Man wakes up from a coma with someone else’s memories
Imagine waking up from a coma after three weeks to find you’re no longer yourself – in fact, you’re someone else entirely. That’s what happened to Alpha Kabeja from London, who awoke after a serious cycling accident with someone else’s memories.
Kabeja, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, sustained serious brain trauma – he had been hit so hard by a van part of his skull actually moved.
Doctors had warned his family it was possible he might not remember them – or anything – when he woke up from the medically-induced coma, but they didn’t expect him to wake up remembering everything. The problem was, his memories were completely false.
Recalling the incident in an article for the Boston Globe, Linda Rodriguez McRobbie explains that Kabeja “remembered” that prior to the crash, he had been on his way to see his pregnant girlfriend after interviewing for the job of director of operations at MI6. “He remembered tucking the picture of the ultrasound in the pages of his notebook, one he used to write down song ideas and thoughts,” McRobbie writes, “he repeatedly asked the nurses in the hospital if they’d seen the notebook.”
Kabeja could even recall the names he and his “girlfriend” had picked out for their yet-to-be-born twins – Sky and Nikita.
Despite these memories being completely false, doctors say it’s possible that Kabeja drew them from real experiences in his life before the accident. “A number of his friends and colleagues were having children, twins, he said, run in his family, and of course, he did have a girlfriend; he did once apply for a position at MI6, years before the accident.”
Doctors believe Kabeja drew these fictional memories from “building blocks” scattered around his brain. Still recovering to this day, Kabeja has undergone several surgeries and no longer believes his fabricated previous life. “The memories felt real, but I didn’t understand them, in a way, actually. I didn’t quite understand them.”
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