Sandbox II

"I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day." "I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland

From that day onwards, the silver fox would live in a world of past memories, unaware that he had a problem forming new ones. By way of compensation, like many Korsakoff's sufferers, he would fill in gaps by confabulating plausible but nonetheless crazy stories. "I think i saw you at the ball park, " he might say to someone he had just met. "That hot dog was great, wasn't it?" The urge to fabricate experieneces probably grows out of a need to save face. Many alcoholics do it in the early stages of the sundrome, and while it is an intersting component of memory loss, it is not a necessary one. - 76, Reaching down the rabbit hole, allan ropper