Added: 5 years ago
From: ashikkerib
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  • he is rather stuborn tho...: i never seen anything ever in my life! completely black!

  • Not sure what I can't get over more, this man's predicament or the strength of his wife

  • So his long-term memory is basically read-only?

  • smash a bottle on his head that will sort him out.

  • woah.. and his wife tolerate this for so long??

  • wow. I just finished watching a video about him. it was done recently and he STILL reacts the exact same way everytime sees his wife.

  • This is so amusing yet emotional.

    I admire Deborah's love for Clive and her everlasting commitment to him :)

  • His wife divorced him decades ago. But he doesn't notice anyway.

  • @Mathemagical55

    She did divorce him, but they remarried

  • A life like this:

    The Good: If you've been deeply humiliated by someone, you won't have to be humiliated for more than a few seconds, Don't have to remember people you hate.

    The Bad: Forgetting what the hell has happened, No more watching movies or playing games, Forgetting what thing taste like, Forgetting the greatest moments of your life.

  • this is how much i want to love a woman one day

  • Without doubt this is one of the most romantic stories of all times putting his ilness aside. His wife must really loves this man to endure such a frustration.

  • I cannot imagine how confused and unconfortable he must feel....and I am amazed by the wife's patience, it's golden.

  • his wife is amazing

  • touching...If life without Memory, except your love and your likes.

  • touching...If life without Memory, except your love and your likes.

  • very sad...............

  • Amazing and very very sad. LIving in constant frustration must create such fear and exhausting moments. Moments.. ,, ,,

  • WOW that hug. Lol Every1 likes to be hugged like u were gone and your bacl. Even if you know the guy is crazy it means something =) Boy does this guy love her lol

  • "Did you not see me before!?"

    "NO - This is the first time!" LOOOL

  • Can't imagine what it's like to have no memory at all...

    He can play the piano really good though! :)

  • this is fascinating to me. It really shows how much were are just like machines.

  • i love the fact that his semantic knowledge is perfectly fine, yet his episodic is (nearly) completely distroyed. he knows what objects are, but doesn't believe he has seen them before. Why would he be able to name something if he's never known of it? this shows his ability to recall semantic knowledge is fine, yet his episodic is no better than working memory duration. he therefore has problems encoding new knowledge and retriving old. note his implictit memory is fine though!!

  • he has the memory to remember a question after it is asked long enough to answer it.

  • i wonder how it works that its only about ~30 sec...i mean he is not surprised that his wife stays there, even though after a short while he mustve forgotten where she came from.

  • @n0oB4life , that's because he still has 30 seconds of memory,, when you talk to someone you don't think when that person arrived, you just comunicate with that person, he comunicates with his wife and the 30 seconds memory is conitnuous,

  • why isnt he constantly questioning the camera crew?

  • we were studdying him in psychology basically he has long-term memories (like his wife & playing piano) but cannot form new longterm memores..so everytime he sees the camera crew hes seeing them for the first time cz he cant put memroies of them in his new longterm

  • yeah i figured he would be seeing them for the first time, like how he thinks he hasnt seen his wife. But how come he doesnt always ask what the camera crew is doing? i assume he'd forget that they are doing a docco on him

  • @y9dnkbe I assume it is because he goes through the emotion of being awake for the first time and before he thinks to even ask why the crew is there he forgets.... and all of a sudden he is conscious again

  • yeah, could be. I just thought it was interesting, he really is facinating. Though i really feel sorry for him, must be a really hard life

  • exactly what i thought

  • @y9dnkbe

    he does sometimes. but he just sees them as strangers. when his wife asks him who did you see, he replied that he sees her and 2 other people (camera crew)

    probably his personality too

  • amazing story

  • i wander what would happen if he used acid or smoked weed

  • Is he not even aware that he lost his memory?

  • @QuantumSelf13 He's aware that something has happened to him and can even give you a pretty good estimate of how long he's been that way. He "thinks" he's guessing but he has no conscious access to such memories.

  • He keeps forgetting that part.

  • I really hope he finds John G.

  • OMG! CHEWBACCA AT 2:09!!!!

  • HAHAHAHA, legend

  • He still remembers his wife... just goes to show, nothing stands in the way of love ;D

  • thats because his wife is stored in his Long term memory. Love has nothing to do with it!

  • why can't he remember his mother then?

  • Yet he remembers his wife. Good question!

  • they shud have got him to meet someone like M jackson, surely he wud have remembered the king of pop!

  • That's because the memory of his "love" for his wife is stored in a part of the brain that wasn't damaged. "love" is not some magical spiritual thing, it's simply chemical reactions.

  • I know that. I was just caught up in the moment... and you guys ruined it for me. :S

  • Don't let them ruin it for you. They can't prove you are definitively wrong.

  • Comment removed

  • and how could you measure such a thing as love? Or detect it in the brain? You may see activity in a certain area of the brain when "love" based cues are shown to someone. That does not prove love is "simply chemical reactions". Love is the thing reacted to, not the reaction.

  • Man, a few mins ago i saw a 9 minute video about him (wich led me to this one). He looked pretty old. Seeing this makes me realize he's gone through this infinite cycle for decades.

  • I adore Deborah for eternity.

    That is sooooo sweet. At least he still has his love. =\

  • The bad vote for your comment was supposed to be a good vote, I just clicked the thumbs down by accident, sorry!

  • what happens if you tell him he has amnesia does he understand that

  • He understands everything fine - his problem is not with understanding, it is with storing any new information for longer than about 30 seconds - which is the psycologically and scientifically accepted length of the Short Term Memory.

    The issue is that none of this information gets written to his long term memory, thus to him it literally is like coming into existence every 25 to 35 seconds.

    He hasn't been able to store any information since the virus in 1985.

  • Sería importante que este documental - muy interesante - llevara subtítulos en inglés o español. No todos captamos el inglés hablado, pero, algunos, podemos leerlo sin problemas.

    ¿Existe la posiblidad de que alguién los agregue?

    Gracias.

    Erial80

  • are there any videos of him performing?

  • watch memento,it's a very good movie.

  • i don't understand if he's never seen anyone before (or so he believes), then why does he recognise her?

  • his lost the ability to make new memories in 1985, what happened before that he can mostly remember

  • So in his mind she is 20 years younger

    and after 30 sec he is already forgotten her new face.

    What about other people from before 1985 however he could not remember his own house (from before 1985)

  • His long-term memory was not affected. For example, he can still conduct orchestra. However, he cannot create short-term memory.

  • No, he can create short-term memory, but not transfer it to his long-term memory. The reason he can still conduct, is because his cerebellum, responsible for the maintenance of procedural memory, was not damaged by the virus.

  • because his memory of his wife is stored deeply in his emotional center. That part of his brain was spared. He doesn't remember seeing people, but he does remember that he's deeply in love with Deborah. Poor guy.

  • aw..

    i feel bad for him D;

  • What about stem cells?

  • He certainly wouldn't get any of the memories from the last 20 years, but if they could somehow get his hippocampus back, he could atleast know what the hells been going on. Doubtful it will happen in his lifetime, though.

  • I saw this in my psych class today 0-0

  • I'm totally in your Psych class then. This paper we are supposed to write is really hard to research!!! :(

  • haha cool ^^

  • i respect the wife so much for standing by him for the entire time

  • i completely agree with you. i guess the upside for her is that she can keep telling the same jokes.

  • She can't, he will learn the jokes instinctually and although he wont remember hearing them before, he wont find them funny anymore

  • @dgadza Technically it wasn't the whole time, at first she divorced him, and then they remarried.

  • @dgadza u know why?

    so that when she have an affair with other men he won't remember it even if he finds out

  • @dgadza

    Thanks...

    from his daughter

  • Comment removed

  • he's not happy, he's said it's like death, he's never met anyone, never tasted or felt anything.

  • Yeah I read more bout him and I think its too abstract for me to understand what he feels like. I cant even imagine.

  • The all caps "I AM ALIVE" he wrote in his diary is existentially terrifying to me.

  • the human mind is incredible.

  • 2:08

  • Would he get frustrated if they didnt treat him like it's wrong for him not being able to remember? What if they didn't make it an issue? Are not considering the effect of their expectations of him? They are projecting their own fears and anxieties and he reacts to that with frustration. Otherwise he would have no problem. He would just live life in the moment. Unrestricted by the past and future.

  • It's so sad... I don't even know what to say. That's a lifelong nightmare. It must tear her apart every day, the only things he remembers are his music and his love for his wife...

    I can't watch any more.

  • Clive and his wife looking older but still having the exact same conversations: watch?v=7TC1szaAOnQ&feature=re­lated

  • No, clive has no memory apart from that conditioned memory in him long term memory storage bank, so he knows his wife, he knows how to play the piano and He will remember other very very important things from his past. He can only remember things from approx 30 secs ago then he will completely forget and think he has woken up after an endless sleep, it really is an awfull story and his wife deborah does so well to help him soo much. Sadly he will never recover, God Bless you Clive Wearing

  • strangly though he does not seem to forget what hes argueing about,and seems to stay with some kind of memory process as long as a sentence or conversation last, but as soon as its finished it goes, but allso he does not forget she is there after looking away then looking back at her. im not saying its fake, im just saying theres a heck of a lot more going on then just simple loss of memory

    its both fasinating and scary

  • life's unfair, isn't it?

  • Man that blows.

  • test

  • does he have any memory of his past before he fell ill?

  • if you are interested with clive wearing, you should take a neuropsychology class. PSB 4420

    They will explain to you antero/retrograde amnesia. as well you will learn about how behavior is related to neurostructures.

  • why thank you my little droog,i pride myself on my utter retardation

  • z i want some sexy subscribers! l

  • im a psychology student and we are lookin at clive wearings case at the moment,this is im sure to many of us quite shocking but i think that we shouldnt pity him because he looks happy enough, it is so nice what he feels for his wife, the way he talks 2 her everytime he sees her...human li is quite facinating....wow i sound like some old person im only 16! lol x x

  • my teacher said clive wearing probably committed suicide, you know anything about that?

  • no sory i dont know anything about that, ill ask my teacher tho x x

  • and no, he did not committ suicide, i just saw another video of him on youtube before this one. he is still very fond of his wife and still rather confused, poor thing

  • yeah i saw it too, my teachers memory's probably wearing off too.

    thx for the info ;)

  • you are a freak. "wow i sound like some old person and im only 16! lol x x" you do NOT sound like 'an old person' what do you define as 'an old person' anyway? someone who speaks intelligently, because do not worry my 16 year old, if this infact IS your defenition of 'an old person' you do not sound anything like one. "lol xx nora"

  • looks happy enough? sobbing at night? having fits? living a life of utter confusion and you take a few choice moments of perceived happiness?

    My god, and we let you study psychology?

  • jesust christ your a bigger moron

  • Jesus Christ, you are a moron.

  • Cripplewoox u r a retard

  • i think its absolutely beautiful how all he clings onto is that feeling he gets when he sees his wife. really shows that love does persevere in any situation. kudos to the wife aswell for being so strong over the years.

  • nice sentiment but bull shit sadly. had clive wearing been maybe some poor child who had been raped a few times prior, that person may have to live the moment of after shock again and again.

    I am afraid depending on circumstance it could have been far worse and it is already bad enough

  • mm Well. when he was arguing about his diary he seamed to recall for more than 30 sec. what he was arguing about. may be he is manipulating his wife a bit.

  • Come on, really now. Just because they call him the man with the 30 second memory doesn't mean that a memory of 31 or 33 or 50 seconds means he's being manipulative. His wife said sometimes he only remembered for like 7 seconds or a sentence. Also, maybe he doesn't have to remember the beginning of the argument to remember where his current thoughts were going, so he can still continue in the argument a bit.

  • Poor guy is plenty smart, why keep asking him questions he doesn't know the answer to just to frustrate him? Periodically tell him his memory is broken when he gets confused, and move on. Even if he won't remember - I'd much prefer the explanation if I were in his shoes.

  • Well, I'm sure his wife by now knows how to deal with him overall... basically, she's been able to live the "same moment" with him for so long, she'd know by now.

  • It's amazing every time he sees his wife. He recognises her, but says he has never seen her before (2:37).. so does he recognise her 'as his wife' or as a stranger? He clearly feels love for her though. He must have that feeling of falling in love - again and again.

  • That really illustrates the persistance of love. He recognizes Deborah, and knows he loves her, even though he can't recall ever having seen her before. She's such a strong woman for having stayed by his side through all that. She could have left at any time, and he wouldn't have known. I guess getting that "first hug" every time you come back from the bathroom would get old pretty quick though.

  • I think is imposible for him to be faking this for almost 20 yrs, and if this was the case then, for what reason or motive? He truly has anterograde amnesia.

  • "Queer. Strange. Odd. Bizarre. Got any pictures of your wife? You know...Video? Photos? Wink, Wink. Nod, Nod. Know what I mean?  What's it like?" (M.P)

  • He has anterograde amnesia. He is incapable of making new memories. Remembers his wife and how to play some of the music he used to play but that is it.

  • and a motive for this behavior?

  • You know we as a society try to dissuade the ignorant and learn something about the topic before speaker, but you sir made me laugh. lol. btw, go back to school.

  • He still has some memories imprinted in his unconcious. But most of his memories have been eaten away from a sort herpes virus he got. It is very possible.

  • There's not "no knowledge", that's just the way she put it. Putting it in perspective, a better way of saying it would be "no long-term memory" (since his disease anyway). Since he is, as his wife says, lucid in the moment, obviously he could get angry. I agree with SeymourGlss and Nboy514.

  • This is the Buddah Amitabah born. Pure to say the name in every moment again, each time completely new, to speak to "Ohmn, Manay Padame Hum". The pearl of wisdom lives, resides, in the lotus. Oh, Endless sunrise to say the name for the first time, everytime, Amitabah Buddah.

  • I'm happy for Clive that he is at least trapped in a moment where he deeply loves his wife.

  • its amazing to me that he knows how to talk still

  • Because it was his hippocampus that was destroyed, his skills and abilities all remain, e.g. playing the piano. If he was taught a new skill, like how to rie a bike, but continued to forget riding it, he would still get better and each day as the skill developes, even though he would never remember riding the bike before or even learning to ride it. Crazy i know

  • You can see how he starts to get fustrated , anyone would. Must be real shit having to wake up look in the mirror and seeing you have suddenely aged 20 years. Poor guy and well done to his wife for sticking by like that.

  • His wife actually left him for quite a while

  • Yea but she came didn't she? I mean yea ok she left for a while but still credit for her i think a lot of people would of left straight away

  • Actually, he looks in the mirror and sees nothing, as there is no prior memory to build any reaction off of.

  • He has some meoris from the time prior to the seizure. Though those memories are not complete.

  • Watch some of the other vids. His wife is the ONLY person he remembers. It seems the only things he remembers are learned behaviors, such as writing, walkin, and loving his wife. Not his daughter. His Hippocampi were destroyed by viral encephalitis.

  • How on earth did he lose both hippocampi? I've seen this video many times and I can't help but think of what a rare incidence this is. Wearing's case is probably one of fate's most cruel jokes.

  • You only have one hippocampus, and in Clive's case it was destroyed after he suffered a seizure that lasted 24 hours.

  • you researched that did you agnosticme? How about learning something before you spout bullshit?

    You have 2 hippocampi. Do not speak if you are guessing it makes you look like a fool

  • he hasn't lost his memory, he's just lost the ability to transfer infomation from Short-term memory to Long-term memory, thats why his memory is around 20 seconds long, memorys only stay in STM for 18 - 20 seconds

    /amaturpsychologylesson FTW

  • Its interesting how he still remembers and loves his wife, so I guess the episodic memory is not completely erased.

  • Actually, none of his long-term memory is erased. It is his ability to create new memories that has been effected. The hippocampus is believed to play a role in transferring memory from ST/working memory to LTM. We have two hippocampi, so, if one were to be destroyed, the other would take over. Sadly, both of his hippocampi were destroyed.

  • Actually, most of his long-term memory is erased too. He's kept some semantic memory, nearly no episodic memory. Or something like that.

  • I forgot what I was going to say.

    Seriously though, isn't this the condition that all the spiritual gurus pontificate about? Being totally in the present, or Now, and that there is really no past. SoundsTrue is charging forty bucks just to hear Eckhart Tolle talk about this very subject on netradio.

  • he suffers both from retro grade and antrograde amnesia thats sucks!

  • Yup, apparently he only has a memory span of about 30 seconds.

  • the poor guy. :(

  • poor wife as well

  • Yeah, that too!

  • He is a merry man in his own way.

  • how sad and amazing. This shows how we all have to enjoy the present moment (and stop arguing).

  • that is whacked!!!!

  • Poor guy! That's too bad. It reminds me of 50 First Dates.

  • With the difference that in the film she remembered at least the current day, and Wearing's memory holds only 20-30 seconds...

  • Yeah...

  • You jack ass. You are comparing this man's horrible retrograde and anterograde amnesia to a horrible Adam Sandler movie. Your comment reminds me of Giglia......is sucks.

  • Don't you patronize me with your big elaborate words! Why don't you just lighten up and get a life?

    If this is comparable to an Adam Sandler movie to me, and that's how I identify with it, that's my right!

    Leave me alone and go back to your mother's basement.

  • Don't you patronize me with your big elaborate words! Why don't you lighten up and get a life?

    If this is comparable to an Adam Sandler movie to me, and that's how I identify with it, that's my right!

    Do us all a favor and go back to your mother's basement.

  • You swine.......this man's retrograde/anterograde amnesia is nothing like a stupid sandler movie.

  • His wife is surprisingly articulate, I have to say.

  • because love is a huge distraction. i bet if he was on his own he would've come up with some great system to help himself but she walks in and he gets really soppy. guy coulda had it down by now.

  • i don't think she's that good for him, but it depends on what one sees as most valuable in life; if its pure emotional happiness, then this guy gets it like 60 times a day., but if if you think there is more to life then maybe he should not be with her. his diary is a great metaphor coveying his constant repitition. i don't think he'd be safe outside though.

  • you're an idiot.

  • Your mom was faking it...

  • Cruel?

    This man is enjoying true emotion like the rest of us would dream about.

  • haha is he? You sure? jeez...why do we let you people out

  • It can't be a bowl of cherries for either of them, but neither has a choice but to carry on until he dies. My sympathies to them. So sad.

  • Yes his wife is a bit of a nutter but you've got to remember (no pun int.) that most 'regular' women would have done a runner on him long ago. That's a good woman in my eyes. Poor bastard.

  • She ended up doing a runner on him in 1994, but eventually came back a few years later out of a sense of duty and a fair bit of guilt. She wrote a book about it somewhat recently.

  • This is amazing! My memory after encephalitis was badly damaged but in a different manner. Storing new information such as faces and names is now the most difficult thing. Memory is a remarkable mystery and I'd love to know how to improve mine! Oddly though, having the same info presented many times of course, gets the info to start sticking as you'd expect in a 28 year old.

    A, UK

  • 2lemon2 THANKYOU!

    someone who atlast sees that his wife is a complete oddball. She doesnt seem to stop doing it and what is more distresing is the fact she doesnt see the inhumanity of making him live like that!

    It is so wrong, and she just doen't make sense to me logically at all.

  • i know she's just trying to demonstrate his condition for the film, but it just seems cruel and distressing the way she winds him up. i really hope she doesn't do that often!

  • He'll forget what he's mad about and carry on soon.

  • this must have been from the eighties or nineties because there is one other documentary and he looks older than this.

  • Life's not worth living like that.

    He's like a human guinea pig for psychologist.

    The whole thing makes me think humans are less "human" and more like computers, since we need vital parts to do think and learn. Without just that small mechanical part we lose our quintessential humanity and become inanimate.