"Chrono Shift?"

May 12, 2006 12:16 PM

Is this "chrono shift" - your memories shuffle chronological order? Does this happen to other people, is there a medical term? (Drinking involved)

After a bar crawl, next day I thought I went to a certain bar before the restaurant, but it was actually after. I remember being at bar and restaurant clearly, but I remember being at the bar before the restaurant, while actually it was the other way around. Also, as a tag on, since it feels like the two might be oddly related - when your limbs feel as though they want to move on their own and if you let them your hand might just raise up or your torso gets turned 90 degrees or so. But it's not unpleasant, curious. Any input would be awesome!

posted by andrewyakovlev to health & fitness (6 comments total)

I don't know if there is a medical term for it per se, but what you describe is one of the main criticisms of witness testimony. Memories are notoriously bad at remembering such details, or I should say we are notoriously bad at identifying that are memories are bad at remembering such details.
posted by geoff. at 12:22 PM on May 12, 2006

are = our
posted by geoff. at 12:22 PM on May 12, 2006

Alcohol interferes with consolidation of memories. Sounds like that's what you experienced.

The other sounds like a tic - a suppressible compulsion to produce a voluntary movement, which is then pleasurably relieved once the movement is done.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:22 PM on May 12, 2006

Human memory is associative, not chronological. The mental image of our memory as being like a videotape is simply wrong.

Moreover, human memory is constantly subject to revision. All of us have memories of things which never happened, or which happened much differently than we remember.

Adding intoxicants doesn't help any.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:23 PM on May 12, 2006

I remember this happening fairly frequently in college (either fatigue or alcohol worsens the effect considerably.)

I could usually shuffle my memories back into the correct order during the inevitable next-day breakfast-time telling of stories/versions/mockery.
posted by desuetude at 12:42 PM on May 12, 2006

The medical term is brain damage.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:11 PM on May 12, 2006