When you recollect something, do you recall the words? The pictures? Your feelings? Some combination or perhaps all three?
Also, is your memory faulty? Or do you feel it's reliable?
Where is your Mercury and how is it aspected?
I have different types of memory, factual memory, where I remember random info and names of things, etc which I may have picked up decades ago. And then a sort of sensory memory where I suddenly reinhabit an experience as if still present there.
My Mercury is in Gemini 9th house, I remember really random facts. It opposes Neptune in Sag 3rd and squares Moon in Pisces 6th.
I can struggle to remember at will emotional experiences. But as I say, I'll have sudden teleporting into sensorial relivings. If I was in court and someone asked me a question about the past I would not always do well to answer, but in a reliving I have access to all the details.
So in general unreliable but also incredibly acute at times, all random.
I can get the whole picture, but I dissociate to do it.
https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/psychological-dissociation-with-saturn-in-pisces/
@sophiab Chiron only.
But I learned this in therapy. I learned to specifically, dissociate for a specific intention.
edit to add... intention to cure PTSD, which I did.
@elsa Using the unconscious (Pisces) as a vehicle to heal, seems quite chironic! Although the other water signs also help connect to the unconscious.
@estella no. And please don't psychoanalize me. I don't appreciate it at all. Just consider this a boundary.
I have wondered if I have hyperthymesia, but I don’t think I qualify for a diagnosis.
I can remember all the way back to being a baby in my cot, the colour of the walls, the pattern on the curtains. I moved a lot from the age of 8 onwards until mid-adulthood; yet I can remember addresses, phone numbers…going through my memory bank is like walking through a room.
I can recall information such as what the other person said or wore, how I felt at the time. Some conversations, dating back to childhood, I can give a verbatim account of. I’ve been able to go through exams regurgitating everything I have read.
Obviously there are pros and cons with this. Forgiveness is very hard when your brain remembers things like they happened yesterday. With Mars in Virgo, I can recall at will a catalogue of all previous hurts relating to a single person. 😬
Now on to Merc itself. Mine is in Leo, 4 degrees from my MC, in my 10th, exactly square the AC, in a rolling conjunction to Moon, Venus and Saturn, square Uranus on the AC, sextile Pluto in Libra in the 12th, trine Neptune in the 2nd.
I think what amplifies the Merc, which is disposited by the Sun, is my Sun conjunct Jupiter. I also have SN at the anaretic degree of Pisces.
I think I have inherited my good memory from my Aquarian Grandma. I enjoyed doing exams at uni and got high distinctions on all them because of this gift.
I have Mercury in Aquarius in the 11th house, trine my moon-Pluto conjunction in the 8th. Mercury sextiles my Scorpio MC. My Sun and Mercury are conjunct.
My Gemini brother also inherited this gift. When we get together, it’s fun sharing memories from our past that nobody else remembers. We often remember things about people that they’d rather us to forget 🤣.