Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Part 1a

Introduces the viewer to Clive Wearing, who is incapable of making new memories due to viral encephalitis.

[music]

[Woman] Do you know how we got here?

[Clive] No.

[Woman] You don't remember sitting down?

[Clive] No.

[Woman] We have been here about 10 minutes at least.

[Clive] I have no knowledge of it. My eyes have just started working now, . . .

conversation going on [not understandable]

[Woman] And do you feel absolutely normal?

[Clive] Not absolutely normal, no. I am completely confused.

[Woman] Confused?

[Clive] Yes. I have never eaten anything, never tasted anything, never touched anything or smelled anything.

[woman] But you are.

[Clive] Apparently. But I would like to know what the hell has been going on.

[choir singing]

>>Clive was an outstanding musician. He would take his work very very seriously.

At the same time he loved music so much that he just really threw himself into it.

>>Clive was a musician of enormous integrity.

>>He was the world's expert on Lassus, one of the great composers of the Renaissance.

>>And he also wrote a great deal of contemporary music and was

chorus master for [inaudible] which is Europe's foremost group.

>>Music flowed out of him whether he was singing or playing or conducting.

[choir music in background]

>>Clive Wearing through a cruel twist of fortune,

shows us how fundamental consciousness and memory are to our lives.

[sound of door opening]

[Clive sings opera note and laughs]

Well, well, well, well. [laughter] Isn't that a surprise?

[unintelligible conversation]

[Woman] Have you not seen me before?

[Clive] No. This is the first time.

[unintelligible]

There is nobody else in the world I care about.

[Woman] So how are you feeling?

[Clive] I am conscious for the first time. It's the first time I've seen anybody at all.

[Woman] You have not been conscious before?

[Clive] No.

[Woman] I came here before this.

[Clive] I have not seen you before.

[Woman] You haven't?

[Clive] I have not seen anything at all before. Been completely blind the whole time.

Hmmmm.

[Clive] Never tasted before. This is the first taste I have had.

[Woman] The first coffee you have had?

[Clive] Yes. Cheers

[Woman] Cheers.

And how are you seeing things?

[Clive] (Inaudible) the first time.

So color?

[Clive] I have never seen anything the whole time I have been ill. No black and white, nothing.

[Woman] Do you remember me arriving?

[Clive] No.

I don't remember any of it. I don't remember writing any of that consciously. Unconscious writing.

[Woman] What were you doing here?

[Clive unintelligible]
[Woman] Do you remember starting again?

[Clive] No.

[Woman] It all started with a headache. Clive came home one day and he had a very bad headache.

The headache did not lift, it did not respond to analgesics.

By the fourth day he developed quite a high fever and on the evening of the fourth day

for a little while he forgot his daughter's name.

By the fifth day, he was very delirious.

[Dr. Alan Parkin] Clive suffered from viral encephalitis which has led to the damage

of the left and the right temporal lobes plus a good portion of the left frontal lobe.

The temporal lobes contain a structure called the hippocampus which we know is

implicated in memory function and in Clive it has almost

certainly been completely destroyed in both sides of his brain.

It is this that is primarily responsible for his severe memory impairment.

In addition, the damage to his frontal lobes also causes a number of additional memory problems

which manifest mostly in terms of him repeating himself a lot and generally showing highly emotional behavior.

[Clive's wife, Deborah] Clive's world now consists of a moment

with no past to anchor it and no future to look ahead to.

It is a blinkered moment. He sees what is right in front of him.

But as soon as that information hits the brain it fades.

Nothing makes an impression. Nothing registers.

Everything goes in perfectly well because he has all his faculties.

His intellect is virtually intact and he perceives his world as you or I do.

But as soon as he perceived it and looked away, it is gone for him.

So, it is a moment to moment consciousness as it were. A time vacuum.

And everything before that moment is completely void.

And he feels as if he is awakening afresh the whole time.

[unintelligible conversation with some singing]

He always thinks he's been awake for about two minutes

and that is why he looks at his watch all the time. To record it.

To record the fact, "Ah, I've woken up." This is an important event therefore I will write it down in my diary.

So, he writes: "11:54 a.m. I am now completely awake for the first time."

And he underlines "first time." Patience begins. Because he is always playing patience.

And the whole diary, every page is a succession of entries saying almost the same thing of "first awakeness."

And when he goes back and looks at his own entries he does not acknowledge that they are genuine.

He says he knows it is his handwriting, but as far as he is concerned

he was unconscious when he wrote them. Quite often he will score out what he has written before

and so his life is an ever repeating moment of first awakening.

The strongest thing in his life I believe, and his diaries bear that out,

is his love for me. And that is absolutely raw.

And each time I walk into that room, it is as if it's the first time he has seen me for years.

[Clive excitedly greets her]

[Deborah] Hello, are you surprised to see me?

[Clive] It's the first time I've seen anybody at all.

[Deborah] Have you not seen me before? I have been here. So how are you feeling this morning?

[Clive] I am conscious for the first time. It is the first time I've seen anybody at all.

[Deborah] You haven't been conscious before?
[Clive] No.

[Deborah] I have been here before.
[Clive] I have not seen you before.

[Deborah] You haven't?

[Clive] No, I have not seen anything at all before.
I have been completely blind the whole time.

[Deborah] You don't remember me arriving at all?
[Clive] No, I don't remember you arriving at all.

[Deborah] But you know who I am. . .

Would you kiss all over me like that? [Deborah laughs]

[Clive] You know I love you. [laughing]

[Deborah] I do know. You've written all over your diary.

I bet you if I look to see what you have written, you did not mention me on that page.

You've mentioned me on this page. "My first thought - I adore Deborah for eternity."

[Clive] That's right.

[Deborah] "People's entries in the diary are rubbish." What does that mean?

[Clive] I've no idea.

[Deborah] Did you write that?

[Clive] I have no consciousness of anything there. This is the first time.

[Deborah] Is it your handwriting?

[Clive] Yes, but I know nothing about it.

[Deborah] So how do you think it got there?

[Clive] I don't know.

[Deborah] You must have.

[Clive] I haven't! [angry talking] Listen to me for heaven's sake! When I say no, I mean exactly that!

I haven't seen the book at all til now!

That is what it means. It means I haven't seen it, I have no knowledge of it at all!

That's all. There is no knowledge of that book. It is entirely new to me!

[Deborah] But, you've put that . . . who would put that?

[Clive] Just use your intelligence!

[Deborah] But, who would put...

[Clive] I don't know. Oh, for heaven's sake, just use your intelligence!

[Deborah] Clive gets extraordinarily angry, and who wouldn't?

Here you are not dealing with somebody who is demented, who is oblivious, who is gaga,

you are dealing with a perfectly lucid, highly intelligent man who has been robbed

of knowledge of his own life and he feels deeply humiliated to be put in that position

and very very frustrated that he can't grasp what is wrong with him because

even as you're telling him he is forgetting the previous sentence.