So many memories
 

I've been pondering about memory quite a bit lately.
Especially since a recent phone convo I had with a cousin who's a few years older than me.

I'd called her because I was having a difficult time remembering
who else had opened at a Uriah Heep concert in 1973,
besides McKendree Spring. ( it was Billy Preston)

She chuckled and said, "Oh my heavens,
I have no memory of that, I'll have to ask my husband, he will remember."

I said, "Really? You don't remember how we positioned ourselves at the
entrance to the coliseum & pushed our way closest to the stage? & the snowstorm we had to drive through after wards, to get back home?"

"Nope"
We talked for awhile about memory. She concluded that she was just fine without having the ability to recall the past in detail.
"I'd hate to have to carry all that," she sighed.
Her last comment I remember clearly:
"Daddy had too good a memory, & maybe that's why he drank so much."

Sometimes my memory capacity feels overwhelmingly full,
& I'd like to dump some on a storage disk.
It's a great blessing I'd like to know how to manage better.

Is there such a thing as too much memory? & how to deal?

What are your thoughts & experience?

I enjoy being able to recall much of my past. I'd hate to go through life and not have the mental souvenirs from it.

I'd certainly like to have better control over my memory. I have no idea why I can remember subnetting and architecture from a client that I worked on a decade ago; yet still can't remember if I turned off the espresso machine.

Concerts, I remember. Who I was dating at the time, not so much.

There are a few things I'd prefer not to remember, but they are mine, so I get to remember them, live with them, reconcile myself to them...

I feel ya on that! For quite a while, I've wished for a hard disk restore on my brain.

I'd always thought it was due to the abuse of said brain during a couple of decades where the reefer was natural, good and cheap and the chemicals were insanely easy to find. I was advised by a neurologist some years ago that sleep deprivation was the culprit, but who really knows?

There are some large gaps in my memory, but certain moments and events I can recall with an amazing amount of clarity. As for short-term memory, forget about it. Often I can't recall what I said or did 20 minutes ago. Your cousin may be on to something -- perhaps we forget some events to leave adequate space for more good stuff?

It used to really bother me, but I've come to accept it. I try to write down things I do recall. Sometimes I relay memories to my girls so they can know better who I am and who I was. Other than that, I'm willing to let those memories go.

Don't blame the reefer, jewels :lol: My memory is just fine. Too good, sometimes.

Long-term wise: I have a lot of things I've tried to let go of. They are more or less packed up, compartmentalized, so they don't float to the surface like they used to. But having such a great memory is also a handy tool--I know how to manipulate my memory to my advantage, creating connections between items to cement them more in memory and make them easier to recall.

Short-term wise--I probably have the best short-term memory out of the folks I work with, to the point that my boss will tell me things she has to remember because she knows my memory is better than hers. Again, I have a lot of tricks to make my memory better.

If this is a teachable skill, I'd be willing to be your business partner. The brain restoration business would be booming!

Most of the time I really enjoy having the ability to recall so much of what's stored.
It can be a bother at night though when I'm trying to sleep & my mind keeps
entertaining itself. Finding the off switch is sometimes difficult.

I enjoy forgetting things. I can't think of very many things I would mind forgetting. I look forward to forgetting everything eventually. I'm not kidding. I really mean this. Hmmm. I seem to have strong feelings about this one. Thanks.

same here...

My memory has always been fragmentary. You could call me absentminded. I do have a collection of vivid memories that bubble to the surface every so often, triggered by a small set of emotional states, music, sounds, scents, or what have you. But they are fragments.

I can't fathom the minds of those who remember a vast amount of concrete details. My memories usually take the form of emotions, visions, rhythms, scenes, sounds, not facts or data. I was never very good at writing tests requiring the regurgitation of facts...math, science, history, etc.

And I have a poor sense of time.

To me, memory is a narrative that is incessantly reconstructed anew.

FUNES, THE MEMORIOUS - BY JORGE LUIS BORGES - ATHENAEUM LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY

there are many ways in which forgetting is your friend. think of what would happen if you couldn't.

Luria, A. R. (Aleksandr Romanovich) : The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory

sometimes i think we are primarily forgetting machines, repression devices that enable us to ignore information, avoid it, suppress it. without that, we'd not be able to move.

but we also are grammatical functions. so we like structures. they say memory is how it's structured.

i forgot what i was going to say.

My memory is not good, per se. Like Baraka, I tend to remember fragments of things...good and bad, emotions, fleeting visuals and sounds. I can remember things when I have to - for work or school, but I don't think I'm much of a personal memory keeper. For instance, I often find myself in the position of saying 'yeah, kind of...' when someone is asking me if I remember details of a shared experience. I feel bad sometimes because it makes me look like I don't care or don't think back on that time with fondness when that isn't true. It's just that I don't recall experiences verbatim very often. Even when it comes to favorite books and movies I will sometimes have trouble recalling specific events in them.

One upside to this tendency is that I almost never hold grudges against people. I forget the nature and specifics of conflicts easily and move on remaining open to friendship and camaraderie. Only through repetition of bad experiences do I finally settle on 'not liking' someone.

That said, conditions such as Alzheimer's frighten me. I had a mini-freak out a few months ago when I misinterpreted something my sister wrote on facebook about my mother being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It took me a couple of days to reach her and clear it up, but those two days were very distressing - thinking about my mother losing all of her memories...

so yeah, I'm kind of blase about memories, but then at the same time afraid of losing them. I guess that's silly.

Thanks for the links, roach. I'll check those out in a bit.

I would dearly like to have better suppressing abilities.
During my conversation with my cousin, the subject of self-medicating to achieve this,
came up. The pros & cons & such.
I've also read some articles a while back about studies being done using beta-blockers
for traumatic memories associated with PTSD.

Gotta be somewhere soon,
more later.

Interesting discussion. roachboy, all of Borges' work is in a class of its own - perhaps Kafka was as rare and unique a voice, but nearly no one else, I think. And yes, Funes is an excellent way to enter his universe.

I look forward to forgetting everything, as soon as possible would be fine with me. As it is, I practice forgetting a lot. I do enjoy losing the connections to identity that forgetting provides.

It's nice to type with my friends on a topic of mutual interest, and this thread has provided the opportunity. Thanks, ring, and all.

---------- Post added at 05:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 PM ----------

I got so carried away up there that I forgot why I logged back in to this thread. I wanted to mention the film "Unknown White Male"

Unknown White Male (2005) - IMDb

It's about a guy who wakes up with total amnesia. And it is a documentary. So...two things about it that are good.

Unfortunately, what I remember are the negative things.
Fortunately, only some of them!
I just don't seem to remember the good times in detail or at all.
I wish I were different.

Perceiving the Synesthetic World

I'm finally beginning to understand the connections after all these years
& quite a few stints in the 'behavioral health' unit.

The hyper awareness of the senses & oftentimes hyper-empathy.
& how that ties in with memory.

The same gene is responsible for Sensory Integration & Autism; so I have read in a few
different places.

How does one practice forgetting?
Is it possible to control the filters just enough to function
& exist in a bit more placid state,without entirely forgetting?

One the things that I fear is a loss of memory. I love that I can remember things from the past. The best thing is when a memory floats to the surface for now apparent reason. Suddenly a memory of swimming in a lake as a kid pops into your head.

To completely forget everything though, would suck.

my ability to recall great amounts of detail for any length of time is one of my favorite attributes. I spend a significant amount of time alone and many of my favorite adventures I've traveled solo. There is no one but me to remember all the details.

Alzheimers scares the crap out of me. I would rather find a way to end my life rather than suffer myself and my family through that. My lucidity and my intelligence are what keep me moving and living and motivated.

Question then becomes if my family would honor my wishes since Alzheimers is gradual and it is most likely that you don't know your marbles are gone.

ring, I practice forgetting by not focusing on things as things. One just lets go, as it were. So-called "ordinary" things can be astonishing. It's akin to not paying so much attention, I think, to specifics and generalizing one's view toward perceiving patterns. Surprisingly, things which can seem very distinctly different are often instances of very similar patterns.

In many ways, who we think we are is the result of processes of memory. It is not surprising that many people find this forgetting business frightening, but it just doesn't seem that way to me...at all, really. Not at all.

It's like being a different person every time you wake up...

Thank you, yes. I also found that I attached many emotions to things.
The art of mindfulness has been helpful to deal with the copious amount of memories I have that don't seem to be going away any time soon.

That & the detachment exercises. Detachment doesn't mean negating our emotions.
It's a conscious decision not to be so.....reactive.
I have difficulties expressing what I am thinking at times cuz the synapses fire so much faster than my fingers can type.

True enough. It seems to me that practicing non-attachment begins with relinquishing one's attachments to oneself. And the most powerful attachments to my illusory identity I can think of are my memories...

I appreciate the opportunity for this dialog, ring. Thanks all for the discussion, as well.

Odor is a powerful connection. Let me smell that "swamp" smell, and I am right back in a certain african hellhole. It's quite overwhelming. And it's been 25 years.

But I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

The mind is a funny thing.

I find myself in what Baraka Guru and mixedmedia wrote to some extent, a bit absent-minded I tend to remember, how I felt afterwards rather than what I heard exactly someone saying. Sadly, I think I pick negative notions from other people's words too easily. It's easier for me to critisize and concentrate on flaws than remember "good" times.

I did very well in school in languages and math, I enjoyed doing the repetitious tasks, which helped me to remember and I didn't actually have to work to learn. I didn't do well in history and remembering the dates or events told, but I enjoyed listening to teacher or reading myself - I could remember many details long enough to pass well in tests, but then I sort of let myself forget, I think, as if the sole goal of studying had been to excel in tests. Reading has been mostly entertainment for me, not consciously gathering knowledge.

I used to remember birthdays (even dates of death) to many relatives and friends, now I hardly can keep up with the new data. I used to be interested in trivial things about people, gossip about celebrities and such, but I can't fathom how some people know by heart the discography of an artist from way back, when I know I also listened to the same music, enjoyed it, but couldn't always even remember the artist nor the song in question, I just find some songs familiar and often connect them with emotions, I used to have. The same with the books or movies, I "experience" them and afterwards wonder, how other people are able to make so deep analysis and raise quotes, they find significant.

My conscious training in memory was at school, to pass tests, and the value was to get good marks in things I was told I needed to get good marks in, otherwise in the long term, my life would be a failure and in the short term, I would get punished.
The direct school experience was: 'I, your teacher, say this is this and that is that and they combine in such a way. The task was: when shown one part of that proposition, present the other parts of that proposition, or demonstrate you know that proposition by presenting responses which demonstrate its correct application.' Correct demonstration would return TICK, and incorrect, CROSS.

My unconscious training in memory was at home, where parental conflicts and inconsistencies meant it was safer for me to NOT remember, and to take as meaningless any direct statements of fact or intent.
The direct home experience was: 'I, your parent, say this is this and the other parent says this is something else but is wrong ... this is in fact this ... though it becomes something else according to how I feel. And how I feel is the result of your behaviour, the meaning of which will be determined according to what I want to demonstrate to the other parent, or according to how I feel'

At school I was being marked according my ability to do memory things which were, at home, impossible to achieve and dangerous to attempt.


My mad response was to seek to learn how to organize my 'forgetting' in the hope that I might achieve some of the results of people who seem to know what's going on. These days I remember patterns rather than specifics. For example, person's present specific statements are examined relative to the 'entire spread' of what I know of them. My memory then, is of the gestalt.

It's my best attempt so far for navigation through uncertainty, but comes with a heavy responsibility: It's important for me to remain sceptical or run the risk of mistaking a given present moment as 'sufficient proof' that a pattern is running, and thus to respond to the map in preference to the senses. My defence against irresponsibility is to try to enjoy that (pleasently or unpleasently) secure feeling of "Aha ... this fits with what I already know" but to use it as a wake-up call to insist that I remain curious in the now rather than complacent in my past.

I still go back to the house to check that I've locked the front door, even though I know that I did so. Good thing too, because I often find that what I know ... ain't so.

I don't pretend that I understand all fine posts in this forum. :D This sounds familiar though. I've usually detected this more in others, like my husband or my aunt, when I've had a different kind of recollection of some matter or situation. Nowadays I'm willing to admit that my memory may fail, instead of disputing, who is right and who is wrong.

There are always those, strong enough, to argue the past and history to how they perceived it, their memories become more valid. I often wonder, how history can be written at all.

How do you people take those colleagues or family members, who always rely on others knowing and remembering things?

Oh God...I am having a problem remembering what the thread subject is! Need to scroll back up...

PTSD hmmm...memories flowing in. I have many memories, that are so detailed it awakens every nerve in my body. But I have learned and evolved into the person I am because of those memories and was once told that the past is the past and the future is the future. The present is the present and that is where I am now. No one should have to suffer from a memory.

I don't know, Freetofly, could be the present is what makes us suffer from the past.

The pain I remember doesn't hurt anymore so why should it hurt the OP?

What hurts is forgetting the importance invested in what you thought, or maybe the thought that whatever you remembered was important.

Thinking your heartfelt was false really sucks.

Since I'm one of those who sometimes relies on others' memories, I can vouch that they handle it well. I have some medical issues (sleep apnea, for one) which impact my memory. We joke about it in our household. If I'm not home and receive an important receipt, I'll always say "Hey, I'm putting this over here" so that when I forget, they'll be able to remind me. They understand why I ask this of them and care enough to think it's no big deal. This is on short-term stuff.

As far as long-term, I rely on no one. Most people that I know from the past have some memory lapses as well, so we often try to piece together what really happened through exchange of mutual memories. It can actually be fun.

While I do have some minor concerns that the memory problem may worsen over time, a la Alzheimer's, those that love me have been instructed what needs to be done when it becomes serious enough to impact their lives, or when I'm unable to care for myself. I think that's what you're asking. I don't obsess over it and think I still have quite a few good years left.

Ourcrazymodern? I'm not understanding what you mean by false? Believe me getting past the memories wasn't easy at first, but something happened, I can't explain. I know today, I am in a good present. Positive energy....

It makes sense to not want to entirely forget, I reckon we never know which part of our experience-base might be 'the' crucial bit one day, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant. It also makes sense to not want to lose function by remaining immersed or constantly dragged back into the feelings or images of an era or event.

What I try is to add other stuff to what I want to forget or move beyond. I add stuff that I want to remember, stuff that is compelling and linked to my present values and desires for the future, such as Safety. For example, my traumatic memory "Arrrgh" of a dog which jumped me from the end of its lead as its owner and I passed each other on a narrow sidewalk, may become added to "Hey I'm looking after myself well at this moment," when, in future, I make sure the owner passes BETWEEN me and the dog whenever I'm on a narrow sidewalk. This may to generalize to future situations involving people with their pet panthers, monitor lizards or unruly children ... or with nasty looking heavy bags-on-wheels. Eventually, my picture and feelings of that dog-event become a highly significant, but very small part of a collage of related pictures containing positive events and possibilities. No longer ' in my face', it gains its true value in the tapestry of my life.

When I was in a horrid and wound-licking part of my life - divorced about 16 years ago, my friends were my safety net. Everything on my 'inside' was agony and my memory and thinking were fragmented. I did need others to 'do it for me'. Some friends could stand it, but some I lost. I subsequently had to develop a skill I'd never realized existed: HOW to look after my support group. How to be a good passenger when I need a ride, and how to help them to stay within THEIR safe limits even when they're in 'emergency alert' on my behalf.

I don't like it when someone stops a group conversation in it's tracks for fifteen minutes because they can't remember the name of a film they wish to use as an example to illustrate their point. However, if someone's relying on me for memory and knowledge, I'll always strive to find out what's going on with them ... cos, though I might feel a bit put-upon, I don't want to let someone fall if I'm a necessary crutch for them at that time.

If the memory problems can be explained with a disease, then it maybe would be easier to adapt to someone making the same questions again. I was thinking more about working environment with my question. My workmates are generally nice and do help, but when I have to ask for help, I usually make some notes to myself, so that I wouldn't have to bother them too soon again with the same question.

I have colleagues though, who ask someone else all the time rather than make notes or read manuals at first, or do any seeming effort to memorizing. They use another person as their constant source. I have a bosses, who have gotten used to their employees reminding them of nearly everything...

This I find annoying, especially if their "success" at work is based on using others and they get paid more for taking care of their part of the job.

But we have some sense of group support as well, if someone has encountered difficulties in life that will affect their working capacity, they are being looked after, so that they can get back to full strength at work again.

My memory is not good.

Wow - Uriah Heep actually showed up?

I bought tickets to their concerts twice; they canceled both times.

For your concert, though, I would've gone just to see McKendree Spring! . . . and Billy Preston.

Memory can be different for everyone - I still keep in touch with some long-time friends, and sometimes I'm amazed at the things they remember that I'd forgotten completely; at other times I remind them of things of which they have absolutely no memory. It works both ways.

Two lines jogged my memory:

"Grimly he shook off the confusion of his memories. They were too damaged to be useful." - Against All Things Ending, Stephen R. Donaldson.

Acknowledging forgetting might be a good thing.

I remember much of my past, but forget the recent happenings. May be my subconscious mind is dismissing the recent incidents as trivial.