Remembering things....

Is it the feeling you can remember or the actual memory? Feelings can get stored away, to be rekindled by certain stimuli. This is why a sight or a sound, or smell can produce a whoosh of memory. However, often the memories we hold are often not that accurate. We remember things that haven't happened, we remember things we've been told about but that we wouldn't be able to truly remember because we were too little at the time. Ask any family member to recall an incident, or to state where we bought an item, and discrepancies often occur. Time fades memories, especially if they don't have a strong emotion attached to them. If you were around on the day that Princess Diana died in 1997, or the day that the Twin Towers were brought down, chances are you will have a strong memory of what you were doing on that day. Even though much time has passed. Can you remember what you were doing the following week? or the day before the event. Chances are you probably can't. That's due to the lack of emotion. On an ordinary day, where you're simply milling about minding your own daily business, you're not likely to store the memory, because other wise you would fill your brains available RAM with useless rubbish. But when emotions get involved, it adds a depth, that make it more likely for you to remember.  

It is also likely that you remember things from a biased point of view. Often its easier to remember what the other person did to you, without remembering any of your own contribution to the issue. This is partly because you like to paint yourself into a role of the 'good' person, that perhaps bad things have happened to, no one wants to admit that actually they too are partly to blame. Therefore we often end up with an unbalanced view with us firmly placed in the role of the victim, but is this really the case?