Some psychologists try to refute the existence of photographic memories.

It is believed, by some, that those that hold this alleged ability are actually no different than the rest of us. They have an astounding memory because they use techniques that help them remember. It appears that some people are born with this certain thought pattern, thus creating a child that can remember better than an adult.

I am not sure whether it is real or not. There are different forms of memory and I wouldn't quite say someone that can remember terms and that which he read has a photographic memory. To me, a photographic memory is just a form of eidetic memory referring primarily to picture perfect recall. It is unlikely one would visually recall text, vice a picture. It has been shown that some people can recall images with great detail. However, further research shows that it is less effective if the scene is not organized. For example, a guy might analyze a chess board for 30 seconds, then nearly replicate where each piece was on the board; however, if the pieces are randomly spread out over the board, the same guy can barely recall any of it. This implies that we need things structured and orderly before we can put a "story" to it, or whatever technique might be employed to remember.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of research out there that shows the idea of a photographic memory to be fake.

As said before, you can develop a good memory. They even have a competition for those that think they can recall well. I know one of the trials in this competition is to do something like remember each card in a shuffled deck. These people can recall backwards and forwards, it is quite interesting.

I am not totally against the implication that lucid dreaming might be able to help one on their quest for better memory. In fact, I am trying to conduct experiments based on similar concepts. Though, they are not focused on memory, that is really only a piece of it.

I would try to conduct more experiments through my fellow lucid dreamers, but I fear my theory might be stolen unless I make people sign documents acknowledging my work as mine.