The question is, how?Lawrence Patihis at the University of Southern Mississippi recently studied around 20 people with HSAM and found that they scored particularly highly on two measures: fantasy proneness ( ' , 傾向) and absorption.

The people with HSAM I've interviewed would certainly agree that it can be a mixed blessing.

Some people with HSAM find it very hard to get rid of unpleasant memories.

People with HSAM often have to make efforts to avoid focusing on the past.

People with HSAM have the same memory as ordinary people when it comes to impersonal information.

Not everyone with a tendency to fantasise will develop HSAM, though, so Patihis suggests that something must have caused them to think so much about their past.

Not everyone with HSAM has experienced these benefits, however.

Many more people with HSAM started to contact researchers due to the mass media.

In some ways, you probably go through that process after a big event like your wedding day – but the difference is that thanks to their other psychological tendencies, the HSAM subjects are doing it day in, day out, for the whole of their lives.

Highly superior autobiographical memory' ( ' , or HSAM for short), first came to light in the early 2000s, with a young woman named Jill Price.

HSAM can be both a curse and a blessing.

Fantasy proneness will not necessarily cause people to develop HSAM.

A recent study of people with HSAM reveals that they are liable to fantasy and full absorption in an activity.

"highly superior autobiographical memory" or HSAM for short, first came to light in the early 2000s, with a young woman named jill Price.

Lawrence Patihis at the University of Southern mississippi recently studied around 20 people with HSAM and found that they scored particularly highly on two measures:fantasy proneness and absorption.