FMP Context

What is Amnesia?

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9673.php

Definition: According to the above website, ‘Amnesia is an inability to lay down new memories, recall old memories, or both.’ ‘People with amnesia also find it hard to remember the past, memorize new information, and imagine the future.’

Causes: the causes leading to amnesia vary. However, I think that our character will experience ‘Traumatic amnesia: Memory loss results from a hard blow to the head, for instance, in a car accident. The person may experience a brief loss of consciousness or a coma. The amnesia is usually temporary, but how long it lasts normally depends on how severe the injury is.’ I also think that she could have slight ‘Source amnesia’, which is when the person remembers certain things, but don’t know how they know. For example, our character will see herself, a picture, which triggers her, but she doesn’t know why.

Symptoms:

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/amnesia

• Memory loss
• Confusion
• Inability to recognise familiar faces or places
• Once the person recovers, they typically have no memory of their amnesia episode.

Interviews

In order to understand memory loss more, I decided to ask a nurse about the subject. He has specialised in working with older patients for the last ten years, meaning he has experienced their struggles with memory loss.

One thing he mentioned was they are ‘not orientated to time or place’. This can mean they become very confused, and don’t understand simple things, such as how much time has gone by. He also mentioned that part of research into helping people with cases such as dementia is to help them remember their past so they can almost ‘bounce back’ to now. I think this is also relevant to our script as Faith’s memory is showing her old things; a childhood book, a photo, so she remembers the base of her life to remember the present.

Another person I interviewed someone who suffers from short term memory loss, as I wanted to know what it felt like. A common mistake she makes is ‘asking things she’s asked before and forgetting the answer completely’. When this happens she said she ‘feels angry’ with herself that she couldn’t remember, and blames herself. Sometimes if someone replies impatiently she can get angry with other people. I think this is useful to know as we can direct the actor on how to act as if she had memory loss, as I’ve spoken to someone, who feels frustration and becomes upset.

Comas

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coma/

Definition: According to the NHS website, the definition is ‘a coma is a state of unconsciousness where a person is unresponsive and cannot be woken.’

Causes: Comas ‘can result from injury to the brain, such as a severe head injury or stroke. A comacan also be caused by severe alcohol poisoning or a brain infection.’  ‘People with diabetes could fall into a coma if their blood glucose levels suddenly became very low or very high.’

There are different levels of comas, according to the ‘Glasgow Coma Scale’. This is from completely unresponsive to commands, light and speaking (lower scores), to ‘eyes spontaneously’ opening, being alert and talking and reacting to physical commands (higher scores). The lower their overall ‘score’ the worse their brain damage would be, the less likely they are to recover or recover well.

Recovering from a coma: Comas usually last for a few weeks, but people wake up gradually and there’s two types of states when waking. The first is ‘a vegetative state’. This is when the person is awake but doesn’t seem to be aware of any of their surroundings. The second type is ‘a minimally conscious state’ which is when someone is partially aware that comes and goes.

https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-in-a-coma

As our character is in a coma for this film, I thought researching what it’s like to be in a coma would be effective to our editing. From people who’ve experienced them, they described them as ‘lucid dreams’. This is relevant as our character is clearly having a detailed dream, even though it is realistic. Also, when editing, we will skip time and cuts quickly, relating back to the statement that people with memory loss are ‘not orientated to time’, showing that she doesn’t comprehend how fast things happen, much like in a coma or dream. Furthermore, when people describe being in a coma they feel pain from the real world. This is important as our character will feel the pain of her head from reality, in her dream.

The Subconscious Mind

Someone’s subconscious is their underlying thoughts, that they don’t always know is there. An simple example I found was at:  www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/subconscious

This video I found on YouTube helped me understand what it means more, as it is quite a complex topic to understand. From this video I found out that the subconscious mind records all the data you’ve ever seen or heard, but only filters to your conscious mind what is most important. An example of when this ‘filter’ is damaged is within people who have autism. They don’t have much of a filter and they become quite overwhelmed with the amount of information they’ve retained and remember. One way to provoke the subconscious mind is through hypnosis, an example in the video being under hypnosis you could ‘recite every item on every menu you’ve ever seen’ or ‘recall the details of every conversation‘ you’ve had. I think this is what makes the subconscious mind so relevant in our film, as ‘Faith’ (her memory) is the part of her mind that she is trying to access, the part that recalls her past.

I also looked at the article Where does your consciousness go during a coma? to understand what would specifically happen to our character. It says that, obviously the conscious brain isn’t working, but the subconscious still continues to work for most coma patients. I think this is important as it’s as if our character Unknown (consciousness), needs help from Faith (subconsciousness) to survive.

Understanding the Brain

When looking at another article, I found this video of a neurological scientist explain what her stroke felt like. Whilst watching this video it really made me realise how separate the left and right section of her brain was. Although our character doesn’t suffer from a stroke, she still seems to be split into two. The scientist describes one part of her brain was all energy, and feeling the energy of where they are (Unknown), but the other part kept bringing her back to reality trying to fix the situation (Faith).