Amnesia and smoking
I has a question. Okay, I lie. I has two questions. :)
Scenario: I have a character, Person A. Person A is a smoker, about 1-2 packs a day. He began smoking ~5 years ago, maybe more.
Person A gets a good bonk upside the head and consequently suffers from retrograde amnesia, and has problems recalling the previous 6-7 years of his life.
So now I have two questions:
1) Is 6-7 years reasonable, if the character not only suffers from the physical trauma of being bonked on the head, but also mental/emotional trauma prior to the experience? I'm going for the kind of mental/emotional trauma that makes people "lock" away their memories of the event, such as that in dissociative amnesia. The character would keep procedural memory, but lose episodic memory. So in other words the cause of the amnesia is more psychological than physical, but the bonk on the head acts as a catalyst.
2) He started smoking 5 years ago, and he cannot recall anything from the past 6 years. If no one tells him that he was a smoker, would he automatically begin smoking again? I know he would certainly feel the symptoms of withdrawal, but would he attribute his irritability to the frustration accompanying amnesia, or would he somehow intuitively know that he was a smoker?
I guess another way to phrase my second question would be: would smoking be filed under episodic or procedural memory? I mean, yes, it's procedural, but you also have to be conciously aware of the need to smoke. Solved!
Search terms: I've Googled various combinations of "amnesia/retrograde amnesia/memory loss" and "smoking/smokers/tobacco/cigarettes", alone and in combination. I've also read through all the posts in this community regarding both amnesia and smoking, which were helpful in answering other questions, but unfortunately this smoking+amnesia thing remains unanswered.
Thanks in advance! :)
Scenario: I have a character, Person A. Person A is a smoker, about 1-2 packs a day. He began smoking ~5 years ago, maybe more.
Person A gets a good bonk upside the head and consequently suffers from retrograde amnesia, and has problems recalling the previous 6-7 years of his life.
So now I have two questions:
1) Is 6-7 years reasonable, if the character not only suffers from the physical trauma of being bonked on the head, but also mental/emotional trauma prior to the experience? I'm going for the kind of mental/emotional trauma that makes people "lock" away their memories of the event, such as that in dissociative amnesia. The character would keep procedural memory, but lose episodic memory. So in other words the cause of the amnesia is more psychological than physical, but the bonk on the head acts as a catalyst.
2) He started smoking 5 years ago, and he cannot recall anything from the past 6 years. If no one tells him that he was a smoker, would he automatically begin smoking again? I know he would certainly feel the symptoms of withdrawal, but would he attribute his irritability to the frustration accompanying amnesia, or would he somehow intuitively know that he was a smoker?
I guess another way to phrase my second question would be: would smoking be filed under episodic or procedural memory? I mean, yes, it's procedural, but you also have to be conciously aware of the need to smoke. Solved!
Search terms: I've Googled various combinations of "amnesia/retrograde amnesia/memory loss" and "smoking/smokers/tobacco/cigarettes", alone and in combination. I've also read through all the posts in this community regarding both amnesia and smoking, which were helpful in answering other questions, but unfortunately this smoking+amnesia thing remains unanswered.
Thanks in advance! :)