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The problem is that we don’t get to decide what to purge. Hence, remembering trivial, long-buried stuff when something triggers the brain to retrieve it.
Ha ha ha yeah how come my brain periodically brings up idiotic jingles for stores that went bankrupt 50 years ago?
Why can I recall most of the stores in the mall I went to in the 1960s, but I can't recall if one of the stores I go to here is called Fresh Market or Farm Fresh
I don't know. Every once in a while I think of a situation or person I haven't thought of in 30-40 years. My brain isn't doing a very good job of purging. That memory was tucked away somewhere for a very long time and then popped up. What's going on with that?
This happens to me (I am eighty-one), and I just consider it on the level of entertainment. I take a look, I enjoy or am at least curious, and then NOW reasserts itself and that little memory bubble vanishes.
I used to have the idea that a person's life was supposed to be a rational story, a looser version of a formal written biography. I dropped that idea several decades ago when I realized that my own life, at least, seemed more episodic, like loosely connected short stories perhaps. I also saw that within any of these past periods it was largely just a few big hunks of factual or emotional memory that remained; but I was aware too that I was not particularly bothered by this lack of detailed memory or instant recall.
I have a friend who works as a clinical psychologist, most of his patients have been described as "psychotic." And we have had several interesting discussions about memory and the sense self.
At this point I have forgotten the great mass of my life as far as being able to recall it on a normal daily basis, given a special occasion/need I can haul up a bit more. But I think what is at the bottom is that I do not care about the past in the sense of its having great emotional meaning for me now.
I could tell someone about particular past events which were horrendously painful at the time, but they are now just stories.
Perhaps one aspect about "forgetfulness" is the question of whether I/a person simply can't be bothered with remembering.
Galen Strawson has written several interesting books which deal with sense of self and memory.
I have never had a very good memory except for trivia. I always say my ability to remember things is inversely proportionate on how useful the information is. The more useless and obscure it is, my mind is a steel trap. The up side is; I don’t dwell on the past, I am a pretty happy person and I don’t hold grudges.
I still remember a lot of stuff that my family as a whole don’t, some stuff are completely useless. Except, I do have some memory purge because I can’t recall a certain celebrity name, maybe I don’t follow them as closely, I don’t read a lot of magazines like I used to.
Ironically, one of the trademarks of advanced dementia is that folks tend to remember things that happened fifty years ago - like they were yesterday, yet, forget what happened yesterday.
What's funny is when you forget something, and the fact that you can't remember something gets under your skin. So just because it annoys you, you waste a few hours racking your brain to remember it.
Then you suddenly remember it--and when you do you realize it was a stupid thing to remember, anyway.
Senior moments? Hate to be Debbie Downer but the article also stated: This doesn’t excuse major memory mishaps. It’s a problem to draw a mental blank when making a presentation, forget to pick up a co-worker you promised a ride or offend a client by spacing out on a critical rule of etiquette. And of course, purposeful forgetting doesn’t include the kind of extensive memory loss that comes with dementia or similar health problems.
I have always had a great memory for trivial facts (no one will play against me in Trivial Pursuit anymore), and can even remember entire conversations from long ago, or at least the parts that really made an impression because of what was said. I'm the one everyone asks when they want to know something. I probably should have been named Alexa.
Okay, so all that being said, now I have started to look back on my life once in a while and realize that the crystal clear memories are interspersed with periods of months that I have no recollection of. I can remember the parts that were unique, and that stand out for some significant reason, but the mundane in between times have started to blur. It's sort of scary. I think that I've just accumulated too many memories and my brain is starting to thin them out. I hope it only deletes stuff that I don't need to know!
Having been through the dementia thing with my MIL, I know the warning signs and will be quick to jump on them if I or DH start to exhibit them. Supposedly there are meds that will slow down the process. We've got a long time before that kicks in I hope.
What's funny is when you forget something, and the fact that you can't remember something gets under your skin. So just because it annoys you, you waste a few hours racking your brain to remember it.
Then you suddenly remember it--and when you do you realize it was a stupid thing to remember, anyway.
And WHY do we say "It started with a D..." We can remember the first letter but nothing else?
What's up with that?
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