to movies -- so much so that they erroneously attribute incidental features of movies, like black and whiteness (and maybe also like coloration) to their dreams. Similarly, it seems that people in cultural groups that analogize waking visual experience to flat media like pictures and paintings are more likely to attribute some sort of flatness to their visual experience than those who use other sorts of analogies for visual experience.
So I wonder: Do we imagine that we're remembering things "from a third-person perspective" in part because we assimilate autobiographical memory to television and movie narratives? Maybe, because of our immersion in film media, we (now) really do remember our past lives as though we were the protagonist of a movie? Or maybe we don't really tend to do that, but rather report our autobiographical memories as being like that (when pressed by a psychologist or by someone else or even just by ourselves) because the analogy between movies and memorial flashbacks is so tempting?
Would people in cultures without movies have comparably high rates of reporting autobiographical memory as though from a third-person perspective? Probably this has never been studied....
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Remembering from the Third-Person Perspective?
Posted by Eric Schwitzgebel at 9:07 AM
Labels: stream of experience
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I find I have memories of both kinds, often depending upon what I'm recalling. I suspect this is in part due to how the brain optimized the storage by picking out relevant "aspects" to the experience. i.e. if my perceiving it as if from me is important then it's first person whereas if the objective nature is more important I tend to have 3rd person memories.
Huh. This is a very interesting post!
In light of your questions I'm having a hard time getting my head around the very idea of a 3rd person memory. Perhaps it's simply a memory like an other, but with the further belief that "it doesn't seem like that person was me" (or even "I don't know that that person was me"--as in some twins' accounts of early childhood). But if that's the case then 3rd-personality of memory wouldn't amount to much.
Hi Eric. What you've set up here is a new point of entry to what I was trying to say earlier, specifically through your reference to media-influenced conjectures about visual experience. When you try to establish a visual space of clarity by asking about the distance between a central point and a point at which you're able to make out a stipulated amount of detail in an object, you effectively concede to the projectivist view of visual experience that you otherwise seem to be wary of. The pure, self-identical presence that I spoke of earlier would be the two-dimensional surface. You construct that surface by making the metaphysical assumption of an unbroken continuity from one differential point of interest to the next, and it is in terms of that continuity that you purport to measure the distance between two points. That's the first punch line. The second punch line is that you arbitrarily select the point of retinal alignment as the true center because that's what interests you most of the time. But sometimes there are things that you can see only obliquely. On those occasions the central point lies in what you would ordinarily consider to be the periphery. In your card experiment, then, the central point would be that point at which you are just able to make out the card's suit and value. Not only that, but the point of retinal alignment is infinitely far from that central point insofar as there are infinite differential points of interest between them. Again, Zeno's paradox.
I have some 3rd personal memories, and weirder still, some 3rd personal dreams. The dreams are really weird, there will be a character in the dream that I somehow know is me and I watch the events of the dream unfold from a wandering impersonal camera view.
In both the memory and the dream case, things are visual and persepctival: there is a standard camera's eye view. It's just that I am the viewed not the viewer.
this strikes me as pretty puzzling and I should stress, it doesn't happen to me very often. But I do blame TV.
Pete, I surprisingly have a lot of 3rd person dreams where I'm a character in almost a movie but I'm watching it like a movie. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I told my wife that I have dreams like that and she thought it a bit odd.
Thanks for the interesting comments, folks!
Justin, I like your point about twins confusing their memories. (My father is a twin and in reminiscing about childhood often says, "and then one of us did this...".) But it isn't confined to twins. I think back to things my high school buddies and I did, and I can't remember which of us did which things. What's going on? Am I playing it as a movie with the wrong faces, or blurry faces? At a minimum, this exemplifies how reconstructive our memory is. It isn't like rewinding a video and then having the same experience a second time!
Okay, Daryl, I think I'm beginning to get a better handle on your concerns! First thought: Can I get out of assuming that experience is two-dimensional by talking in terms of angular distance, rather than distance as if on a plane? (To think in terms of visual angle rather than square area is my first impulse in such matters, anyway.) Second thought: I agree that the center of attention or cognition can come apart from what you call "the point of retinal alignment" or (I'd say) the experience corresponding to input from the foveal center of the retina. I don't *think* acknowledging this creates any problems for my view -- in fact, it's central to it!
Interesting thoughts about dreams, Pete and Clark. I do wonder, though, whether you really are having 3rd person dreams, or whether you simply think your dreams are that way because you overanalogize them to movies -- as people used to think their dreams were black and white! Of course, that wouldn't explain why you sometimes remember your dreams as 3rd personal and other times as 1st personal. Not that I have any reason to think 3rd person dreams are intrinsically unlikely.... It's just that the science of experience has a *long* way to come, still!
My own impulse is to say no re: the determination of angular distance, but that's just me. If the points of interest are singularities that are always phenomenologically "front and center," I would think they are more like pulses, that is, their distance from each other is only temporal. Then again, time itself is subject to the same analysis as space....
Am I hearing some Kant? I guess I'm still inclined to think that we can think about the angular distance between the center of attention and the foveal/retinal center -- far periphery vs. mid periphery vs. virtually adjacent to the foveal center. Maybe this is just a form of our perceptual experience that doesn't reflect how things are in themselves -- but that's exactly what I'm interested in, anyway, the nature of our experience....
OK, Eric, I'm pretty sure I've told you about the Ulric Neisser study on this before, but he has a paper that showed people report memories more from the 3rd person p.o.v. the longer ago the memory. This research accords with my own experiences.
Thanks, Eddy. That does sound familiar now that you mention it! That would fit nicely with the radio psychologist's idea that 3rd-person-perspective memories are more likely to be seen as a version of yourself that you've moved beyond.
Ok. M's only in yr9 so forgive her if she misunderstood what Eric was trying to say.
The influence of visual media bit seemed to make sense... would one still recall (or think they recall) memories in third person if they frequently indulged in, like, manga and text? As far back as M can remember, she has had 3rd person memory, but she only (conciously) watches 0 - 40 min. of television per day. Or is that enough time to make enough of an impact?
Is there a translator in the house for what Daryl said? (Doctorate degree in Psychology/minor in Philosophy, am I right?)
What a great blog. I tried to explain to people that when I recall a memory from the past it is always from a distance looking down on myself, like in the 3rd person I guess.
I'm not sure why I remember this way, or how I would come up with how everything looked from far away as opposed to what it actually looked like through my eyes when I experienced it. Weird stuff man.
I think there's a big aspect of memory being missed here, and that is re-encoding. Memories change over time. I myself have been able to observe the shift in my childhood memories from first-person to third-person. Some have become one solitary image with a story attached, because that's the story I always told.
I believe that's where the influence of popular media would come in - when we recall our memories and then 'put them back', they are best interpreted and explained by a popular media that we and the people around us have experience with. So, the more you re-encode a memory, the more it will become like what you watch.
Okay, i had an expeirience in my youth expierimenting with a powerful phycadelic.. at the peak of an intense "look inside myself" i rose out of my body, at first i was only aware i was floating above myself, then with a flash, became aware of myself from BOTH perspectives SIMULTANEOUSLY.. I SWEAR I COULDN'T make This UP! then with an even more terrifying move, i was in 4 places, all me, all perspectives were aware of its own surroundings, all at the same time.. One floating, one sitting down (MY PHYS> BODY), one standing in front of myself looking at myself, and one was in the sky looking down on myself when i was 4 years old in a parking lot, (which i distinctivly remember was my 1st expierience with deja vu) all of these perspectives were as clear as day and completely parallel.. IT Horrified me!!! but about 6 months ago when describing a memory i had as a child to a friend of mine, i came to the realizations that nearly all my memories were in third person, unaware that there were any studies done on this subject, i began asking people i knew, whether they recalled memories in third or first person, much to my suprise of the 100 people i asked 56% were third, their race and sex had nothing didn't seem to matter.. I really don't know what my subconsious was telling me in the forementioned expeirience, but maybe our brains percieve way more than it lets on..
I only remember in 3rd person. Memories both good and bad, near and far appear as if I'm outside my body observing.
I can tell as soon as I close my eyes how quickly I am going to sleep. If I start seeing the images right away I will be to sleep very quickly. I often wonder if what I experience is a hypnagogic dream of some sort. Usually I see images that keep morphing into other images. Mainly I see faces. Usually they are grey to black with outlines in muted colors. Ocassionally they turn to vibrant colors. Before I know it I am off asleep.
Nights when I dont see the images, might as well turn the TV back on. I'm not going to sleep.
Is an a posteriori self-perception from a 3rd person perspective not pathological? It is usually reported by victims of extreme accidents or violent crimes, hostage takings, torture. A relevant question in such cases is, at who and where precisely the "3rd person perspective" is located. If , as you hint to, 3rd person perspective memories etc. occure in many people outside such extreme situations, it's distribution, characteristics and stability should be of interest. It would have very strong implications if a lot of people were fundamentally pathological in that issue.
Here is a new article about the research of such disorders, their variety and the neurology behind that.
I'm not sure it's pathological, T. Lots of ordinary folks seem to report it, for ordinary memories.
As far as I can remember, I have had memories in "3rd person". It is as ifI am looking down at myself doing something that I remember. I'm really interested in anything to do with this topic, and really want to fin out more.
I know for me personally, this is something I looked up because I observed myself that many of my memories are in third person. I can reconstruct the first person memory, but it feels less visceral.
No psychologist pressed me to think about this, I observed it in myself and felt it was strange.
The fresher the memory the more likely I am to remember it in first person, after a few weeks I see it in third.
I have recently been reading up on this subject.
I, myself, not only dream in 3rd person perspective, but also remember real events in 3rd person.
It is obviously a subconscious action, as when I realize I am in this perspective I almost immediately 'switch' back into 1st.
While you make a good point that TV may be the cause by acclimating our subconscious to 3rd person perspective, I have also come across another theory that may have just as much merit.
This theory stated that by dreaming or remembering in 3rd person, we are attempting to distance ourselves from the proceedings, and this outer view of ourselves shows us of our mistakes and allows us insight to who we are.
That by viewing the 'outside', and already *knowing* the 'inside', we come to a middle ground of seeing ourselves in someone else's shoes, and *being* ourselves.
But as I said, these are only theories.
;)
Kat J: Could be. Is there systematic evidence that certain kinds of memories -- the ones that, a priori, one might like one would want more distance from -- are more likely to be reported as experienced from a third-person perspective?
Hi there,
An excellent topic with a million questions left to ponder.
I have found that I recall events in third-person where I have perhaps told the story again to someone else, perhaps changing the memory and therefore made it more cinematic.
It would be my guess that memories recalled in third person are already dramatised memories that we have gone on to say. This would add weight to your cinematic comment. In telling a story back to someone, we then go on to remember the story we told and the exact details of the memory are lost to a new context. We have taken the first person detail and applied them to build a picture that can be told and visualised to others, simultaneously reconstructing it in our mind.
At the moment I am trying to connect with my emotions. I have a difficulty expressing how I feel and, although I am an outgoing, positive and creative guy, I have a deep sadness and unresolved anger at stages in my life that I can't either remember or feel. When I try to reconnect with them, I cannot associate the past emotion, merely my matured, experienced expectation of what I should have felt. Most of those recollections are in third person. So, is it possible I may have detached my emotional feedback with those accounts and reformulated the entire episode in my head to something else. Something I could deal with?
Interesting...
Ian, I am in a memoir writing group and have not done a lot of writing in the past. I have started in the third person much to the consternation of the group. I experience what you expressed in the last paragraph of your comments.I almost feel as though the me I am today is a disconnected/detached version of who I might have been in my early age of 4, 5,6, etc. I plan to continue in the third person until I find the way to transition to the first person that I am today.My emotions at that early age were a mystery to me I don't know if I felt or I disconnected from what I felt in order to survive.
I have most dreams and memories in third person, and also in colour.
I think memories from childhood are in third person because someone has either told or reminded them on that. But I find myself remembering things in third person that happened last week. But they don't just stay in the same perspective, the view might change depending on what is happening...
Well, technically if you don't have an imagry associated with the memory it technically wouldn't be a episodic memory. I'd call it more of a recall.
I'm not sure I'd insist on that, Tyjon. Do nonimagers, assuming they exist, have no episodic memories?
I am a tweleve year old male, and I have much of my memories in third person point of view. I have been rreading this disccusion, and am very curious, considering this involves me. What I wonder most is; how does people's brains dodd this, and why do only some people have this experience? I remember my dreams in third person point of view, but I am not sure if I dream them that way, or I just remember them that way.
What I decided to do is make a survey for my seventh grade, and if I have to eight grade, and it has you mark your name in a column that says:People that dream in third person only, people that have memories in third person only, people who dream in first person only, people who have memories in first person only, people who who have dreams in first and third person, and people who have memories in first and third person. You can have your name signed twice, one for dreams, the other for memories.
In the back of the survey there is a page that says this:This is a survey taken by, my name, THis is strictly for reasearch, and reasearch only. I am strongly intrested in how the brain remembers memories. I am also intrested in how the brain remembers dreams. I myself remember most of my dreams in third person point of view. For the most part, all my memories are in third person point of view.
The reason I take this large survey is , because I wonder why I remember things, memories, dreams, in third person, and overall only in third person point of view. This survey is taken from seventh, and some eigth graders in my middle school. I want at least one hundred surveyors.
I hope to learn from this, and a little reasearch, why the brain works this way, and if there is a way to remember choosingly between the two points of view.
What is the reason for this, is it a sign of higher or lower intellegence? Is it a sijgn of better understanding of people, people's feelings, of the world, or what? I thank all surveyors.
People who are reading this: feel free to survey this yourself. If you do reply please indicate you are talking to LuigiRocksMario.
Thanks
-LuigiRocksMario
In much of my memories, they are third person. However I can also switch to first person if I choose.
In dreams (and in some memories) I usually dream in third and first person simultaneously, with it occasionally switching to just third or just first. It's a bit hard to explain, but it's like i'm looking from my eyes and an outside perspective at the same time.
I am so glad I found this conversation. I recently began EMDR to recover lost memories and have been questioning the validity of the ones that I can see from the third person. I can tell you that none of the events I am recalling have ever been discussed with anyone and therefore would not have switched from 1st person to 3rd person as though recalling a story as a rerun (for lack of a better word). It never occured to me until yesterday that I recall almost all memories in the third person. This realization has disturbed me a bit and caused me to question my own reality. Then I asked myself a simple question. Yesterday, I drove to work. When I think about that drive is it from a third person perspective? The answer is "yes". That got me thinking about other memories. They are almost all third person.
Every memory I have, I am always looking down at myself. Even memories from when I was really little, as early as I can imagine them. For me, it's more like looking at a photo of that particular time and place. I believe that, for me, this is because I read a lot of fiction books. While I read, I am aware that I am reading words, but I don't really see the words, in a way. It's almost like the book I'm holding is the screen in which I watch what is happening. I thought this is wired, which is why I looked it up. My mom thought it was wired. I'm glad that I'm not the only one.
One other thing I forgot to mention: every memory that I ever think back on, I see myself, watching from an angle, like a spider on the wall. When I realize that I'm in third person, I have to try to force myself too see "through my own eyes." For some reason this is very difficult for me. Any ideas/explanations?
I think that a person might begin to view their memories in the 3rd person as a result of an unbearable trauma. From then on I wonder if the brain will just continue to see things in the 3rd person whether it is a happy or a sad memory. I personally rarely see my memories in the 3rd person. I am a feeler and an empath. My entire life I have fully felt everything...I embrace all of my emotions wholeheartedly to the point that my family has been annoyed with me. People who aren't empathetice people really don't understand. I am very creative sensitive and intuitive....it has taken me a long time to learn to control this side of me.
Unknown 9/5...do you mean imagination is a system like circulatory or respiratory systems...
...an instinctive provision for survival of functional entities serving our dualistic world...
90% of my memories are in the third-person. I don't know why, (well obviously, considering I looked it up) and I was curious. I don't quite agree with all of the articles I've seen. Some say that third-person memories are reflecting on past mistakes, but memories of me making a mistake are actually in the first-person. Any good, positive, or neutral memory is in third. I'm not sure I'll ever understand why.
I have one memory that I can see it in both frist and third-person
I myself remember all my memories through a third person perspective and I've been doing reaserch trying to find answers as to why this is. I view all my memories as a third person I'm watching myself do these things And say these things that I said when I was younger I'm only 17 but its always been that way. It's like my memories are all out of body experiences
I am a 17 year old girl and all of my memories I view from third person I watch myself do things and say things in my memories it's like in just a stranger watching myself it's very strange. I've been doing reaserch for a while now as to why but I can't seem to fully grasp it as there isn't enough research to begin with on the topic itself.
That's why I'm here. You're not alone!
It's honestly not that strange, at least to me, all of my memories throughout my entire life of myself (am also 17 year old girl) are in third person perspective and I only found out recently that it was not common. It really helps me out in reality though because I can understand what happened around me and such. One thing I think is interesting about it for me is that although my memories are in third person generally I am unable to see my face from this perspective. I do have to agree with an earlier post made however about the concept that our memories are taking on similar form as that of movies, whenever I think about the subject I generally relate my perspective in my memories to movies and even largely books. I am also very curious about the prospect of people from other cultures that are not largely focused on entertainment such as TV and movies if they have a similar point of view in their memories.
I'm 14 and I've been remembering in 3rd person. It's pretty strange and I only originally thought it was hereditary or something so I asked all my household family members if they remembered/imagined themselves in 3rd person. None of them did, and they called me weird. Now it's after 3am and I'm trying to find an answer, but I haven't found one that properly explains it yet
I found this post whilst searching for information about this topic. It's strange, a few nights ago I was sat thinking about how weird it is that we remember things as if we're an outsider looking in (I had always assumed that was just how the memory worked). I tend to think about random things when I can't sleep and sometimes while I am sat here i feel like I'm watching myself sit here so it wasn't that big a deal but the following day my 10yr old asked me how he is able to see himself in his memories when he's the one making the memories through his eyes and shouldn't that mean he sees his memories like he did through his eyes. He wanted to know how he can see things that he wasn't looking at at the time the memory was made (example he gave was how can he see things that are behind him when he couldn't see them at the time). I told him I also see my memories that way and it's just how the brain works. However my dreams Are the opposite and are mostly through my eyes as they're really vivid and I often wake up thinking it was real life. My 10yr old has described this to me too. I always thought the memory thing was the same for everyone but what my 10yr old said stuck with me and I had to do some research to find a real answer.. like how are we seeing memories (things that actually happened) through someone else's eyes in a way but dreams (which are not real) we see as if through our own eyes and real life? It's so strange.. do you have any recommendations for scientific studies on this topic?
I came to this site looking for an explanation towards my problem. You people are talking about my problem in your dreams but in reality this is happening to me, It happened mostly as a child but wore of as i grew older. It still happens from time to time and can cause mayhem for my social life. When it happens I sort of go into 2nd and 3rd person view and it feels as if i don't control my movements but body like I already have a plan were I am going and the only real thing I can do is just look. It mostly happens in bright conditions and loud sounds drums, fireworks, big laughter, huge crowds and the list can just go on forever. I just need to know one thing, is there anyone out there who has the same problem that I have?
Benjamin O'Donnell...
Hi..
(whilst awake) I used to have the same thing happen to myself and it was whilst in periods of great distress, always stressed and drinking alcohol or smoking weed or both. Alcohol made this, what i like to call -passenger time- worse and caused us to dissociate to the point of losing memory (amnesia style), kinda like what we would imagine possession from another entity/soul/spirit to feel like. The times it was amnesia and not passenger the MEMORIES would replay like watching from a 3rd person viewing, like watching yourself through someone elses eyes, very freaky, but the worst were the -passenger times- and the memories from them, trying to explain them is difficult with our language, but the best way would be, whilst awake it felt like possession, how that has been explained/described, you can see what is happening, you are fully conscious, but you have no control, it's like someone has sedated you and taken control of your body, you're looking through inside your head instead of your eyes, like your site of where your vision is coming from has sunk into your head. Memories somehow aren't very visual, but we somehow know certain things, like remembering a dream (very vague and very little to no visual), but yet we somehow remember (even without visuals) memories in the amnesia/possession(like) times as if floating above ourself and watching us from an outer body point of view (soul left the body/birds eye view)... Lately we are losing memories and they feel false, like they aren't my own. less stress, no news/television, next to no media, very few close people in our life and listening only to ourself and nobody else on what is right for us no matter how frowned upon it may be, no alcohol, smoking some herb and being as closed off or open as we need or wish to be and shutting out as much noise from surroundings (what others view you as, political nonsense etc), has helped by keeping us in a calmer place.... But now we hope to do what we now believe to have been what we like to call -soul travelling-, in a more willing manner instead of times of immense stress or trauma
Almost all of my memories are in third person, especially the older ones but more recent are also in third person. They're vivid, I see myself in different angles like a movie and most of the time I see myself from behind or over my own shoulder. I dream in 3rd person almost every time, it's rare to have a dream where I see from my own eyes. Sometimes the point of view will switch between 1st and 3rd person but most of the time my pov stays in 3rd person.
When I started looking up the answer to my question of 'what is disassociation?' it was because I was told that is why when I am driving the same exact route I always take I notice that I have no memory of how far I have gone and for how long it took me to cover said distance. Also I experienced a re-curing dream when I was twelve... I asked my mother to help explain the dream as it seemed familiar. When I finished telling her about it, my perspective of the dream was that of an actual person who participated in the true event. As time went on the dream came back several more times with added detail, just that my past self wasn't in the added detail, just the original part from before (if that makes any sense to anyone but me).
So I started keeping tabs on my dreams and memories... all of my memories that I do have are from 3rd person, but not a participating 3rd person. In adulthood, most of my memories of childhood are in 3rd person and they weren't told to me, but they are viewed as a short video clip, such as someone is recording my life. When I try to review the memory so that I relive them, I am not able to. Like someone asks you what you were thinking at a given time, my honest answer is I don't know. I have had memories half and half, half in 1st person and half in 3rd person and I am also able to relive them too.
When I look over pictures from the past, most if not all, I can't recall at all in my memory, I have never been able to recall letters I have written and sent off. To this day I have no memory of what I wrote in an 8 page hate letter I wrote to my ex-husband. If I am able to locate the received writings of my father I sent to him, I can't remember on my own what I wrote, or if I am able to locate them I can't remember what was going on in my life to cause me to write what was written. As an example, I will be copying this comment to my computer hard drive so that I will not forget what was said.
As I was explaining earlier about going on auto-pilot when I am driving, It is now happening when I bicycle, because I am so used to the routes I take, my body and mind feel comfortable to step away from the cockpit and delve into other areas of personal study.
I am just trying to get a better handle on myself, any thoughts are appreciated.
You are not alone. Me too, I'm 22 all of my memories are in 3rd person I don't really have one in first person I asked my family and friends and they all have memories in 1st person and rarely if any in 3rd person. It's 1 am right now I'm I was about to slept when I couldn't keep thinking about this.
This is a bit off topic but I can also re-live memories just by smelling things, for me the trigger is tomatoes vines and when I’m at the grocery store I always make sure to pick up vine ripe tomatoes. The second I smell it time freezes and I see myself running around my grandfathers garden, I was 3 at the time.
I also have merories in 3ed person, I'm 18,ive only asked one of my friends and they said they also see memories in 3ed person. It's currently 4:04 am for me
I persieve all my memories as third person, though I prefer to use the term; outsider looking in. I don't know why so thats why I googled it (very lucky for google) and your blog popped up. It cleared a lot of questions I had. Thank you
I'm kind of the same. I'm a 11 year old male and not only do I get dreams in third person,I get third person just about everything. It's strange knowing that you live in first person perspective, but strangely, some people's memories and dreams are in third.
I have never in my life had a dream or memeory that was not 3rd person. Im watching myself, in the dremas & memories but its ME watching myself & I am still able to feel the emtions that im watching myself have. I thought this was normal until I found out that not everyone see them self this way. I am so curious to why I see myself this way in my dreams & memories
I actually use to have third person memories as a child. The only best way I can explain. Is that when I was younger, I would blink, and then all of a sudden I was viewing myself but from a stranger's perspective but I would still be able to react to things while watching myself. I was around 4-5 at the time. I had to have been because I wasn't going to school. I started super late at the time and ended up skipping kindergarten. And a lot of my memories were me seeing myself. Like how you'd see your sibling or parent? But you'd see your own face and body instead. And it wasn't all of the time it bounced back and forth. Like ok time I ended up choking on a peppermint and went to get help. Next thing you know it I blink and then see myself walking to get help and being patted on the back. I blink again and thw whole settings changed. I don't even know what happened, but obviously I didn't die, but it's like parts of it just skipped. And my image(or memory) changed and I'm no longer in that house choking on a candy I'm walking with my mum hold her hand at night home. I blink again and I'm back to the memory being in first perspective as we go home. I really hope someone else can relate to this. I just now thought of it all and wanted answers and then I found this website. Sometimes I'd blink and I would be taken to something not even realistic. Maybe they were dreams? I don't know because I don't ever remember waking up from them. I just remember blinking and then going back to reality. I kind of feel a bit lost and stupid but I kind of am just hoping that I'm not alone, or that there's an actual answer for this because I'm normal now and I've never had it happen to me again, so I suppose I grew out of it? I don't know, I hope this kind of help someone see it from a different perspective...
I can imagine that people are not viewing in third person due to movies because we can not create something we have never seen. The person who created movies undoubtedly was trying to create something where he could allow other people to see what he himself saw in his own head. People today will relate third person to a movie because it's a perfect description of how they feel. Most likely before movies people simply said, I can see myself or I'm watching myself. That's my opinion on the subject.
I feel the same, I'm seventeen and I've never really thought too much into it or cared until I got bored one day after realizing that the main character in the movie I was watching always had memories from a first person perspective and not a third person perspective,and googled y that was. In the end it led me to this post. I'm still really confused and dont really understand y I only remember stuff or dream in a way that it feels like I'm watching myself go through the memory or past experience. Also I usually find it really hard to explain this to others. I havent met one person so far that has the problem as me. To be completely honest I thought when I googled this there wouldnt be any available sites to click on at all. As if this is just something that I have. It's nice to realize I'm not some weird person that has out of body experiences or something.
Mine are 1St and 3rd person memories. I can switch back and forth between them.
This is very interesting. I've had triggered memories before. Caused by sounds, tast, smell, but nothing were I am inside the memory instead of inside reality
Like the true memory has been replaced by the story of that memory, which changes the narrative perspective?
Look up the relationship of 3rd person memories, dissociation, and childhood trauma. That will yield some interesting, albeit not fully exhaustive, thoughts for y'all wondering about this.
The condition is called aphantasia and I am afflicted with it.
Interestingly episodic memories are growing more detailed and stronger.
If you're curious, I'll field any questions.
There is even an aphantasia society and a researcher in Australia claims it is proven to be a genuine phenomenon, based on his experiments involving binocular vision.
1 or 2 % of the population suffer this condition though invoking neurodiversity, people tend to live with it
We are suffering because we've been taught to perceive and believe what we are faulty and Flawed
Because we don't fit in with anothers narratives as to what denotes to being called out as being the "only" "Normal"
When
What is classed as being
"Normal"
Is pretty well messed up and makes majority of humans seem so dead and messed up
And
Not wanting to be here
Hence addictions
Hence the monetary systems messing us up
Hence prescription meds numbing us and having side effects such as *possible *suicidal idealisations*
*depression*
*sickness*
*Speach impediment*
*body pains. Muscles and bones*
And this was our personal experience with an Anti-Psychotic
Called Quetiapine
Due to us seeing dark figures in our peripheral vision
Hearing voices outwardly
Being trapped within our body
Ect
(To which we now know it was our taumatised selves, trying to express themselves to us, from our child bodied traumas, teen bodied trauamas, adult bodied trauams, o. Multiple experiences of the sense, things forced upon our being that we didn't want to experience voluntarily)
Then when we went to see a psychiatrist in an emergency appointment to express how
Our shins felt like they were being hit with a sledge hammer every morning upon waking and for hours afterwards,
That we couldn't speak at all and we love to talk as it is therapeutic and helps us to realise so much,
That we couldn't get out of bed and many other things,
They said
"Those are,
'Normal, side effcets and will disipate within a few more weeks"
By this moment
We were taking this medication for at least 2 to 3 months by then
Even the friend we were staying with told us that we wouldn't come out of our bedroom and we weren't ourself,
So alarm bells started ringing and we saw red sirens �� going off within us
So we went to a GP we trusted then
And asked it they could help us to come off this medication
And to devise a plan as to ween us off them,
Cos we knew how dangerous they were,
Whereas usually with other medications
Such as anti depressants
And sedatives
And sleeping tablets
Ect
We'd know that we could just simply come off them.
So yeah
We aren't suffering cos our being is striving to express and explore itself
We are suffering cos we've been taught and forced to beleive that this is somehow "W4ong"
"Faulty"
And
"Flawed"
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