Memory Lapse?

A memory. Isn’t it something that is compounded by various senses? You have your five senses of course; sight, taste, smell, touch, sound. A memory by definition is “the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. The ability of the mind to store and recall past sensations, thoughts, knowledge, etc.”

Should these past sensations, as memory is defined, be in fact what shapes our memories, don’t we all experience sensations differently? How then is my memory the same as yours?

With this in mind, we as a community base much of our daily actions upon our memories, don’t we? I mean, we reflect on what happened, of course I mean “what happened” based upon our memories. However if our senses are what primarily define our memories, how then do we know if my memory is “more” correct than your memory. I see things you may have overlooked, I taste flavors that you may have not tasted, I smell the ocean in the air, when you may have smelled the leaves blowing with the wind, I touch and feel the grains of a board and remember that sensation alone, and finally I hear the child’s voice, while you may have heard the mother’s discerning reply. How then do we collectively remember the same memories? We can’t and we don’t. We “hang” onto what stood out the most, and then form our memory around those relations we made.

I come upon this thought while recounting some family photos. I recently made a trip home to Rhode Island to visit family. We thumbed through s hodgepodge of photos, some of which I could remember and some of which I was too young to. Those that I do remember are based upon senses. I’d like to deviate for just a moment from this topic of senses as they relate to the building of our memories and move to photos. Pictures, photography, are a funny thing. I’m sure you’ve taken a look at some photo your parent or friend has hanging around and you think you remember that moment when it was taken, but do you, or do you just rehearse those colors, hues, and called out points in the picture and then memorize them so much that you say to yourself, “I remember that?” Is this picture just a tangible thing, or is it really a representation of a memory you have? Certainly seeing this picture that you couldn’t have remembered without it, suddenly stirs your memory and makes you “see” and recount the memory differently. Suddenly the memory you had of that time erases and is replaced with this picture. Is that fair? Have all that you held on to in your mind, the senses, vanished and been replaced with those specifics in the picture? It’s just like reading a book. You paint the picture of the activities being had in the book through the help of the author’s prose, but after you’ve constructed this entire world in your mind and then go see the movie….aha! Your initial memory is erased and replaced with what is being shown to you. Is that fair?

I swear I sat down to write this based upon the observation I had that I was beginning to lapse into a decision based upon a memory I have. Furthermore, this memory I have that seems to be haunting my everyday, is one that may not be what actually happened. I mean, to put it quite simply – maybe it was hailing golf balls that day, but I remember only the fire we had and the wine we drank. It’s that kind of thing. But on the same token, we all remember facts the same way – they are facts after all, and they can’t be remembered in one way on another but in the same way. Perhaps it’s the way we recall these facts – I remember (there it is) how I learned how to divide: Math class, on an over-head projector. But I still know the facts of how to divide any equation. Could this be the same for other memories that aren’t as matter of FACT? I don’t believe that is the case. How then can we separate our sense from memories and derive at pure facts? How then do we know to turn our memories into facts or senses/feelings?

This memory that’s “haunting” my day to day… well, I guess we can move so far away from what happened, and begin to formulate our memories on the most poignant points of that occasion. What if there were serious things we aren’t recounting, serious points that occurred that we totally overlooked, or more importantly didn’t file into what is now our memory? I’m beginning to think that this memory I have, of well let’s just say “rainbows and butterflies” was totally just a huge hailstorm? What then, do I search in haste for a photo of that memory so I can start to see the stormy sky that the photo captured?

I derive at this final point – our memories CAPTURE specific senses, just as a picture can only possibly capture only that which fits within the camera’s lens. But what then happens to all that surround that lens, that amount of room your memory captures? What happens to those variables? They disappear into the past and are totally and completely forgotten…. Or are they? Perhaps those variables are captured in the memory of the person sitting right next to you?!