Memory

[Nanimose]

Lately I've been remembering things that I haven't thought of for years and it's bringing me to realizations about myself. This question should go to a professional but I figure that I have enough time to waste, How important is it for a patient to remember past events in counseling? Maybe, how important is it for your own well-being to remember your life?

Is this a theist only area?

[wfaber]

Are they actual memories? They might be false memories.There have been cases reported in newspapers of women suddenly "remember" being molested or raped by their fathers as a child. Tragically, what many have thought were "repressed memories" were really false memories. But that didn't help much those fathers who were unjustly accused of horrible crimes against their children.

Those are extreme cases. But I think false memories are a lot more common. I may have had dozens of them myself. Once in a while I might be sitting at a desk, working, reading, anything. A thought pops into my head just for an instant, a vivid picture of me being somewhere or doing something. And I know I never did such a thing, or such a place never existed. I used to think it must have been something I dreamt maybe a couple of years ago because there was no time reference. I eventually realized they must be nothing more than silly little images my mind somehow created and threw into my consciousness just for a split second. I have no problem distinguishing them from reality. But maybe there are those who are unable to distinguish between these little pops of inagination and reality.

As much as I don't like the teachings of Sigmund Freud, he was aware of such things as false memory and had enough sense to disregard such memories as fictitious and useless.

Maybe you are talking about actual events in your past. But when you say "I haven't thought of for years," it makes me think of false memories. Because my little "blips" have no place in reality, I have no time reference, and used to think it must have been some time in the distant past, maybe years ago.

I wonder if it's something like deja vu, that false feeling that lasts only for an instant, that you have been "there" some time in the past, but can't remember when. Because there is no time reference, it seems like it must have been years ago.

Maybe I'm way off. But my only thought is if it is a false memory of some sort, it has nothing to do with your well being or who you are.

[Nanimose]

I know about false memories and how easy they are to obtain, these aren't things that appeal to what I think I should think, it doesn't justify anything for me to think this or that happened, and it's not easy to recover. I've been doing lots and lots of work trying to get a clearer picture, and still I'm not certain. When I say "haven't thought of for years" it means that I actually forgot these things but remember that they were a part of my personality some time ago, a person who I use to be (maybe I'm depersonalized? I wouldn't know). My Day Dreams are not close to my recovered memories, these aren't things that I want to make part of my memory, they seem to be actually things that happened I can fit them into a time frame that I am certain that they fit into. I know I can't know for sure, but these memories are crisp and clear, I'm willing to bet that they happened for the sake of my health because they seem to fit perfectly with events that I didn't forgot, they have nothing to do with getting anybody else in trouble. Though one thing that I remember is that I was pushed into believing in God, and I remember how (I remember the actual conversations I had and details about them, the feelings I had, it was like a brain washing). Like a brainwashing the longer I lived in it's effect the harder it was to get out, the harder it is to make the transition from psychosis to reality, that's what I feel is happening now. This is not a shot against theist, I provided a little more insight as to what I'm talking about.

[mentored1]

Well Met,

I recently did some research into memory for a Psyche course - false memories were a part of that. There's a whole host of issues that come up with memory and a bunch of experiments that confirm that human memory is often mistaken, sometimes only a few details sometimes a entire fabrication.

Some points I remember from perusing the results of such experiments:

- People are often more confident in the accuracy of their memories if they are uncertain of all the details.

- Personal expectations can alter and even create elements of a memory that were not present in the original experience; likewise expectations of someone who is listening or recording the memory (like a therapist) can influence the details of the memory.

- People can create entire fictional memories in the context of real experiences.
For instance, one person when given a full description of experiences that happened to them as a child. One instance was being lost in a mall - complete with ever detail imaginable. That instance never happened, it was made up by the experimenters. However after several weeks of reading about this childhood event and discussing it in relation to the other events (which really happened) the person was certain it was part of their past.

- Memories are stored in association (semantic network). Elements of other memories can easily "bleed" into related contexts - we form 'schemes' that act as templates.
One example of this is several people waiting in a doctor's office for an hour or so. They were asked after this to list the things in the waiting area; and again about a week later. Over time as the memory fades and certain elements of it are missing our brain supplies the expected elements. For an office this could be 'chairs', 'magazines', etc... All of the people involved listed things that were not in the office by association with what they expected to normally be in an office.


I'm no psychologist and I don't know if such information proves anything beyond correlation; but I've never been all that sure of my own memories anyhow.

Take care, best wishes

[Nanimose]

That's good stuff, I really am certain that things happened according to my memories, but I don't think I'll ever be able to know. Maybe I'm just remembering certain periods of time in my life, and False Memories are trying to fill voids around the ways I remember feeling and saying. I could be playing with my thoughts cause I have this thing with remembering important details, I can't know it all.

[wfaber]

The idea of false memory interested me. I took a psychology class several years ago. For a project, I wrote a two-page story so ambiguous that you couldn't tell whether it was about an animal walking through the woods being attacked by a predator or a woman walking through a park being attacked by a mugger. I had several people read the story. Two weeks later I asked them questions about what they read. Some were unanswerable, like "why was she attacked?" "What color was her hair?" Although most couldn't answer those questions, one response in particular was very descriptive in her answers, far beyond the little detail I provided in the story. Her mind obviously filled in all the missing details.

[Questor]

Lately I've been remembering things that I haven't thought of for years and it's bringing me to realizations about myself. This question should go to a professional but I figure that I have enough time to waste, How important is it for a patient to remember past events in counseling? Maybe, how important is it for your own well-being to remember your life?

Is this a theist only area?

Hi Nanimose,
I would answer your first question with this: if the memories are not bringing you intense anxiety or anger, or other negative emotions that are not disrupting your life, then I wouldn't bother going to see a professional. Instead I would bounce your memories off of friends. If you have people around who really know you now then you can a reflect on how those memories help led you to who you are now. You are more than the sum of one or two experiences even if those experiences (memories) may have defining influence on your life.

To your second question, and it is related to my first statement: I totally believe that knowing your past does , or can, help you in understanding in why you may experiencing problems now. Though I think this is far over rated. Many people can overcome issues simply by reorganizing their own behaviour or by cognitively reorganizing their own "self talk" etc to combat negative thoughts. Usually if cognitive or behaviour modification doesn't work and the person is "stuck" in an emotion or disruptive behaviour then it may be necessary to look back at past experinces to see if there is an old "splinter" that is still festering that needs to be removed. If the "splinter" isn't identified then it can't usually be "removed" (rectified, assumption of personal responsibility vs victimization etc) But I want to emphasize that I am only talking about behaviours that are really disruptive, those that we can't "seem" to change on our own.


After saying all that I realize I am only focusing on the "negative" memories. "Positive" memories have also influenced you.

But here is the qualifier. We can only evaluate those memories good or bad from where we are at the moment; its in the "evaluation" that we make sense of what we experienced. It is your present set of values and perceptions that will "filter" what you experienced.

Its through the grid, or the filter, that you see life with now that is the most important.

[Nanimose]

Hi Nanimose,
I would answer your first question with this: if the memories are not bringing you intense anxiety or anger, or other negative emotions that are not disrupting your life, then I wouldn't bother going to see a professional. Instead I would bounce your memories off of friends. If you have people around who really know you now then you can a reflect on how those memories help led you to who you are now. You are more than the sum of one or two experiences even if those experiences (memories) may have defining influence on your life.

To your second question, and it is related to my first statement: I totally believe that knowing your past does , or can, help you in understanding in why you may experiencing problems now. Though I think this is far over rated. Many people can overcome issues simply by reorganizing their own behaviour or by cognitively reorganizing their own "self talk" etc to combat negative thoughts. Usually if cognitive or behaviour modification doesn't work and the person is "stuck" in an emotion or disruptive behaviour then it may be necessary to look back at past experinces to see if there is an old "splinter" that is still festering that needs to be removed. If the "splinter" isn't identified then it can't usually be "removed" (rectified, assumption of personal responsibility vs victimization etc) But I want to emphasize that I am only talking about behaviours that are really disruptive, those that we can't "seem" to change on our own.


After saying all that I realize I am only focusing on the "negative" memories. "Positive" memories have also influenced you.

But here is the qualifier. We can only evaluate those memories good or bad from where we are at the moment; its in the "evaluation" that we make sense of what we experienced. It is your present set of values and perceptions that will "filter" what you experienced.

Its through the grid, or the filter, that you see life with now that is the most important.
thanks for sharing, I think it was informative.

[Barry Desborough]

Lately I've been remembering things that I haven't thought of for years and it's bringing me to realizations about myself. This question should go to a professional but I figure that I have enough time to waste, How important is it for a patient to remember past events in counseling? Maybe, how important is it for your own well-being to remember your life?

Is this a theist only area?

I've heard recently that there is a school of thought that says reviving bad memories through counselling or psychoanalysis may not be helpful. I wouldn't like to offer an opinion about this, but it does make sense when you consider that burying bad memories seems to be a natural response, which may be there for the reasons of self-protection. It may not be just bad memories that are suppressed. Our identities are constructed with selectively edited memories.