The Strange Nature of Memory: Personal Experience and Reflections

Our lives are strange. Why? Because our lives are made up of memories. Memory is a strange thing. To start, my memories of my grandma are vague. When i think of my grandma in my brain i see a picture of a strict and extremely stern granny. I remember the many different times she had scolded me with harsh words. Once she even threatened to chuck my nintendo ds in the bin if I did not stop talking.

However, if you ask my sister or cousins about their memories of our grandma, you would definitely receive 7 completely different answers. I asked my sister about her memories with my grandma. My sister remembers my grandma as someone extremely caring and respectable. Her memories of our grandma exist from all the life lessons which she was taught throughout her childhood. In her memory, she was incredibly wise and was always sharing her kind words of wisdom to both me and her. Sadly, i don’t remember.

Although we both grew up with the same grandma, in the same environment and shared the same moments, our memories of her are completely different. One is sure that she was stern and strict. However, another is certain that she was nice and caring. Why? And who is correct? In fact, neither of us are wrong and we are probably both correct. Although I was scared of her and she was strict, my grandma probably was also extremely caring and thoughtful. The reason I don't remember that nice side of her was because I probably chose not to remember it. I was too absorbed in my emotions of anger and hurt to put the things she said to me when she raised her voice, into my memory. I don't remember the annoyed words she said to me, which was probably all wise words out of care, love and worry for me. All I chose to remember was that she raised her voice at me many times and made me cry many times. For this, in my memory she is a strict and scary person. In a way, this sounds better for me. I sound like the victim and the innocent one. The parts where i misbehaved and the thoughts of me actually being an extremely mischevious little child are ignored.

The strange and weird thing about memory is that;we all rely on our memory to remember the past and we like to believe that our memories are flawless. However, our memory is rarely an accurate portrayal of what really happened at any given time. In reality, people’s memories are clouded by emotions and we choose what we want to remember. In many ways, our memories don’t have an objective reality. Each time we recall a memory, we change it subtly, altering the small details into something that sounds better for us. And we do so unknowingly. Our brain is simply continually working as a storyteller, by reconstructing events to support our views, so that they fit with what makes sense to us at the time.