How does Leonard know about his condition?
After the incident which caused Leonard's condition in Memento, he cannot remember anything more than a few minutes old, other than the events before that incident. Yet, he remembers his condition?
Best Answer
Leonard cannot remember his condition. Sometimes he even forgets what he is doing at the moment. Remember the scenes when he is running because he is being chased or when he drinks the beer with spit in it. He just suddenly loses any clue why is he doing something. After the accident, he said he cannot store recent memories, but he can remember everything before the accident. He has to be reminded of the incident (he does it by viewing his tattoos, notebook, etc). His tattoos reminds him of everything - about the condition. Look carefully:
Left Hand (0:06:50) "remember Sammy Jankis"
He remembered Sammy Jankis, who had a special condition.
Left Forearm (0:11:30) "THE FACTS" Circling his neck in mirror image: "JOHN G. RAPED AND MURDERED MY WIFE"
He remembers the accidents.
Right Bicep: "CONSIDER THE SOURCE" and "MEMORY IS TREACHERY"
By remembering Sammy Jenkins, he remembers he has a similar condition.
Upper Abdomen (Upside-down): "condition yourself" Lower Left Ribcage (Upside-down): "DON'T TRUST" and "HIDE YOUR WEAKNESS"
He now confirms his weakness.
13-17) Lower Right Ribcage (Upside-down): "buy film" {Tattoo is in script}, "CAMERA DOESN'T LIE", "NOTES CAN BE LOST", "HABIT & ROUTINE", and "LEARN BY REPETITION".
He reminds himself how he can try to remember things.
This is the way he reminds himself about his condition and the other facts he is looking for. Sam Jankis is a fictional character through which he remembers he has the condition. Sammy is a character from Leonard's memory where the memory of Leonard and Sammy is mixed.
The movie seems to suggest that the "Sammy story" that Leonard tells is a mixture of real Sammy memories from Leonard, recollections of Leonard about things that happened to him as well as Sammy, projections of things that happened to Leonard but did not happen to Sammy, and some confabulation (common among people with memory problems) of things that Leonard makes up to fill in the gaps.
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How did Leonard get his condition in Memento?
Leonard suffers from a very real, if very rare, condition called anterograde amnesia, in which he's unable to form new memories after a head trauma assumed during the murder of his wife (Jorja Fox).Is Leonard faking his condition in Memento?
Memento Alternate Interpretation: Leonard Shelby is Faking His Condition. The popular interpretation of the film is that the story of Sammy Jenkis is actually Leonard projecting the events of his own past onto someone else.How does Leonard remember the insulin?
He killed his wife with insulin only after the incident. According to this answer on a similar question, his ability to remember insulin is explained through his inadvertent melding of two separate people, in somewhat-related incidents (re: amnesia).How did Leonard Shelby lose his memory?
He found an intruder raping his wife under a shower curtain, so shot the man, but another assailant hit him from behind, knocking him unconscious and causing anterograde memory loss. His wife did not survive the assault. Leonard got a hold of a police report, and set off to track down his wife's killer.Does JEFF LEONARD Know MYSTIC MINE Rulings? | Yu-Gi-Oh Ruling Quiz
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Answer 2
All the tattoos listed by Mistu4u help Leonard in guiding himself to cope with his conditions.
However even in this condition he never forgets daily chores like driving, eating, shaving etc. He is also able to use English language comfortably. Through his subconscious he knows about his condition too.
Answer 3
he doesn't remember his condition but every time that he forgets things and he feels like he has just woken up, he first looks around (so he sees his left hand at the very first moment) and the tatoo "remember Sammy Jankis" makes him realize about his condition at the time.
Answer 4
Actually Leonard killed his wife and he knows it in his subconscious. He is full of guilt that he killed his wife. He does not want to accept the fact that he killed his wife. So he has created/imagined his short term memory condition and sammy jankin so that he can hide behind it. In order to prove to himself that his short term memory condition is real he acts all weird and keeps killing people.
As the condition happened after the "incident", he couldn't have remembered that he has the condition. Also he has not tattooed about his condition. Even if he figured he had that condition from the tattoos, he would forget again about the condition and life runs faster that he could figure out it again and again.
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Images: Miguel Á. Padriñán, Ron Lach, Maruf Choudhury, Armin Rimoldi