Can you trust your own memories?
Whenever someone asked me, “Hey, do you remember this?” my answer was usually “no”. I have a very blurry memory of many things. And memories are the foundation of human thought, right?
We use memory to establish who we are, even though it is not necessarily reliable. Our brain always tries to connect things we see or hear with memories of the past. But can I be certain that what I remember actually happened the way I remember it? Essentially, a part of who I am today is because of my experiences and memories. Most of the time, I can’t trust my own memories. Can you?
I have a strange relationship with my memories. I dream vividly enough that later I get confused about whether something happened in waking life or in a dream. I also have this habit of visualising while people talk to me. Someone tells me a story, and I create a scene and, years later, that imagined scene tangles with my actual memories.
So some memories I trust and some I don’t. I trust the ones with situational proofs. And as I get older, I have stopped treating my memories like evidence in a courtroom. I don’t want to ever say things like “no, I said it” or “no, I didn’t say it” or like “it happened” or “it didn’t happen” or “I was there” or “I was not there”.
I don’t argue because I know about false memories. I have read about it. I have experienced it. Sure, talking about good memories from the past, whether it is accurate or not, no harm... all smiles and emotions... but talking about bad memories... it may harm us or others.
False memories are not necessarily lies. I can have false memories, and you can too, and I don’t want to argue with someone over whose memory of an event is the correct one when neither of us has the full picture. It is bad. Trust me, don’t do that.
I talked about my childhood memory with my dad at his clinic in the previous post, Between what I saw and what I thought… I had said that I remember being bored at his clinic. But what if I wasn’t? What if I was simply impatient? Or was I in a hurry because I was worried my mom was alone, or because I probably missed her? It is possible, knowing me, but how certain can I be? I can’t, right? But does it matter today?
Memory can be inaccurate and still be meaningful.
That reminds me of a theory I learned called Fuzzy—Trace Theory. It is about how people process information, form memories, and make decisions based on verbatim traces and gist traces. To put it simply, Verbatim means exact/specific, and gist means the essence of or bottom line of what happened.
So, for instance, in an argument where some of our emotions are heightened, such as anger, confusion, or sadness, I don’t think it's possible to remember every word said. And we think some words affect us deeply, such as direct insults using horrible words, words about our bodies or minds, or attacks on our character, stay in our brains forever. But it can fade, too. Memory decay is real.
Somewhere I read that one of our brain’s priorities is to keep us safe and alive no matter what. It can be through manipulation, through making us panic or worry too much, or by making us overthink. And my brain seems to have taken the job description extremely seriously. Haha.. It is doing overtime.
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With my childhood memories being blurry, along with my vivid dreams and other things.. I am not fully certain of my memories. I believe in my memories until I don’t, and I try not to let it bother me. What matters to me is what the memories I hold make me feel.
Science says that I can alter my own memories without realising it; it also says that others can alter my memories too, intentionally or otherwise.
Dr Elizabeth Loftus, a research psychologist, said, “Our memories are constructive. They’re reconstructive. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page. You can go in there and change it, but so can other people...” That’s the scary part. Because memory is not just simply memory. Not something happened and something stored. It’s the very source of our identity. If memories shape who we are, and if people can change memories and false memories are natural, what does it mean?
It reminds me of an episode from my most favourite series, Modern Family (refer to the video above from 1:22), where Cam’s sister reminds him of when his father left the home for a year with another lady with whom he had an affair, but Cam remembers that part as his dad went to war until his sister said: “It's 1977, Cam, what war?” Did he really not know? Or was his memory blurry? Or was it fabricated? Later in the episode, he shows his devastation, anger, and sadness, but he understands that whatever experiences he had shaped who he is.
If memories of our experiences help construct our identity, what happens when some of those memories aren’t accurate? But does it matter?
I repeat…
Memory can be inaccurate and still be meaningful.
How did I stop arguing about something that happened to me years, months, or days ago?
I accepted that memory can be imperfect. It can be fabricated and manipulated by us and others. I sometimes say this when I talk about the death of my pets. I still remember how it felt. Do I still remember, or do I still feel it when I think about them?
I would recommend everyone write things down. Writing with honesty is one way to preserve our experience. It is not impossible, but I know it is not always possible, too. Or better yet, don’t treat memory as unquestionable evidence.
Life is mostly like a game except that we don’t have the option to save in slots.
Can I trust my memories? Not completely. Perhaps trust isn’t the right question.
And I still want to make new memories.
