Teenager can ‘time travel’ thanks to extraordinary memory

A young girl can “time travel” through her life by replaying her memories like an HD movie and even previewing the future.

The 17-year-old, known as TL, has a rare condition called hyperthymesia, which means he can remember personal experiences in extraordinary detail.

He can also imagine future events so vividly that they seem like memories.

TL’s brain not only stores memories, it also organizes them.

He describes a vast “white room” in his mind, where personal memories are stored in neatly organized folders sorted by themes such as family, holidays, and friends.

Even his soft toys have their own entries, complete with details about when he got them and from whom.

Meanwhile, less important information is stored separately as “black memory”.

He can mentally scan through these folders to relive the events from his own perspective, even as a stranger watching him.

The case was studied by scientists led by Valentina La Corte from the University of Paris Cité.

Writing in Neurocase, they said: “This is the first observation of hyperthymesia with a full assessment of mental time travel capacities across different temporal distances, involving the capacity to retrieve personal events from the personal past and to anticipate personal events in the future.”

Researchers found that TL can recall childhood and teenage memories with remarkable accuracy, well above average.

He could also imagine future scenarios with a strong sense of “pre-experience”, meaning they were almost real.

TL first noticed his unusual talent when he was eight years old, but kept quiet after being accused of making things up.

There are even “rooms” in your mind dedicated to managing emotions; including a cold “ice pack” area to calm down and a “problems room” to think things through.

Experts say fewer than 100 people worldwide are known to have hyperthymesia.