Meet Clive Wearing, A Man Who Has Amnesia That Resets Every Seven Seconds

When most of us think about amnesia and somebody living life over and over again, we might automatically think of the movie, 50 First Dates.

In that movie, Drew Barrymore’s memory resets every day and there is also another person in the film with a memory that resets every 10 seconds.

We probably have found that part of the movie rather amusing, but when it is applied in real life, it might not be quite so funny. After all, we have a real-life example of just such an individual in Clive Wearing.

Clive was a rather interesting individual. He was a world-renowned concert pianist as well as a musicologist. It was in 1985, however, that he developed herpes and it crossed the blood-brain barrier.

Due to that simple case of herpes, he ended up with dual amnesia. It involves anterograde amnesia along with retrograde amnesia. In other words, he is not able to remember anything from his past and he can’t make new memories.

The part of his brain that was affected by herpes is the hippocampus. That is the area of the brain that transfers short-term memories to long-term memories. Since he can’t use that part of the brain, he can’t remember anything about his childhood or the children that he had from a previous marriage.

His memory isn’t completely gone, however, and you can see that when it comes to his present wife. When he sees her, he runs over and gives her the biggest hug. In his mind, it is like he hasn’t seen her in ages.

When he is asked about his memory, he says that it is almost like he is waking up out of a coma. That being said, he is still able to play music and he still has love and affection for his wife.

He was able to discuss his condition in a film from 2005, “The Man with the 7 Second Memory.” You can see the documentary in the video below: