A 17-year-old French girl, known as TL, has surprised researchers with an extraordinary ability to recall past experiences with uncanny clarity and even mentally envision future events.
This rare phenomenon, called hyperthymesia or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), allows her to “time travel” through her own life in a way that more so like cinema than real life.
TL describes her experiences as reliving events as if they just happened. “I can see it all like it just happened,” she said in an interview with IFLScience. Unlike typical memory recall, her recollections are vivid, including minor details most people forget.
TL describes her memories as “stored in a large, rectangular white room with a low ceiling.” Within this mental space, she organizes different areas for family life, vacations, friends, school, toys, and more. She tags each memory with details like who gave her something and the exact date she received it. Remarkably, TL can even recall the emotions she and others felt during those moments, making each recollection vivid and immersive.
According to a Cohen and La Corte research paper, people with HSAM exhibit heightened activity in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, brain areas responsible for storing and retrieving autobiographical memories.1
TL’s ability extends beyond remembering past events. She can project herself into future scenarios, imagining outcomes with remarkable clarity.
The PsyPost study reported that this “mental time travel” suggests her brain can manipulate autobiographical memory to envision possible futures, a capability that is still poorly understood. 2
Research on HSAM is not yet as vast but each day experts are discovering new things. The Nautilus research paper mentioned that while individuals with hyperthymesia show increased neural activity when recalling events, their brain structure does not differ significantly from that of people with typical memory.3
This indicates that her extraordinary ability is likely due to neural connectivity and memory retrieval efficiency rather than physical brain differences.
Moreover, the PubMed study on autobiographical hypermnesia confirmed that people with HSAM can recall dates, events, and even mundane daily details from years prior, highlighting how TL’s mental time travel ability is consistent with other documented HSAM cases. 4
These studies suggest that hyperthymesia, while rare, provides researchers with a window into how autobiographical memory and cognitive planning may be interconnected.
While TL’s memory is a scientific marvel, it also presents challenges. Constantly reliving past experiences can be overwhelming, and mentally projecting into the future may increase anxiety. Still, her case offers unique opportunities for researchers exploring memory, cognition, and even educational strategies for enhancing recall.
As TL continues her daily life, scientists hope her case will inspire more research into HSAM and mental time travel.
References:
Cohen, Laurent, and Valentina La Corte. “Autobiographical Hypermnesia as a Particular Form of Mental Time Travel.” PubMed, August 2025. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40746242
Cohen, Laurent. “Why This 17-Year-Old Girl Can't Forget.” Nautilus Magazine, September 2025. https://nautil.us/why-this-17-year-old-girl-cant-forget-1235558
La Corte, Valentina, and Laurent Cohen. “Mental Time Travel: A New Case of Autobiographical Hypermnesia.” Paris Brain Institute, August 2025. https://parisbraininstitute.org/news/mental-time-travel-new-case-autobiographical-hypermnesia
“Teenager with Hyperthymesia Exhibits Extraordinary Mental Time Travel Abilities.” PsyPost, September 2025. https://www.psypost.org/teenager-with-hyperthymesia-exhibits-extraordinary-mental-time-travel-abilities/
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