Those movies where someone gets hit on the head and can't remember who they are anymore? They're actually not too far off from the reality of amnesia. Learn everything about this bizarre and life-robbing condition with Josh and Chuck.
AI Summary
In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck dive into the fascinating and often heartbreaking world of amnesia, using the extreme case of musician Clive Wearing as their starting point. Wearing has such severe memory loss that he essentially "wakes up" every few seconds with no recollection of what just happened, making simple activities like eating an apple seem like magic tricks. The hosts explore how memory actually works in the brain, the different types of amnesia from neurological damage versus psychological trauma, and bust some Hollywood myths along the way.
Children of Men
2006
1h 49m
★ 7.6
"the colony died as a nation would die if no new children were born, like the movie Children of Men — Used as an analogy in listener mail to describe how termite colonies die when young termites cannot grow."
Groundhog Day
1993
1h 41m
★ 7.6
"And if you reverse your perspective a little bit, Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray has a tremendously excellent memory — Used as a reverse example of memory issues where everyone else has amnesia each day."
— Josh
"David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cold classic show Hey Dude — Mentioned in a podcast advertisement about a 90s nostalgia show."
Memento
2000
1h 53m
★ 8.2
"he has a journaling system because you kind of have to like in the movie Memento — Josh compared Clive Wearing's memory journaling system to the system used by the main character in Memento."
— Josh
"Mary Lou Henner from Taxi — Josh mentioned Mary Lou Henner's character from Taxi as an example of someone with exceptional memory."
— Josh
"That was always one of the early Simpsons had that, I think — Josh referenced an early Simpsons episode that showed Homer's thought bubble as just a donut."
— Josh
Vanilla Sky
2001
2h 16m
★ 6.8
"Vanilla Sky. Yeah. I did not care for — Mentioned as another amnesia-themed movie that Chuck didn't enjoy."
— Chuck
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