The “truth”

In fiction, amnesiacs, upon regaining consciousness, generally begin by asking two questions: “Where am I? – and then, a second later, as the full horror of their situation strikes them “Who am I?” But according to the experts in the field, “Amnesiacs never forget who they are”. Most amnesiacs suffer anterograde amnesia (difficulty with remembering new information), not retrograde amnesia (which concerns memories of the past). What we see in films isn’t amnesia as such, but the extremely rare “fugue state”, in which the patient loses all past memories and knowledge of his identity. If this truly exists it’s thought to have psychological, not neurological, causes – stress, for instance, rather than a head injury. But psychologists are divided over whether such cases are ever genuine. Memories concerning our identity are amongst our oldest and most-often recalled. As such, they are “overwritten” or hard-wired. It’s hard to imagine medical circumstances in which a person might become so damaged as to lose those memories, and yet still be able to function normally. Even someone stricken with a dementia like Alzheimer’s is likely to lose their name only after they’ve already lost everything else. Amnesia, specialists stress, is to do with memory, not identity. Interestingly, when people fake amnesia they tend to overdo the symptoms, so asking “Do you know your name?” is one way psychiatrists use to diagnose malingering.