Reading Steiner

Reading Steiner is a term referring to the ability to, after switching world lines, retain one's memory of events that have occurred before the switch. In 1.382733β, this ability is referred to as President's Disease, as those with this ability remember Puchin as the President of Russia instead of General Secretary of the Soviet Union. In other world lines in the Beta attractor field, Reading Steiner is treated as a new form of encephalitis.

Everyone has Reading Steiner though its strength varies from person to person. However, Okabe is the sole character in the series who is shown to have Reading Steiner strong enough to retain all of his memories following a world line shift. While no other members of the cast have this immediate knowledge of a switch having occurred or any recollection of what happened in another World Line, they seem to regain fragments of these memories occasionally.


 * Faris remembers sending the D-Mail that prevented her father's death after escaping the Viral Attackers with Okabe in 0.409431α.
 * Lukako remembers her first meeting with Okabe as a male in 0.456914α.
 * Mayuri, visiting her grandmother's grave in 0.571046α, remembers "Nightmares" in which she dies in a multitude of ways.
 * Katsumi Nakase is shown to have strong Reading Steiner in November 2010 in 1.129848β. She is able to vaguely recall Mayuri's death from various world lines.
 * Kurisu remembers some of her Alpha worldline memories in the Steins Gate worldline.

The ability plays a major role in the plot, most prominently in allowing Rintaro to undo the changes caused by the D-Mails and not losing track after each switch.

In the anime, there is a visual distortion every time a Reading is activated, usually following the sending of a D-mail.

Trivia

 * The movie Steins;Gate: Fuka Ryouiki no Deja Vu features the Reading Steiner as an important plot element, as Kurisu and Mayuri use recollection of the pre-Steins Gate world lines to piece together information about Rintaro.
 * In popular culture, the Mandela effect is similar to Reading Steiner.