Amnesia

Every few seconds, Clive Wearing wakes up for the first time. He opens his eyes. He looks around. And he experiences what he believes is his first moment of consciousness after years of being unconscious. He writes in his journal: “8:31 AM: Now I am really, completely awake.” A few minutes later, he crosses it out and writes: “9:06 AM: Now I am perfectly, overwhelmingly awake.” Then he crosses that out too and writes: “9:34 AM: NOW I am awake.” ...

On August 28, 1887, a man was found wandering the streets of Norristown, Pennsylvania, disoriented and unable to say who he was. He knew his name was “A.J. Brown.” He knew he was a stationer. But he had no memory of where he came from, why he was there, or how he’d arrived. Eventually, his identity was discovered: he was Ansel Bourne, a 61-year-old preacher from Rhode Island. Two months earlier, Ansel had left his home to run errands. He withdrew $551 from the bank, boarded a train, and vanished. ...

On September 1, 1953, a 27-year-old man named Henry Molaison underwent experimental brain surgery to treat his severe epilepsy. The surgery worked. The seizures stopped. But when Henry woke up, he had lost the ability to form new memories. For the next 55 years, until his death in 2008, Henry lived in a perpetual present. Every person he met was a stranger minutes later. Every conversation was new. Every day was the first day of the rest of his life—literally. ...