Eidetic Memory - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Television characters with eidetic memories include

• Dr. Douglas "Doogie" Howser from Doogie Howser, M.D.
• Solf J. Kimblee from Fullmetal Alchemist
• Special Agent Fox Mulder from The X-Files
• Professor X from X-Men
• Zack from Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?
• T.J. Henderson from Smart Guy
• Max Guevara from Dark Angel
• Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote
• Victoria Sinclair and her uncle Sir George Sinclair from 2008 TV movie The 39 Steps
• Batman, Bane and Barbara Gordon from Batman
• Detective Adrian Monk from Monk
• Jimmy Neutron from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
• Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds
• Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap
• Dr. Lexie Grey from Grey's Anatomy
• Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory
• Percival Rose from Nikita
• Ingrid Third from Fillmore!
• Shawn Spencer from Psych
• Olivia Dunham from Fringe
• Myka Bering from Warehouse 13
• Mozzie from White Collar
• Olive Doyle from Disney's A.N.T. Farm
• Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Kes and Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager
• Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series
• Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5
• Brick Heck from The Middle
• Charlie Andrews from Heroes
• The Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who
• Mike Ross from Suits
• Barbara Gordon/Batgirl
• Carrie Wells from Unforgettable

In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events series, one of the three protagonists, Klaus Baudelaire, is an avid reader and amateur researcher with an eidetic memory. He virtually remembers everything that he reads from books of any kind, even learned many languages. His knowledge and resources often help his other siblings, Violet and Sunny, to escape from dangerous situations, e.g. Count Olaf, the primary antagonist of the series.

Symbologist Robert Langdon from Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Inferno has an eidetic memory.

In the Swedish Millennium series by Stieg Larsson (and its accompanying films), the hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander has an eidetic memory.

In the movie Good Will Hunting, the main character, Will Hunting, is said to possess both an extraordinary IQ and an eidetic memory; demonstrated at the bar scene where he confronts a plagiarist.

Significant parts of the plot of Small Gods by Terry Pratchett depend on the hyperthymestic, eidetic memory of the novice Brutha. He remembers every moment of his life in perfect detail, down to the precise location and timing of individual footsteps. He cannot read, but he can nevertheless make perfect reproductions of documents from memory because he remembers the shapes of the letters. When he witnesses a disreputable action and is ordered to forget it, he does not understand the order as he has no concept of "forgetting". When asked what is the first thing that he can remember, he replies "There was a bright light, and then someone hit me".

The novel My Idea of Fun by author Will Self features a protagonist with a powerful eidetic memory, and this is explored extensively by Self. In this novel, the eidetic capabilities of the "Eidetiker" greatly exceed those described in this article.

In keeping with their unusual style, Autechre named track 7 from Confield 'Eidetic Casein' (literally translated, meaning 'photographic milk-proteins').

In Thomas Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon, protagonist Will Graham is explicitly identified as having an eidetic memory rivaling Hannibal Lecter's.

In the visual novels Jisei, Kansei and Yousei by SakeVisual one of the characters, Naoki Mizutani, possesses an eidetic memory.

Robert Langdon, a character created by author Dan Brown and featured in a series of novels, including The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Lost Symbol and Inferno, has an eidetic memory. The character is also portrayed by actor Tom Hanks in major motion pictures of the same titles.