amnesia

[destiny]

y is it that when a person has amnesia they forget everyting but remember how to talk. y is that

[Litchick]

Excellent question.  Unfortunately, I've no idea...where's Clanad???

[SASHAGREEN]

andy will know the answer! find him.

[Richard Head]

I did know the answer but I've forgotten it.

[jno]

none of us really 'remembers' how to talk, or walk, or breathe; they're skills that we acquire so early on in life that they simply come naturally to us. This is different from the use of memory to recall what day it is, when the Battle of Hastings took place, what we we were supposed to get at the supermarket. Those are things that we all use our memory to call up, and it's that sort of memory bank that amnesia wipes, I believe.

[LitChick]

Good answer JNO!

[WaldoMcFroog]

Have a look here:

http://www.neuroskills.com/index.shtml?main=/tbi/brain.html

It explains how different areas of the brain have responsibility for different things. It is therefore possible for one (or more) area of the brain to be damaged yet the others entirely unaffected.

[OBonio]

I was just reading last night about hypnagogic dreams and how Tetris seems to crop up in them if you've played it for a few hours that day. They done an experiment on 5 amnesiacs and 3 out of the 5 had Tetris hypnagogic dreams after playing it that day. Despite not remembering playing it at all, they still had the dreams. Instinct isn't wiped out by amnesia.