Recently I’ve been thinking about the memory dilemma. Not sure if that’s a real terminology or a term I just now dawned, but as all things psychological, it fascinates me. Therefore, I must talk about it.
Many people think that memory works much like a recording device, with all the functionalities of recording, stopping, rewinding and playing. This isn’t the case at all. There is no doubt: the human brain is not a machine, and when it comes to memory, it is very much imperfect. A lot of the times our memories have to do with where our attention was focused at the time, where our gaze was directed, or what people, places, or things, caught our attention at the time (consider a grade school party: “What presents did I get?” contra a high school birthday party “Will my crush kiss me on my birthday?”). Bottom line, our attention is not limitless. Our capacity to focus on an event before us has restricted lines in our brains, to say the least.
Yet the imperfection of our brains doesn’t end there. Worst of all, is the human recalling process. Or what I like to refer to as the source of all our self-existential issues. Let me explain…
As mentioned, memory isn’t a recording device. It is constructive and reconstructive. That is to say, when a person actively calls up a memory, we aren’t laying out facts and dates, but rather conjuring up a story line with many implications. As neuroscience and psychology have discovered, each time you call up a memory you are reconstructing a story in your mind. Most surprisingly, and unknown to most, is that our memory can be changed. For example, each time you call up a memory, maybe you leave something out once (deliberately or not). The next time you recall that same memory, you may leave it out again. And, so on and so forth, until ultimately you forget that small detail.
Worst of all, not only do you, as the constructor of the memory, change your memory, but other people can change your memories as well. Other people may feed you suggestive information. For example: you may be remembering something that happened last spring, and someone says “It was a strangely cold last spring.” So, then you imagine and embellish by adding bit of snow in your mental image of what last April looked like.
Memory can thus be distorted and contaminated. This phenomenon is called by psychologists as “false memories” and one of the leading causes of false memories is caused by the exposure of misinformation.
Becoming aware of how impressionable and pliable our memories scares me, and calls up feelings of this self-existential dread I was speaking about earlier. What if I am misremembering all that I was and therefore I have falsely constructed my identity of who I am at this moment? …Of course, this is a bit dramatic of me, everyone should, for the most part, remember the main milestones of their lives. Still it begs the question: who are we really if the us now projects ourselves onto the old us? Can we ever truly give our memories justice when our present selves overlays information?
It recently occurred to me that I don’t stop to reminisce about my childhood very often. I don’t mean the nostalgia of warmness and homeliness that washes over you when you remember a pleasant time in your childhood, or the secureness that comes from a distant event with a resolved outcome, but rather as a story—My story with all the finest details, like the literature sitting on my bookshelf. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and relived my childhood vividly, with color and intention. All too often our society focuses on the future: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”, “What will you do after graduation?” all valid, curious questions in their own right. And though I recognize the importance of reflecting on the future, I often think introspection on the past is all too minimized. More specifically our own past, the stories which give us our identity. This action of introspection on the past is still necessary, so that we develop full, authentic versions of the present us.
At this point, dear reader, you must think to yourself: But Lilian, you just spent the first few paragraphs reasoning why its fruitless to remember! Our memory is shit! –Well yes, I am also confronted with this double-edged sword. Why spend time remembering fine details of our lives when they will probably never be perfect?
Memory is a rather transmutable puzzle that changes itself each time it is called up consciously, but isn’t that an beautiful and intriguing mosaic to look at?
Picture of me circa 2003 in Colmar, France; no recollection of this day despite the picture for evidence.
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