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This is what my grandfather was like for several days after he had a stroke.

No short term memory, but he was very lucid and sharp. When the nurses asked their standard questions ("do you know where you are", "do you know why you are here") he would use logic to guess the correct answer. The fact that I was in the room (and I live 8 hours drive away) lead him down a logic chain that whatever happened must be very serious and he must have been transferred the larger hospitable that was a few hours closer to where I live.

He would reliably repeat the same conversations based on whoever was in the room with him, and use the same jokes.




This is basically everyone I know when they're drunk. Being an experienced alcoholic is comforting in this sense: If you get hit in the head or you're coming off general anasthesia, if your memory cuts out and you're operating entirely in the present, with no ability to record anything, it won't feel particularly startling and you'll probably just pull out some of the greatest hits. Several vodkas will show you that our ability to analyze our own behavior is remarkably fragile.

People I know who have PTSD and other forms of dissociation do this regularly without any drugs at all. Consciousness is all a gradient.


> and use the same jokes.

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off, who was left?


Of course I can't speak for phire, but maybe this is not the right time.


Maybe it isn't the right time, but it IS the right joke. ;)




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