When we remember, what is it that we’re remembering? Do we try to recapture the appearance of a moment, like a photograph or a postcard that shows us a perfect still image of a point in time? Do we try to incorporate motion, a movie reel that we can fast-forward, pause, and rewind at will? Do we concentrate on the feeling and the emotion and let the more visual detail fade back into a secondary background? And whatever we do, how do we get there? Do we rely on a word, a phrase, a sound, a smell, an object? Or do we just say, now is the time to remember, and leave it at that?

Each memory is different

This was a weekend that was filled with memories, and I suspect that for no two people was the process of recollection, the experience of remembering the same. Nor, I think, were the memories that came forward, even for individuals who had been side by side. Because if we’ve learned anything over decades of research into the properties of memory, it’s this: memories are idiosyncratic, they change, and the way we stored them to begin with will affect the way we will remember them later on.

It’s comforting to think that our brain functions much like a camera: we see something, we take a picture, we develop it somewhere in the crevices of our mind, and we can take it out again whenever we want. Or, we can even press the video function and record however many minutes of action we see fit, and then store the media to peruse at a future time. And indeed, for a very, very select few individuals, that seems to be exactly how it works. These people are the super-remembers, who have a condition known as hyperthymesia, an ability to recall the most minute details from any day, on demand. But to date, only six people with the condition have been confirmed. For the rest of us, the picture is quite different.

Memory is like a journal: selective, incomplete, and subject to interpretation

I like to think of it as the analogy between a camera and a journal. Imagine you are walking along when you see something that captures your attention. It can be an object. It can be a person. It can be a scene. An expression on someone’s face. It can be anything at all, so long as you decide it is worthy of note and significant enough for you to want to remember it for the future. You reach for your camera, only to realize you don’t have one with you (and you’ve left your phone at home, too, so no built-in camera is handy). But you do have a pen and paper. So, you decide to write down what you’re seeing so that you’ll remember it for later, maybe to share with someone else, maybe for your own personal benefit.