The Trouble with Memory

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                If you stick your hand in a burning flame, the pain will warn your body of impending danger. Usually, one unfortunate burn is enough to discourage someone from attempting such folly again; they recollect the pain, the situation attributed to it, and seek to avoid any similar events.

                You have learned to trust the people closest to you – family, friends, and coworkers. You are comfortable with your surroundings. You know what to do in an emergency, how to keep yourself healthy, and when and where you have to be each day only because you have the ability to remember.

                Memories are the foundation of everyday life, of living in general.

                That does not mean that they are true.

                Most everyone goes about their days accepting that much of what they see, feel, hear, smell, and taste at that moment will fade away until it is eventually forgotten. However, everyone has had an instance where they and another person recall a shared experience in a different way. In one account the sun was shining; in the other, it was cloudy and dark. In one account, they ate something sweet together; in the other, they enjoyed something spicy.

                Memories, to make my point clear, are continuously altering themselves. To quote Doctor Donna Bridge, a Ph.D. recipient in the field of neuroscience and former assistant director of the Laboratory for Human Neuroscience at Northwestern University, “If you remember something in the context of a new environment and time, or if you are even in a different mood, your memories might integrate the new information.” This means that each recollection of an event paints the experience differently based on the situation revolving around the recollection.

The mind alters the memory of an event to fit one’s current condition, their mindset. A memory of a time where everyone seemed happy can begin to develop a darker atmosphere when remembered by someone who is discontented. Remembering a certain scene from the past while eating a particular meal can tie the two together (i.e. we must have been eating this when we last spoke). Depending on the place and time that an event is remembered, anything in that memory can change: scenery, background noise, participants, and more.

There are some exceptions (such as eidetic, or photographic, memory), but even those classified as such cannot be said to be completely perfect, either. Though often more reliable, bias has still been shown to affect the integrity of their memories; current emotions color their recollections in a different light than when they were actually experienced.

If memories make us who we are, what does it mean when they become false? Grudges are created in minuscule ways, friendships are formed in small moments, and important events inspire regular contemplation. Each time these memories are called to the front of the mind, another piece is twisted and changed, made duller or more extravagant. What can we truly be said to know when our very own mental archives are endlessly rewriting themselves?

And how sad that the more we remember, the more we seem to forget.