Roses are red. Violets are blue. I have amnesia,
- and who are you?! Get away from me! - Uh, let's talk about that?
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning! - Thank you for making us a part of your
daily routine.
What was this episode about again?
- OH, YEAH! Amnesia! (forced laughter) - (laughing)
I got you. I got you. And you, and you, and you.
- No, no, no, no. - I didn't get anybody.
I don't think you should have said "you" even once.
(laughing) Okay. Amnesia. We're gonna talk about some amazing amnesia stories.
When you think about amnesia, you typically think about this vanilla type
of amnesia, which is like you wake up one day, and you don't know who you are.
- Period. - But that's the simple kind of amnesia.
We're gonna be talking about a couple of different instances of amnesia that are
a little bit more extraordinary and interesting than that.
- Shall we boo pity boop? Did you? - We should.
- Well, go. - Boopity boop boop.
Our first extraordinary case of amnesia is gonna start with a little story.
Imagine: it's a normal day, and it's September of 2006.
- Jeff Ingram… - I remember where I was doing.
- Uh… - (Rhett and crew offscreen laughing)
- "I remember where I was doing." What? - Montana. I don't know. Sorry.
Well, forget about it, because it doesn't matter.
- Forget I said anything. - Let's focus on Jeff Ingram.
He woke up, said goodbye to his fiancé, Penny, in Washington State, and then
he's driving up to Alberta, Canada, for a funeral.
- Oh. - A month later, Penny has neither
- heard nor seen Jeff. - Long funeral.
- It's been a month. Until she sees him on - Oh, okay.
- the national news, calling himself Al. - (laughing)
It's not like one of those elaborate marriage proposal things.
- "I disappeared for a month, and then I" - No, they were already engaged...
- Oh! All right. - so he blew that opportunity.
And plus, he had no clue who he was, and just decided to call himself Al
so that people could at least talk to him.
(female announcer) And we're joined now by the man being called Al. Good morning
- to you both. - Good morning.
Al, you're wearing that same baseball hat that you were wearing when you
came to on the streets. First of all, why are we calling you Al?
- Where did that name come from? - Uh, it came from "Alpha 74," is what
- they were calling me at the hospital. - (woman again) Alpha 74, and you thought
- Al might be a little better. - Yeah, just a little bit more human.
He woke up -- it turns out, a few days after beginning his trip up to Alberta --
in Denver, not knowing anything about himself or his past. We was stuck with
amnesia. But Jeff, as it turns out, had a rare case of amnesia called dissociative
- fugue. Which is like... - Sounds funny.
- You've heard of a fugue state. - (slurred) Dissociative fugue.
Dissociative fugue is basically when you hit the reset button on your life
and your memory. And you forget everything. It's amnesia, but it can
- happen again and again and again. - Oh.
- It recurs. It's like every few days, I - That's rough.
go over to your house to your router, and I find that little reset button
where I've gotta straighten out a paper clip...
- You do this at my house? - And I (clicks tongue) I just do it.
And you don't know when I'm gonna come over straighten out that paper clip
- and (clicks tongue) - But that usually solves all the router's
problems. I've always got that paper clip ready to go. I've got one taped on the
- back of the router. - But you have to reset the password, and
you no longer have any of your search history.
I don't… Mines free for all the neighbors. I do it for the neighbors.
- Do you get my point, though? - Yeah, yeah. But a router is not a
- person, but I do get your point. - This was not his first time being
struck with amnesia. It was his second time, which, again, makes it
- dissociative fugue. Back in 1994, - His second fugue.
he went into a grocery store in Alberta, went missing for 9 months, and then
wakes up in a Seattle hospital, not knowing anything about himself.
- All of his Jeff-dom was gone, - (exhales)
- and he had to remember. - "I've lost my Jeff-dom!"
He wouldn't even know to say that, because he doesn't know he's Jeff.
Right. I goes family members kind of filled him in and he started over.
And then he meets Penny in 2003, and, of course, he had to make a decision
to explain to her as they're falling in love that, "Hey. I had this amnesia thing…
- "I've got this thing that could… - …in my past."
- …totally, really shake everything up." - I don't know if he knew he was a ticking
time bomb of dissociative fugue-ness, that he might lose his Jeff-dom again...
- Right. - …but, lo and behold, that's what
happened. Penny reunites with him, based on being on the national news.
And then the question is, they were engaged. Jeff knows nothing, for the
second time in his life. What is he gonna do? Is he gonna get married?
No, man. They have to fall in love all over again.
But, you know what? That's a beautiful thing.
- It is a beautiful thing. - You know what? I'm not saying
I would want this, but that is one of the benefits. Sometimes my wife and
I go on a date, and we're like, "Let's act like it's our first date again."
- That's cute. - And I'm like, "We're not at the Outback."
- But there's not the risk, I mean… - You know?
There was a risk here because he hated green peppers and turnips before,
but then in his second Jeff-dom, he loved them.
- Which proves that it's all in your mind! - Okay.
It's all in your mind, Jeff. And everyone else.
And he loved Penny, so then now in this reboot, what's gonna happen with Penny?
But just to skip ahead here, just a few weeks later, he does re-propose.
It doesn't take long to re-fall in love, once you've done it one, with the
- same woman. - He said that his heart had a sense of
- he was already in love. - "This feels right. She seems like a
- stranger, but…" - He asked Penny's mother to...
"She's telling me all these things that seem…"
- Cool. (laughing) About me. - …cool!" Yeah. (laughing)
- "She likes green peppers... - "She loves me."
- …and now I do." - (stammering)
Jeff asked her mom's permission, and then her mom was like, "I already told
- you yes." - Oh. That was rude.
(Link) They got married on New Year's Eve in 2006.
- "He's in a dissociative fugue, Mom!" - They made the wedding New Year's
Eve so they could remember the date.
Now, it happened again in 2007. I can't find out many things about that, but...
You can only imagine how it went, you know.
I mean, the same few weeks. You're married. Yeah, let's work it out.
Once you get married, you can reset as much as you want.
- Yeah. - It's just the same old tune?
- Well, that's a great segue into my - That's sad.
story, Link. Because I'm gonna tell you about Michelle Philpots.
(Link) Tell me about her. Is it F - double E - L - POTS?
- Like she touches pots? - It's like Phil-pots. It's like a
- man named Phil who pots. - Okay, yeah, he does.
- He pots things. - Right, right.
She was in a motorcycle accident in 1985, and then a car accident in 1990,
and she suffered significant brain injuries, and they...
- Both times? - Well, basically is was a culmination
of these injuries and the brain damage that she experienced. And then she
went through a crazy stage where she had epilepsy , and then she had to get
surgery to get the seizures to stop. But everything added up to
in 1994, she developed something called anterograde amnesia,
- Okay. - which means that she is incapable
of forming new memories.
She cannot form new memories. So in her mind...
-So she didn't lose the past. She couldn't build a future.
She has everything up until 1994, but nothing moving forward.
So every morning when she wakes up, in her world, it is 1994. To put that into
perspective, Forrest Gump is still in theaters. The Lion King is still in
- theaters. - O-yoi-yoi-yoi-aaaaaaay!
- That's what I think of. - Yes, thank you for that.
When she goes to the Internet, she opens up Netscape, which doesn't exist
- on the computer that she's [using]. - She's very confused.
That's what 1994 was like. It's all about The Lion King and Netscape.
- So what's her day-to-day like? - Okay, well, every day, she wakes up,
the mental slate is wiped clean. She has functional day-to-day life skills
memory, like she knows how to brush her teeth. She hasn't forgotten
- that kind of thing. -Okay. Motor skills. Motor memories.
- She's got that. - But she can't form new social memories.
This makes it kinda weird. So she wakes up. She has developed a system of
Post-It notes where she rebuilds her memories every single day.
This is an ironic thing. This article was written about her, and they took a
picture of her -- you can see it here -- of her next to her Post-It notes.
And she's posting like, "Oh, this really sucks," you know. And you gotta think:
The day that she had this article written about her, this was all new to her.
The fact that she had this disorder. The fact that she's got the Post-It notes,
and like oh, and today you're getting an article written about you, and now pose
for the photo. I just think about what was going through her mind.
- And hat about relationally? - Well, she's not in this alone.
So she wakes up every single day next to her husband. But she thinks of him as
her boyfriend, because before 1994, they were just...
- Dating. - …boyfriend and girlfriend, and then they
got married in 1997. Don't ask me how the marriage happened in the midst
of this state. It happened, okay? But what he does is every single morning, he
wakes up and he's like, "I'm not your boyfriend. I'm your husband. Here's
our wedding pictures. He has the wedding album next to the bed, opens it up.
So he has to explain this haircut every single say of his life.
- (Link laughing) - They spend at least 10 to 15 minues
- on that alone, I'm sure. - Oh, man.
He also explains that he's a fencer, and I don't know if that means he's a
fencer with the swords, or a fencer like he puts fences up.
- Or he just says mean things to people. - Is that a fencer?
- Yeah. Yeah. - Oh, he's offenser.
- Yeah, got it. - (Rhett and crew offscreen laughing)
- So you might be thinking… - He could tell her anything.
He could re-invent everything if he's a cruel jerk. If he's an offenser.
He can't change that haircut, though, because it's in the wedding album.
- It's offensive. - Now, you might be thinking this is
like the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray relives the same exact day
- over and over again. - It's the inverse of that.
But it's not like that. It's actually more like 50 First Dates, which, incidentally,
in that movie, Drew Barrymore woke up and had to rebuild her memories
every single day, and that movie is based on Michelle!
And I aspire to be a cooler person, so I say this is like Memento, where
instead of Post-It Notes, he tattooed his whole arm with everything he
needed to know every morning when he got up.
Right. She doesn't have any tattoos as far as you can tell, but...
- Post-It notes! - …the really crazy thing is that --
This sounds very torturous to me. I mean, even for the husband, too.
Every single morning, it's like, "I've gotta explain the mullet again."
- Right. - But she says that she has a happy life.
Of course, she says that every day, and it's like a new thing.
- (laughing) -It's like, "Yeah, I got a happy life.
- Quit asking me that." But… - She wouldn't say, "Quit asking me."
- "Thanks for asking me that." - "That's a good question!
- Now that I think about it." - But anyway, the day that she
decided to wake up and experience every single day is a good day to her.
She's a happy person, so congratulations, Michelle.
- Hm. - Sure you won't remember that, but...
Uh, congratulations. I mean...
There's a harsh reality to this thing. We're kinda making light of it, but
- yeah, it's extremely fascinating. -You gotta see the bright side.
- And I'm glad that she is happy. - Yes.
She's found happiness. Now, there's another amazing story about this dude
named David Stuart Maclean, that we just wanna briefly touch on.
He got amnesia by taking malaria medication. He wakes up in India,
knows not who he is, and has to rebuild his entire life. And he wrote an entire
- book about it. (laughing) - "An entire book!"
And that book is called "The Answer to the Riddle Is Me" and it is available over
at audible.com, and we got a special deal for you Mythical Beasts.
You go over there and you use our link, which is audible.com/GMM. You get a
free 30-day trial, and you can pick that book or one of over 180,000 titles
to choose from. The link is in the description.
Thanks for liking and commenting on this video.
You know what time it is.
My name's [Margrét], and I'm from Iceland, and it's time to spin
- The Wheel of Mythicality! - Thanks to Audible for sposoring
this episode. Remember, you can go to audible.com/GMM.
And please do! Click through to Good Mythical More. We've got another
amazing amnesia story. A guy named Clive who lost all of his memories
- and also cannot create new ones. - Oh, gosh.
(Rhett) "Link thinks Rhett's hand is an adorable guinea pig."
- (higher voice) Oh goodness, Rhett. - (crew laughing offscreen)
- It's so adorable! Can I touch it? - My hand? Yeah.
- Well, that's… sure. - Oh my goodness!
(Link snorting) Mm, he's breathing on me!
- Nee nee nee nee! I just eskimo kissed… - My hand.
- What? - That's my hand.
- Ugh. You should probably shave it. - You can't feel the clamminess?
[Captioned by Kevin: GMM Captioning Team]