[mamadrood]

I used to drink really heavily, I got 2 blackouts on two nights of extensive drinking and smoking. It's really like two hours of my life were gone, I was conscious, I talked to people and stuff like that, but I can't recall anything between the beginning and the end of the blackout.

It's a really strange feeling because I can remember pretty well what happened before and after the blackouts but in the middle it's just nothing.

[xaedes]

I can not recall all the details of all conversations and all that happens. A lot of my life gets "blackouted" after a while. I mean yea I may can remember what I did last night _now_. But after a few days or weeks or whatever time I forget them. And it is no different than having a blackout.

Can you really remember a all connecting history without any gaps?

I bet there are always some gaps in the middle, where there is just nothing.

[friesen]

I get what you're saying, and I think I have a decent (enough) analogy to illustrate the difference.

The memory gaps you are talking about are sort of like lossy compression. The gist of what happened is there, even if you can't remember every detail. Blacking out is more like having a significant chunk deleted from the middle of the file.

[pavel_lishin]

The "after awhile" part is the key, there. I also don't remember what I said to my home room teacher on January 19th, 1996 - but I remember largely everything I did yesterday, if not in a eidetic manner.