[dentstudent (OP)]

I can remember back to when I was 2 or 3. At least I think I can. I "remember" very clearly painting in kindergarten and singing "Round and round the Mulberry bush" and so on. But are these my real memories, or could they be dreams that I am recalling as memories?

[Karen W.]

 Firstly kindergarten is generally 5 years old.. Is it different there? Secondly In my opinion and this is but a guess in my opinion,but they are more then likely memories unless you have some kind of photo that you have seen for many years and have been told that is what you did then. Otherwise I believe because you recall the voice and the song and a kinda of visualization then that would make it a memory. imprinted in your minds. Dreams can sometimes have lasting impacts in our minds especially when associated with trauma but for the most part others seem more inclined to fade away unlike memories of actions or things we actually experienced.. in my humble opinion! LOL

I bear the memories of very traumatic times and highly exciting times new things and old routines.. Dreams I only seem to remember if they were really bad or really disturbing in nature or just so weird that I dwell on it for sometime after..

[dentstudent (OP)]

"Play-School" as it was in the "old days" from the age of 3.
I'm wondering if we store dream memories in a different place on our brain to life-event memories, and can therefore make a distinction between them when we recall them. Of course, I've had traumatic dreams, but they are clearly unreal - I've not been scared to death by a talking carpet, or had fairies redecorate my hallway, or been in a flood where everyone over the age of 33 had to perish (all true dreams, I assure you). However, I've had dreams that seemed very real, and could in actuality occur - receiving tooth money and "feeling" the coins in my hands until I awoke. Therefore, there may be some memories which do seem to be life-events, but may be actually be recalled dreams.
My point is that I think I know which are which, but am I right?

[another_someone]

Memories are always artificial constructs based upon fragmentary recollections.

As any police officer will tell you, if 3 people observe the same road accident, from exactly the same vantage point, 2 hours later you will have 3 different, and totally incompatible stories of the event that took place.

We receive sensory stimuli, but then we try and make sense of that stimuli, and to make sense we have to draw conclusions from and inevitably incomplete set of facts.  Unfortunately (maybe not so) few people are able to distinguish the synthesised conclusions from the fragmentary raw sensory data - it is just one complete memory.

I say that this may not necessary be as unfortunate as all that because it is the process of being able to fill in the gaps with imagination that constitutes intelligence - we cannot function by memory alone, but have to find a way to make sense of that memory.

As memories fade, and the amount of sensory information we still retain from the event diminishes, so the constructed reality becomes the only thing we can recall.  In part, this must be necessary as the constructed memory is an attempt to reduce the complexity of the disparate sensory information, and so will use fewer memory resources than trying to store all the disparate sensory information.

The other issue is social conditioning and social conformance.  Part of our education is to learn from others how we should interpret sensory information, which means society teaches us how to create memories.  In the extreme case, you can hypnotise people into constructing memories for that which they have absolutely no sensory information; but even without full hypnosis, we are all suggestible to some degree or another.

This tendency to allow others to shape our memories is one of the reasons why witnesses to crime should not be allowed to discuss the matter with each other prior to being interviewed by the police.  It is bad enough that 3 witnesses to the same event will have 3 incompatible memories of the event, but it becomes even worse when they all share the same memory of the event.

[neilep]

Stuart...I'd be happy to receive your earliest memory here http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=2345.new#new

[dentstudent (OP)]

I'm not sure what you mean by "constructed reality". This makes it sound like a fabricated memory, and so may not be an actual one but some more easily stored version, which then may be readable as a the actual memory.

In thinking about recollection, it seems to me that visual memories appear as photographic stills yet audio memories can be streamed. I can see only a picture of Julian Lloyd Webber playing Elgar at the Barbican yet I can "hear" the music as it should be. I suspect the sources of this might be different, in that I'm not recalling the music from the actual situation, but a CD of the said concerto, but the point remains the same.

I'm not sure if I agree with your last paragraph, George, if only because I need further explanation. The social conditioning of interpretation of memories and therefore memory creation - I don't see how this is the case from dream memories. I can see this interpretation being correct for life-events, but a dream is usually something that is not shared and I think is stored differently - how does social conditioning interact with something that is entirely personal?

[another_someone]

I'm not sure what you mean by "constructed reality". This makes it sound like a fabricated memory, and so may not be an actual one but some more easily stored version, which then may be readable as a the actual memory.

In thinking about recollection, it seems to me that visual memories appear as photographic stills yet audio memories can be streamed. I can see only a picture of Julian Lloyd Webber playing Elgar at the Barbican yet I can "hear" the music as it should be. I suspect the sources of this might be different, in that I'm not recalling the music from the actual situation, but a CD of the said concerto, but the point remains the same.

I think the key phrase here is "appear as photographic stills".

Firstly, one does not "see" (in one's mind) images in two dimensions, but in three dimensions - this alone means that the brain has interpreted the two dimensional sensory information into three dimensions (even when one does not have full binocular vision, cues such as size and parallax will be used to generate three dimensional images - but you will never remember the two raw dimensional sensory information you used to create the three dimensional image).

Let me put forward another scenario (this may be more true for some people than for others, but it is true of everyone to some extent).  If you see a person for the first time (you are not concentrating on them, they are merely part of the scene you observe), and they have some blemish on the side of their face, but you do not notice the blemish, then your mind will interpolate the image as if it was a blemish free face, and you could swear blind that no blemish existed on the face.

I'm not sure if I agree with your last paragraph, George, if only because I need further explanation. The social conditioning of interpretation of memories and therefore memory creation - I don't see how this is the case from dream memories. I can see this interpretation being correct for life-events, but a dream is usually something that is not shared and I think is stored differently - how does social conditioning interact with something that is entirely personal?

I was not talking specifically about dream memories, but about memories in general.

The issues with dream memories are the same, but magnified, in that they have fewer reality checks (although the reality checks can often part of the distortions one has even with real memories).  In a sense, the lack of reality check is one way in which one tries to separate 'real' memories from dream memories (if they seem too unreal, they are assumed to be a dream.  The problem is that this line is not always clear, and depends upon one's own prejudices about reality.  For instance, one may have a dream recollection of an early traumatic experience, but it may only appear to be a dream because you cannot believe it did happen to you.  A psychologist may then help convince you that the dream was actually a 'real' memory - the problem is, there is no real way of knowing if the memory was actually 'real', or has been promoted from dream to reality merely by the suggestion of the psychologist (ofcourse, people like Eth will no doubt come in and say that modern psychologists are aware of these risks, and try to mitigate against them - hopefully he will be right, at least most of the time).

[dentstudent (OP)]

Let me put forward another scenario (this may be more true for some people than for others, but it is true of everyone to some extent).  If you see a person for the first time (you are not concentrating on them, they are merely part of the scene you observe), and they have some blemish on the side of their face, but you do not notice the blemish, then your mind will interpolate the image as if it was a blemish free face, and you could swear blind that no blemish existed on the face.

I partially agree. I think that you are correct in saying that someone will maintain that the face is blemish free, but I think that their subconscious does notice this, and this information can be accessed, for example through hypnosis.

I was not talking specifically about dream memories, but about memories in general.

The issues with dream memories are the same, but magnified, in that they have fewer reality checks (although the reality checks can often part of the distortions one has even with real memories).  In a sense, the lack of reality check is one way in which one tries to separate 'real' memories from dream memories (if they seem too unreal, they are assumed to be a dream.  The problem is that this line is not always clear, and depends upon one's own prejudices about reality.  For instance, one may have a dream recollection of an early traumatic experience, but it may only appear to be a dream because you cannot believe it did happen to you.  A psychologist may then help convince you that the dream was actually a 'real' memory - the problem is, there is no real way of knowing if the memory was actually 'real', or has been promoted from dream to reality merely by the suggestion of the psychologist (of course, people like Eth will no doubt come in and say that modern psychologists are aware of these risks, and try to mitigate against them - hopefully he will be right, at least most of the time).

This is clear to me from the point of view of the psyche hiding these traumata as dreams in a kind of denial. However, what about the rather more benign imagery? It would seem that if your memory is of, say going to buy an ice cream or some other rather more ordinary event (i.e. non-traumatic), that therefore this is much more likely to have been a “real” event and not a dream.

[another_someone]

I partially agree. I think that you are correct in saying that someone will maintain that the face is blemish free, but I think that their subconscious does notice this, and this information can be accessed, for example through hypnosis.

I am extremely wary of hypnosis - hypnosis (as I indicated above) can create as many artifices as it does create realities.  All hypnosis really is is giving absolute trust over to somebody else, and what they do with it (whether by malice or negligence) may not always be as you intended.

I suspect that some additional sensory memory is stored (in your terms, in your subconscious), but only for a short while (and by no means incomplete).  If some other 'reality check' causes you to question whether the face could really have been blemish free (that 'reality check' could be simply a hypnotist telling you it could not have been so), then it may cause you to reappraise your sensory information.  On the other hand, if that sensory memory is not accessed for some considerable time, I think it will generally atrophy, like a muscle that has not been used.  It is expensive to store memories that are not accessed, and my view is that the brain needs to garbage collect unused space for future memories.

The trouble is that if the 'reality check' later tells you that the face could not be blemish free, the brain can as easily interpolate fabricated sensory information in order to satisfy the 'reality check' (and this is my concern over memories recalled under hypnosis).

This is clear to me from the point of view of the psyche hiding these traumata as dreams in a kind of denial. However, what about the rather more benign imagery? It would seem that if your memory is of, say going to buy an ice cream or some other rather more ordinary event (i.e. non-traumatic), that therefore this is much more likely to have been a “real” event and not a dream.

Clearly, for you to have a memory of something (even of a believed traumatic event), you must have some sensory support of it, but the actual reality may juxtapose sensory information from different times and with different meanings.

In other words, if you remember going to buy an ice cream, then clearly there must be some 'real' memory of what an ice cream is, and how you go about buying it; but you may well remember going to buy an ice cream on your 5th birthday, when in fact it was your 6th birthday you bought an ice cream, and it was not the flavour that your memory told you it was.  All the memories are real, but they did not happen at the time, and in the sequence, or even in the contexts, that you remember them as.

Ofcourse, exceptional events, particularly traumatic events, are particularly difficult (I don't agree that it is so much a matter of denial, in the sense that one does not wish to remember; but rather that one is unable to fully make sense of the memories because they violate all of one's norms); but all memories are forced into some sort of normalisation in one way or another.

[dentstudent (OP)]

I only quote hypnosis, as I have no real idea about other methods of recall extraction (cue Eth). I'm sure there are plenty, and which are perhaps less externally suggestable.

I agree that the use of a memory retains it, or rather the lack of use tends to remove it, unless stimulated by some other sensory activation - often for example by an olfactory stimulus. I did however hear recently that you don't actually forget anything at all. What you merely lose is the ability to recall it. If you could retrain yourself or be in that situation again, you (might) be able to re-establish the link.

Also, much memory is point-referenced, so there is a time association with it. I agree however that these associations may become somewhat indistinct in latter life, but at least we know this way that they are real memories, and not dreams. My memory of picking bluebells with my Dad before seeing my Mum in hospital when she had my sister can only be from this time. I know this to be an actual memory as it was only discussed for a first time rather recently, and without prior knowledge.

[another_someone]

I totally reject the notion that the brain can store every memory it has ever had.  I can see no way in which this either could, or need, be so.  What is the value of a memory one does not use (from an evolutionary perspective)?

I do agree that we can have snippets of very old memories, although I would doubt that they are raw sensory memories.

You say that you remember picking bluebells with your dad, but what is it you remember.  You have told me a remembered fact, and that you remember that as a fact is one thing.  What I would question is that the sensory information you remember of that occasion (as distinct from the summary fact) is anything like complete.  I suspect that you remember the fact, maybe have a few fragments of sensory information, and backfilled most of the rest of the sensory information with similar memories from future dates, but memories that make sense with the facts you know of the time.

How much of the conversation (word by word) can you remember of that time?  Can you remember how high the sun was in the sky?  Can you even remember the colour of shirt your dad was wearing on that day (possibly you can, but if so, I am sure that as I add more and more such questions, there will be more and more gaps in your knowledge, or sensory information that has been backfilled into the memory)?

[dentstudent (OP)]

You say that you remember picking bluebells with your dad, but what is it you remember.  You have told me a remembered fact, and that you remember that as a fact is one thing.  What I would question is that the sensory information you remember of that occasion (as distinct from the summary fact) is anything like complete.  I suspect that you remember the fact, maybe have a few fragments of sensory information, and backfilled most of the rest of the sensory information with similar memories from future dates, but memories that make sense with the facts you know of the time.

How much of the conversation (word by word) can you remember of that time?  Can you remember how high the sun was in the sky?  Can you even remember the colour of shirt your dad was wearing on that day (possibly you can, but if so, I am sure that as I add more and more such questions, there will be more and more gaps in your knowledge, or sensory information that has been backfilled into the memory)?

This takes me back to my earlier point, that the memory is more of a photographic still, and not a film. I've no answer to any of your questions, but this doesn't surprise or worry me! But then, even my memory of washing this morning is a still picture. Why should one be more true just because there's 34 years diffrence?

[another_someone]

This takes me back to my earlier point, that the memory is more of a photographic still, and not a film. I've no answer to any of your questions, but this doesn't surprise or worry me! But then, even my memory of washing this morning is a still picture. Why should one be more true just because there's 34 years diffrence?

Yet you told me what you were doing (a movie), not what the image was that you had in your mind.

A still picture does not have a context, and can have many meanings.  The meanings come only with the context (assumed or remembered).

What is the picture you remember then?

One other thing - most memories (including the one you quote0 say "I was doing this" or "I was doing that", but a real image (unless it includes a mirror) can never include an "I"; the "I" is a context (a sensory free fact) that you remember with the image.

[Heronumber0]

I wonder if I can extend this discussion into a slight tangent please? Are memories stored in several areas of the brain and then 'pulled together' e.g. a bit of sensory input added to a conscious event?

And, are people like schizophrenics in a living dream?

I  am sure that there nust be information on this from PET or other scans.

[another_someone]

I wonder if I can extend this discussion into a slight tangent please? Are memories stored in several areas of the brain and then 'pulled together' e.g. a bit of sensory input added to a conscious event?

And, are people like schizophrenics in a living dream?

I  am sure that there nust be information on this from PET or other scans.

The first part, that memories are fragmented around the brain, I think must be inevitable.  We process different stimuli in different regions of the brain, so at very least the recall of the stimuli must be from different regions.  The integration of those stimuli into scenarios may well be in a region of its own.

I am not quite sure what you mean by the second half of the question - what is it about schizophrenia that you think is dreamlike?  Are you talking about hallucinations (which are not unique to schizophrenia, and probably only apply to a small minority of schizophrenics)?

[dentstudent (OP)]

Yet you told me what you were doing (a movie), not what the image was that you had in your mind.

I was describing what the event was, not describing a sequence as in a movie. When you look at a photo, you say “ah, this is me when I was at the sea when we visited my aging aunt Mathilda who lived in a small hut made of earth and wood” not “Ah this is me standing by the sea” because that’s obvious from the photo. It’s impossible to relate a moment in time without some descriptors of this type and so the description of an event to any 3rd person will inevitably sound is if it is a movie.
I would also add that there could be a sequence of stills, so when I was bitten by a dog, I remember going into the hallway, going to pet the dog, then the dog biting my finger as 3 separate images, but which relate a textual “movie”.

[another_someone]

I was describing what the event was, not describing a sequence as in a movie. When you look at a photo, you say “ah, this is me when I was at the sea when we visited my aging aunt Mathilda who lived in a small hut made of earth and wood” not “Ah this is me standing by the sea” because that’s obvious from the photo. It’s impossible to relate a moment in time without some descriptors of this type and so the description of an event to any 3rd person will inevitably sound is if it is a movie.
I would also add that there could be a sequence of stills, so when I was bitten by a dog, I remember going into the hallway, going to pet the dog, then the dog biting my finger as 3 separate images, but which relate a textual “movie”.

Agreed - but the point I was making is that the memory of the description is a different matter from the memory of the image (even if you may associate the two).

More to the point, unless you are someone very exceptional, I would dispute that you have an accurate and complete memory of the image, but even there you recall fragmentary details of the image, and reconstruct the totality image in your mind from a recollection of the description of the event.

So you remember the dog biting your finger - what colour was the collar on the dog?

[dentstudent (OP)]

It was one of those brown leather ones that darken as it gets older. The dog was a King Charles Spaniel called (oddly, this is the bit I can't remember) (yet), and it had cataracts in both eyes. It bit me on the index finger of my right hand down to the knuckle, and I was the only one who said the damn thing shouldn't be put down.....It was in (about!) 1992.......

[dentstudent (OP)]

But then of course, you only have my word for this!

[another_someone]

It was one of those brown leather ones that darken as it gets older. The dog was a King Charles Spaniel called (oddly, this is the bit I can't remember) (yet), and it had cataracts in both eyes. It bit me on the index finger of my right hand down to the knuckle, and I was the only one who said the damn thing shouldn't be put down.....It was in (about!) 1992.......

I am not so concerned about a lack of corroborating evidence, but it does seem from your description that this was a dog that you knew fairly well, and so there is nothing you have described in the incident (aside from the fact of the bite itself) that was unique to that moment in time (i.e. the collar you describe is, I suppose, a collar you had seen many times, and so the memory of the colour could have come from any of those times, and not uniquely from that image).

I suppose what I am looking for is some part of that image that could only have been within that image (i.e. it was not a repeat of something you had seen many times, either before of after), and was periphery to the main emotional content of that moment (remembering the bite is easy because there is strong emotional reinforcement of that mement, but it is the matters at that time that had no emotional meaning to you, yet are also not reinforced by memories later or earlier, that I am interested in).