Memories of the past: causes and ways to get rid of them

Memory according to Freud

He considered it the most important component of the human psyche, determining personality. He put forward a theory about three types of memory:

Conscious. Characterized by awareness of reality. That is, what is happening to a person at a given moment in time. This is a tactile sensation (a book in your hands), a visual perception (what color it is) or gurgling in your stomach, and so on. Consciousness, in this case, is determined by what is heard, seen and through feeling.
Preconscious. We are talking about memories that the individual is not aware of at the moment, but which, if desired, can be recalled and activated, for example, driving a car, dates of birthdays and anniversaries.
And unconscious. This memory is the most significant, it includes experiences and memories that are not consciously realized by the person, which sit deep in the memory, and access to them is limited. Freud believed that the unconscious bowl is filled with those images, pictures and feelings, that is, memories of the past that a person wants to forget.

Memories and the degree of their awareness determine a person’s personality.

What are false memories and why do they exist?

Research shows that memories can't always be trusted. After all, the processes of memorization may not reflect real reality, but distort it.

The influence of emotions on memory is sometimes so strong that it can modify the remembered information. Fantasies become part of reality, perceived as absolute reality.

Unfortunately, there is no method that helps accurately distinguish true memories from false ones, which means false ones take their place along with all memories.

What is a memory?

This is a reproduction (from English) of pictures of the past cut off in time and space from autobiographical (episodic) memory. It cannot be attributed to the entire past. This is just the sensory part of it: feelings and experiences. Experience, thoughts and assessments do not apply here.

Memories can be different: joyful and sad, bright and dark, good and evil. Of course, you want to return to sweet memorable events, because you can’t live in the past. Now we have a general idea of past memories. Memories of the future will become a further topic of conversation.

Psychology of hygge: do we need old things and memories?

Recently I had to clear out a basement that was filled from top to bottom with junk. It was left in this condition by the previous owners, and I urgently needed to make room for storing the bike. This task took me half a day, the pedometer showed that I walked about eight kilometers, making monotonous forced marches to the dumpster and back. In the evening I wrote a short, ironic note about crumbling ice skates from the sixties and dozens of jars of unidentified liquids. And this simple observation suddenly evoked a very emotional response from readers.

“How can you part with things if they are the material equivalent of memories? Memory needs a starting point, the joyful events that we experienced throughout life arise by themselves when you look at your grandmother’s porcelain figurine or at your broken fishing rod, which has been gathering dust in a dark corner for twenty years...” This was the reaction of most readers. The main emotion that was read in their comments was indignation and... fear of parting with objects that they had never even seen in their lives.

It turned out that many people cannot throw anything away because they are afraid of literally losing their own memory along with not very necessary things!

Let's try to figure out whether it is possible to preserve joyful memories without cluttering the space around you.

How memory works

A person has short-term and long-term memory. The first is needed in order to remember the code from SMS, enter it in the required field and forget it forever. Information from short-term memory can disappear without a trace if the brain deems it unimportant. Every day we forget dozens of names, faces and phrases. And if necessary, information is encoded in a certain way and goes into long-term memory to be retrieved when the need arises.

The essence of memory consists of three processes: encoding, storage and retrieval. Many people complain that at a young age, despite being in perfect health, memory problems suddenly arise. A typical story: a person heads to a certain room, intending to do something, and when he reaches his destination, he stops in confusion, trying to remember what he wanted. Or an important name of a medicine is on the tip of the tongue, and even the first letter of it is remembered, but one just can’t remember the whole word.

People often rush to see a neurologist with such a problem. Most often in vain: in most cases, the cause of such memory disorders is not a brain disease, but a violation of the natural process of encoding memories or retrieving them. When a person is distracted, the encoding of information is disrupted. The memory remains in short-term memory, and then is quickly erased without ever moving into long-term memory. The brain turns to information that should have been retained as important, but the memories are not.

Any external factors that distract your attention, be it a chatty fellow traveler on the bus or the sudden squeal of the brakes of a car near you, an intrusive advertisement on a TV that no one is watching, or the unexpected “insight” that you forgot to turn off the kettle - all of these can disrupt encoding memories. The last situation, with the teapot, by the way, is an example of a collision between the processes of encoding and retrieval. When the brain is busy extracting one event, moreover, an emotionally charged one (“It’s scary, what if all the water boils away and the kettle burns before I have time to get back?”), it cannot encode other information (for example, the name of a bus stop is not remembered, read in the navigator half a minute ago).

How does this work in life? To best remember a joyful event, it is better to put your smartphone aside, do not scatter your attention on thousands of details, and do not try to take selfies with everyone present at the event while simultaneously checking in on social networks. Being calm and attentive is the best way to form vivid and pleasant memories.

Vivid memories require emotions

Memory encoding, that is, “packaging” information into long-term brain storage, occurs more efficiently if the information is accompanied by some vivid emotions. Researchers say it's to blame for a tiny paired structure in the brain called the amygdala. In other words, if a person experiences fear or delight during learning, he will remember the events accompanying these experiences more vividly and accurately compared to a similar situation that did not cause emotions. However, one cannot vouch for the accuracy of memories: during retrieval, they are often distorted. This property of memory is perfectly shown in the TV series The Affair (USA, 2014), when the same events are told from the perspective of a woman and a man who are secret lovers; the viewer immediately understands how unreliable memory is, how dependent it is on emotions and not free from the interpretations of the narrator.

All emotionally charged events are well remembered. But not all are so easily reproduced. A person more easily recalls events from the area to which he pays the most attention and which he regularly engages in. Memory is not a cabinet with dusty books or even a computer with hundreds of thousands of files. Memory is a process. Electrical impulses travel along nerve fibers, and chemical interactions occur between the connections of nerve cell processes - synapses. The more often the signals “run” along the same “path,” the brighter the memories and the easier it is to “pull” out of storage a file that is similar in information content.

The most interesting thing is that the entire memory is not stored in any one area of the brain. The event is disassembled by the brain into components, reminiscent of Lego pieces, arranged by color in different containers. For example, an exciting and joyful wedding day will be retrieved from memory in the following way: different areas of the brain that are responsible for orientation in time and place, emotions and facial recognition will become active - and so, from different “Lego pieces”, a holistic memory will gradually be formed , a set of images that includes feelings of joy and impatience, a photo of a favorite quiet restaurant, the faces of loved ones, the smell of champagne, the feeling of the smoothness of a wedding ring...

How does this work in life? Emotions are normal. It is normal to feel joy or anger, confusion or fear, excitement or delight. Emotions make us living people and... create living memories.

Stress and memory flashes

Studies on rats have shown that if an animal experiences stress, a substance is released in its brain that makes the “test person” remember this negative experience in great detail and... remember the previous one, if there was one. A 2011 survey of Americans showed that 97% of adult respondents remember in detail where they were at the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks, as well as under what circumstances they learned about this terrible news.

Under extreme stress, glutamate is produced in the brain. This neurotransmitter causes the brain to literally “photograph” the traumatic event. Nature created this mechanism so that a person could use previous survival experience if he finds himself in such a traumatic situation. Alas, flashes of memory often become a manifestation of the disease, and not an adaptive mechanism. And they do not help a person improve his interaction with the world around him; on the contrary, they plunge him into depression and sometimes cause a complete loss of social connections.

How does this work in life? Unfortunately, daily stress cannot be avoided. However, you can make its consequences less destructive if you try not to get involved in a traumatic situation for a long time, and if possible avoid conflicts in which you have no leverage.

Memory can be a source of joy and inspiration. Memories of important life events can support you in difficult times. In order to preserve as many pleasant meetings, scenes from life, positive emotions and useful experiences as possible, it is not at all necessary to keep a warehouse of things dear to your heart in your house.

Sometimes one glance at your grown-up child’s old children’s toy is enough to bring to mind a funny and touching image of the baby, as well as your own feeling of youth and fullness of life. But the brain is also capable of retrieving important memories in response to visiting a memorable place, the smell of a certain dish, a favorite tune, or even an emotion. That is why you should not cherish memories dear to your heart by collecting an entire museum archive from unnecessary, dilapidated and broken objects. Memory is a delicate and sensitive instrument that does not require a file of faded magazines or an enamel bucket with a hole in the bottom.

It's about déjà vu

A mysterious and little-studied phenomenon, the occurrence of which intersects the present, past and future. A person gets the feeling that this has already happened to him once. For some reason, our consciousness travels to the future, remembers something there, as a result of which, before the onset of an event, there is confidence that we know what will happen, since we remember it from the past.

Every healthy person experiences it at least once in their life. What is this - a play of our imagination, fragments of memories, fragments of dreams, a mental disorder or evidence that we are not living our first life? Or is this a misinterpretation of the timing of the event? There are many questions, but there is no reasonable answer. What if there is no time, and we can remember the future as well as the past?

Childhood memories

Why do people often not remember their early childhood? This is due to the characteristics of memory. In the first year of life, a person usually briefly remembers visual images with which he is constantly in contact. However, for now they do not linger in the child’s consciousness. Already in the second year, memorization increases its span. The child can remember everything for a longer period of time.

Starting from the age of 3, the child remembers single events for many years, other information is remembered for approximately one year. Those situations that were emotionally charged are usually remembered for a long time.

Memories are fixed in memory from childhood, but a person does not have access to them. Memories become longer lasting and retrievable when:

The child begins to ask questions to which he tries to find answers from his past experiences.
The child begins to create certain chains between past events and present situations, phenomena, objects.

Already at preschool age, memorizing events becomes long-term, which is associated with learning, when the child must memorize. At the same time, the child’s life becomes less and less new; the baby is already faced with familiar situations. Repetition helps your baby remember.

A person’s past – when is it important and when is it unimportant? Remember all those discussions between friends and girlfriends when you discuss the topic of whether you should ask a person about his past. Some say that it is not necessary, others argue that it is necessary to ask a person about the past, they say, “at least you will know what he is capable of.” So, when is it important to know a person’s past, and when is it not important?

A person's past becomes unimportant only when what happened to him in the past does not happen now. For example, it no longer matters what grades a person received in school when he is now 30 years old. Knowledge about grades in school is just additional information, but it is not important because it does not play any role in a person’s real life.

A person's past becomes important only when what happened to him previously can happen now. For example, this concerns habits: a person quit smoking, but as soon as he gets into a stressful situation, he will smoke again. What happened in the past is happening or can happen now. This means that it is important to know, since this knowledge will not just be information, but also a warning bell.

Some say that the past is the past and does not need to be remembered. Others say that knowing about the past, one can predict a person's future. But only one thing is true: the past is important only when it can manifest itself in the present. But if the past truly cannot be repeated in the present, then it has no meaning.

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Let's continue talking about mysticism

Let's talk about memories, about past lives. There are many myths regarding this topic, but reincarnation has been proven by scientists.

“Science cannot provide absolutely reliable arguments against the idea of eternal recurrence.”

Albert Einstein's quote also confirms this. US medical doctor Ian Stevenson has devoted decades to studying past lives. He worked with children from Asia, who told him about memories, about the past. He checked the data that supported their story.

In Eastern culture there is no prohibition to talk about past lives; the idea that there is only one life is not promoted there. That's why they talk about it calmly. Another scientist, Michael Newton, proved the theory of past lives through hypnosis.

Is it possible to learn to see?

Definitely. Special techniques and training will help with this. Moreover, scientists claim that children under five years of age have this property; memories of past lives are not closed to them. Why do we need to know about them, you ask. It’s simple - they contain the key to the future, or rather, to understanding what is happening to you in the present. Thanks to this, it is easier and faster to understand yourself than through childhood memories and analysis of comparisons of situations within one current life. We remember only the accumulated experience that we received in past lives.

After all, you can see your talents and happy lives. Find out what you did well, what made you successful and famous, how you achieved your goals, by what means, what emotions you experienced. It is this state of internal upsurge of vitality that ensures success. It’s possible to “relive” all this again.

With the help of past lives, you can get answers to all the questions that concern you, understand why something doesn’t work out, and remove obstacles to achieving your goal. It is understanding and re-awareness of the problem that helps get rid of it.

Memories

MEMORIES - a narration about the phenomena of life (personal or public), which the author witnessed. Both in their relation to the events of real life, and in their connection with the personality of the author, the memoirs are close to the diary (see this word), although they differ from it in their chronological relationships with reality, since they relate to events of a more or less distant past.

However, this formal difference is connected both with the main task and with the material of presentation.

While a diary records all any significant impressions of existence, memories are more pragmatic: the results of events, the meaning of what is happening, lie for the author of the memories in the past (and not in the future, as for the author of the diary).

This feature is connected with the main task of memoirs: while there are many diaries written only “for oneself”, not intended for publication, memoirs, for the most part, are written for others (if not for the general readership, then for friends, descendants, etc.) .

That is why memoirs, in addition to being inferior to a diary in protocol accuracy, are often distinguished by tendentiousness of expression.

Carrying out, for the most part, a more distinct main idea than a diary, the memoirs, by their very construction, are more close to a work of art than a diary. At the same time, all the artistic possibilities realized in the diary are also available to memories (see the word “Diary”).

Memoirs destined for publication naturally undergo processing and can be considered as a literary work. These are, for example, the memoirs of A.F. Koni, collected in the book “On the Path of Life.” When they concern such persons as L.N. Tolstoy, V.O. Klyuchevsky, etc., they acquire a historical or journalistic character. The combination of the journalistic tendency with the fictional form is in “Tales of My Life” by Nikolai Morozov. But the literary task is only an incidental element here. At its core, however, it is primarily a historical document relating to an event or person.

In works like “The History of My Contemporary” by V. Korolenko, “Childhood” and “In People” by M. Gorky, this documentary nature takes on a broader meaning, covering not an individual person, not a separate event, not a separate phenomenon, but the entire past era , all the past; This sense of memories, given in the first person, is emphasized even in the very title of the book: “The History of My Contemporary.” And in the text he says that the romantic view of reality inherent in him in the past characterizes his entire generation.

But not only everyday life writers in the spirit of Gorky or Korolenko choose the form of memoirs. Russian symbolism of our time has given us excellent examples of memories in Blok’s poem “Retribution”, in A. Bely’s “First Date”, in his epic “I”. The rhythm of the era is their main content. This is especially felt in “Retribution”: “All these facts, seemingly so different, have the same musical meaning for me,” says Blok in the preface. Here the era becomes a poetic theme. Moreover, this main theme is closely connected even with the formal features of the work itself: with Alexander Blok’s iambic (in his own words, “the simplest expression of the rhythm of that time”), with the broken rhythms of Bely’s prose speech.

“Childhood, adolescence and youth” by L. Tolstoy is a new type of memoir. Here, with significant autobiography, the artist arranges the material in his own way, not only changing the names of the characters, but also shifting the mutual connection of events.

“Notes from the House of the Dead,” which are basically the memoirs of Dostoevsky himself, were inserted by him into the frame of a fictional plot and attributed to the exiled settler and home teacher Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov. The face of the author of the notes is thus hidden under a literary mask.

Finally, one of the most common literary forms is memoirs, which have fictitious documentation. This is, for example, “Netochka Nezvanova” by Dostoevsky. Fictitious memories, like a diary, give the author the opportunity to perform two parallel artistic tasks: to depict both the contents of the memories and the person to whom they belong. The artistic possibilities arising from this technique are as significant as they are in the literary form of the diary (see this word).

Valentina Dynnik.

Source: Dictionary of literary terms on Gufo.me

Meanings in other dictionaries

memories - see >> book Abramov's Dictionary of Synonyms
Memories - The general name for re-emerging ideas, thoughts, and feelings familiar from previous experience. Medical encyclopedia
memories - memories plural. 1. Notes or stories about your own or someone else’s life. 2. What is remembered is stored in memory. Explanatory Dictionary by Efremova
Memoirs - MEMORIES - see Memoir literature. Literary encyclopedia
Memoirs - A type of autobiographical literature; same as Memoirs. Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Memories - Reproduction in the mind of ideas, thoughts, feelings preserved in memory. Syn: reminiscence (lat. reminiscentia - memory). -... Explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms
memories - noun, number of synonyms: 7 recollection 5 notes 2 book 160 memoirs 4 memory 16 reminiscence 7 flashback 1 Russian synonym dictionary

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What are the causes of memories of the past?

A person quite often returns to the events that happened, thinks, immersing himself in them. Those, in turn, absorb. By obsessing over them, an individual causes harm to psychological and physical health. Here are the main situations that provoke this:

Death of a loved one or loved one.
Betrayal, separation from your beloved.
Unfulfillment in life, in particular, lack of demand in the profession.
Change of residence (different district, city, country).
Everyday monotonous life.

There are many reasons, but whatever they are, you cannot look back at the past, otherwise you will be doomed to constant failures.

There are some tips on how to deal with this

You can get rid of the memories of past years. Let's give some advice:

Analyze the past. It is necessary to forgive, admit the mistake and let go of the situation.
Extract errors.
Use meditation and positive affirmations.

It also happens that a person understands and tries to get rid of the memories of past years, but nothing works. Here the individual is either dishonest with himself, or there really is a deep-seated reason in the subconscious. Then it may be better to contact a professional psychologist.

Now, here are the statements of famous people

So, quotes about memories, about the past:

“Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be expelled” (J. Richter).
“The memories are so ridiculous. Some of them are quite vague, others are absolutely clear, others are too painful and you try not to think about them, and some are so painful that you will never forget them” (A. McPartlin).
“Getting rid of memories is like robbing yourself. Sometimes memories are all we have, and they taste sweeter than any fruit” (M. Brenton).
“The paths diverged, but the memories remain” (S. Yesenin).
“Memories are what make us grow old. The secret of eternal youth is the ability to forget” (Erich Maria Remarque).

There are so many sayings of famous people, and each definitely has its own truth, because it’s not for nothing that these phrases have become catchphrases. Memories of the past, in a word, are the key to the future. Of course, you can’t live by them, but you can and even need to use them as experience in order to avoid making mistakes.

How to get rid of torment?

The main thing is to understand that the past cannot be canceled and corrected, no matter what it was. Use it as resources or experience. For example, before an important negotiation, to cope with anxiety, remember the moments when you achieved success.

Use bad memories from the past as experience. When learning a lesson from them, remember only this so as not to repeat previous mistakes. Living in the present is worth living. It is at this moment that you can influence something and change the course of events. It is necessary to properly use and appreciate the past, because the future will depend on it.

Sins of our memory

Psychologists say: memories are changeable, over time they can be distorted or not,” Veronika Surkova, professor of psychology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, writes in her scientific works.

American psychologist Daniel Schecter 15 years ago, in an article with the loud title “Seven Sins of Memory,” described the claims accumulated in psychology regarding memory deficiencies. Let's list the main ones.

Photo: m24.ru/Yulia Ivanko

Firstly, people do not remember much that could be useful to them later and forget what they already know.
Secondly, they often cannot remember something necessary at the right moment, forget something unnecessary, or get rid of intrusive memories.
Thirdly, we forget the sources of information.
Fourthly, our memories are a fusion where the events of the past and what we think about these events now are mixed up.
Fifth, our memories are sketchy and scant in detail.

What to do to avoid living in the past?

Let's consider the algorithm of actions, so:

In the event of the loss of a loved one or separation, a person experiences deep depression and pain. Of course, you won’t be able to forget everything quickly, but you need to try to reduce this time. The main thing is to stop blaming yourself for this, figure it out, and evaluate it.
No matter how strange and stupid it may sound, take time to experience it. Let it be, for example, a week, two or three, a month. Spit out your emotions however you like, just without harming others, and then pull yourself together and let the situation go into the past.
You can mark this event with a tea party or a feast. The main thing is to decide for yourself that there is no more pain. You are starting a new life.
Don't go back to the past. As soon as it starts to tighten again, switch. Let's say, come up with your own fairy-tale world, town or village, where you will feel comfortable and calm, and return there.
Improve yourself. Keep yourself busy with a hobby or something you love. Go deeper into your profession, improve your skills.
Cheer yourself up. Remember yourself in your youth, when you were full of strength and confidence. Transfer that energy to the present, start new communication, get acquainted, enjoy life.

Concentrate exclusively on good memories, if you still can’t, focus on bright dreams. Of course, it is very difficult to learn to let go of the situation, forgive offenders and yourself, and not cling to the past. But you have to try. The past should serve only as an invaluable experience, and not become a source of troubles and bad mood.