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Or Has Time Re-written Every Line?
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Or Has Time Re-written Every Line? Neuro-scientists working with the latest brain scanning technology have theorised that memory does not work quite how we used to think. It may be that when we experience the feeling of remembering something, what we are really doing is recalling the thoughts we had the last time we remembered that event or information. In other words, like saving a document to your computer, what remains as current is only an updated re-write of what was there before. Or to put it another way, you might accurately save a new file which is identical to the original, or you might save it with some amendments, large or small. But on any subsequent re-opening of the file, unless a note explaining that the content had been altered were included in the re-write, the information contained in it would, to you, appear to be fact. This might explain a lot. How two honest people can remember the same event differently. Why older people believe that their memory of event from their youth has improved with age -as they do less, they may spend more time "remembering" events from long ago, so details get filled in. Why the winters were warmer, and smiles were......bright. But, referring back to my earlier post on memory (strangely titled "I don't like reggae" although I can't remember why, ) this worries me. For example I know some of the memories I have previously written about, often introduced with the words "nothing that follows is made up" may have been embellished for the sake of the story. Nothing was made up, but perhaps not all the tiny details are accurate. How can I now know? I know I tired to remember everything that mattered, and tell the story for real. But over twenty years those stories have played over in my head many times. The events are now as written. We spend a lot of time learning to trust and understand our feelings, but now am I to believe that my memories can mislead me? What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget. But this can't be the whole story. Sometimes something happens which triggers something which hasn't been in the front of my mind for a long time. Like the photograph of that tree on the Scottish island. Those memories were fresh, but have I now addend something to them? Perhaps it is a good lesson. Memories can be good or bad, but whether they are traumas which haunt us, or happy times we long for, they are never what drives the present. And the present is the only moment we can actually inhabit, the only time we can change. I'm not always so good at remembering that. |
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I find memory to be a very strange thing....some memories seem to be seen with ever deepening rose tinted glasses over the years....others reappear involuntarily in all their damn glorious technicolour. It's true though that the present is all we can control.  ~~Anais Nin~~
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this tracks along with some recent developments in the treatment of PTSD that involve reprogramming how the brain handles the traumatic event.
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this tracks along with some recent developments in the treatment of PTSD that involve reprogramming how the brain handles the traumatic event. Of course I really only used the theme as a vehicle for some nostalgic musing, but all the same these kind of developments in understanding always fascinate me, so it is great to find someone taking an interest from that point of view too, thank you.
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I find memory to be a very strange thing....some memories seem to be seen with ever deepening rose tinted glasses over the years....others reappear involuntarily in all their damn glorious technicolour. It's true though that the present is all we can control.
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Ha haa, I know the feeling about making a list and then forgetting to take it with you - happens to me all the time!
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