Memory

“We can know ourselves only because we can remember” (Ratey) I have to say that our class on memory blew my mind. I left puzzled and second guessing myself. What from my past can be considered a fact? What actually happened?

I can think of numerous times in my life when a friend and I have completely disagreed on how an event in the past took place. For example the other day I was arguing with a friend about an order in which a sequence of events occurred. We remembered two very different stories. But who was right?

When I think about it. We were both right. There is no precise and exact evidence to prove or disprove either of our views. The only thing we have to go by is our memory. I find this extremely frustrating! If the only way “we can know ourselves [is] because we can remember,” and we can’t be confident in our memories, then we can’t be confident in exactly who we are.

Ratey helps to bring understanding to this idea, “The formation and recall of each memory are influenced by mood, surrounding, and gestalt at the time the memor is formed or retrieved. That’s way the same event can be remembered differently by different people…”

Ratey also bring up the point that, “Memory also changes as we change over time. New experiences change our attitudes and thus how we remember.” I know that when I try to recall a memory from a time when I was in an excited state of anger or frustration that I remember details very vaguely; however, it is almost as if my brain fills in the details for me each time I recall and angry memory