| Related, but not the same:
When I was still a student pilot, I was with my instructor waiting
for another student pilot to finish using the airplane before using
it ourselves for some cross-country (long-distance) work. The student
was going up for his first solo flight, something I had experienced
some weeks previously. The student took off, made a good circuit
of the airport in the "traffic pattern"; then he landed -- almost
successfully. He came down too fast, bounced, and the airplane
went over on its back in a half-somersault after the nosewheel gave
way [Bluejay: he porpoised an AA1B].
The odd thing was that one second he was in the airplane, the next
he was about 20 feet away and running. None of us who witnessed
the event saw him get out and start to run.
Could we have missed something in the excitement? Possibly, but
several of us saw the event.
Maybe nthere are occasional hitches in time.
Steve Kallis, Jr.
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| I also had a brief segment of time lost from my memory. Several
years ago I was waiting for a bus with a friend. The bus stop was
in front of an ice cream parlour and we were eating ice cream during
our wait. Suddenly, I was on the other side of the ice cream parlour
Neither of us had any ice cream, and my friend seemed to be in the
middle of a conversation with me. I was rather confused, responded
with "huh?", and started to question him about the preceeding events.
I don't believe anything extrordinary (such as a tree falling on
me or crash landing an airplane) happened. It appears that I had
lost about 10 minutes of memory. My friend told me that I had been
giving sensible replies to the conversation that we had been having.
I still have no answers as to why this occurred. I have heard of
similar occurances from others too.
/Kathleen
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| I have heard that things in immediate consciousness ("short-term
memory") do not get recorded in long-term memory unless the topic
is dwelt upon for at least five seconds and/or you may a conscious
effort to memorize it. If things get interupted, they don't get
recorded. The falling tree would be a dandy interuption. Also,
if you are just sort of drifting along, not concentrating on anything,
no particular topic may stay in short-term long enough to be recorded
in long-term. That MIGHT explain the memory-gap by the ice cream
parlor.
Earl Wajenberg
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| From what I know about the short- to long-term memory transistion, most
stuff of "interest" (i.e. associated with a storng emotion) gets moved
to long term memory. Short-term memory is about 20 minutes and is a FIFO
stack. So, if you wake up from a dream, it is only in short-term memory
and will simply fade away unless you reinforce it (by writing it down, for
example). The same is true for head injuries. If short-term gets wiped out
(you go unconcious or something), you will seem to "lose" about 20 minutes.
As to why eating some ice cream would drop about 10 minutes out of short
term memory, I have no idea! But that is what seems to have happened. I
also had some non-continuous stuff when I was hit by a car on my bicycle.
I was riding home from high school and came to a section of road where they
were building a new house up on a hill and the dirt had washed out into the
raod. I remember saying to myself, "You should swerve out gradually or you
might get hit". Well, I didn't swerve out gradually and suddenly I felt a
very strong push from behind. Then I was on my back thinking how blue the
sky was! Then I was sliding off the hood onto the road! Seems a lady in a
car had hit me and had the good sense to slow up gradually so I didn't
fly off her hood. Well, I couldn't really move my legs for a little bit
but was unharmed. The bike (which had gone under the car) was totaled
and the lady kept saying how all she could see was HER son who liked to
bicycle around! The three incidents (swerving, looking at the sky, and
sliding) all seemed to happen one right after another, yet time must
have passed. Guess it got wiped out of short-term memory.
"Dropped 3 flights and cracked my spine.
Honey come quick with the iodine."
Tennesse Jed by The Grateful Dead
DDA
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