amnesia
Total recall failure
Amnesia is memory loss, typically caused by brain injury, illness, or psychological trauma.
The loss may be partial or complete, temporary or permanent.
Someone with amnesia might forget their past (retrograde amnesia) or be unable to form new memories (anterograde amnesia).
The word often appears in fiction, where convenient amnesia erases inconvenient knowledge: She claimed amnesia about her role in the scandal.
Moving in normal direction
- retrogradeMoving in reverse direction
- hippocampusMemory formation region
- dementiaChronic cognitive impairment
- Alzheimer'sDegenerative brain disease
neurology · encephalopathy · concussion · blackout · confabulation · disorientation · neurological · diagnosis
Jointly organized group
- culturalRelating to shared traditions
- historicalOf documented times
- willfulIntentionally unyielding
- convenientEasy to use
societal · institutional · moral · selective · forgetting · erasure · denial · whitewashing
Mental separation from surroundings
- repressionUnconscious blocking of thoughts
- fugueContrapuntal musical form
- traumaLasting psychological wound
- psychogenicCaused by the mind
dissociative · suppression · subconscious · denial · blocking · hysterical · conversion · PTSD
One's own being
- autobiographicalConcerning one's own life
- recognitionPerceiving something as known
- personhoodStatus as a person
- pastTime already gone
name · stranger · mirror · photographs · unfamiliar · disorientation · reconstruction · reinvention
Memory retrieval act
- recollectionRecalled mental image
- retrievalAct of getting back
- rememberingRetaining past information
- triggerWhat initiates action
rehabilitation · neuroplasticity · therapy · relearning · fragments · glimpses · flashes · returning
anterograde
Moving in normal direction
- retrogradeMoving in reverse direction
- hippocampusMemory formation region
- dementiaChronic cognitive impairment
Alzheimer's · neurology · encephalopathy · concussion · blackout · confabulation · disorientation · neurological · diagnosis · transient
collective
Jointly organized group
- culturalRelating to shared traditions
- historicalOf documented times
- willfulIntentionally unyielding
convenient · societal · institutional · moral · selective · forgetting · erasure · denial · whitewashing · ignorance
dissociation
Mental separation from surroundings
- repressionUnconscious blocking of thoughts
- fugueContrapuntal musical form
- traumaLasting psychological wound
psychogenic · dissociative · suppression · subconscious · denial · blocking · hysterical · conversion · PTSD · triggered
self
One's own being
- autobiographicalConcerning one's own life
- recognitionPerceiving something as known
- personhoodStatus as a person
past · name · stranger · mirror · photographs · unfamiliar · disorientation · reconstruction · reinvention · discovery
recall
Memory retrieval act
- recollectionRecalled mental image
- retrievalAct of getting back
- rememberingRetaining past information
trigger · rehabilitation · neuroplasticity · therapy · relearning · fragments · glimpses · flashes · returning · restoration
thriller
Suspense-driven narrative genre
- mysterySomething unexplained or unknown
- whodunitCrime fiction identifying perpetrator
- suspenseAnxious uncertainty about outcomes
twist · identity · protagonist · Memento · backstory · revelation · flashback · clue · secret · trope
- impairmentsimpairment, disability, paralysis, incapacity, blindness
- blackoutspower outage, power failure, power cut, outage, total blackout
- A- wordsamoral, apathy, atheist, atypical, asymmetric
- cognitive disordersdementia, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive impairment, vascular dementia
- cognitive symptomsconfusion, disorientation, brain fog, poor concentration, cognitive decline
- Flashback Tropesflashback, flashbacks, backstory, montage, recap
amnesiamemory
Mind's retention capacity
total recall · remembrance · recall · retention · recollection
- selective amnesiaUnconsciously blocking specific memories
- anterograde amnesiaInability to create memories
- retrograde amnesiaInability to recall past events
- cultural amnesiaSociety forgetting its past
- traumatic amnesiaMemory gap from trauma
- childhood amnesiaInability to recall early life
anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, amnesties, amnesiac, amnestied, amnesic, amnesiacs, amnesias, amnesics