What I hear a lot from my clients is that they’re worried they won’t remember enough about their life to write their autobiographies. However, while it’s impossible to remember every last detail with the same clarity, it’s surprising how much is stored in the mind, ready to be unveiled. To understand more, it helps to delve into the science behind memory-making.
The Different Types of Memory
Our memories are made up of lots of different types of recollections that are used in many different combinations. The key types of memory are:
- Short-Term Memory – while you might think that this refers to recent events, short-term memory is actually extremely short; we’re talking between 15 and 30 seconds. Anything that lasts longer is actually long-term memory. Short-term memory simply holds the information we’re currently working with and is activated by patterns of neuronal activity at the front of the brain.
- Long-Term Memory – unlike their fleeting counterparts, long-term memories are stored in a physical location in the brain and aren’t purely dependent on patterns of activity. While neurons still make connections when a memory is formed, these connections remain when not in use.
How Memories Are Stored
The first step towards forming new memories is for information to be coded in our brains. The hippocampus, the crucial region in the brain for memory making, links all relevant information and codes it by creating new synapses. However, the hippocampus shows bias towards things that have been used repeatedly in short-term memory or memories with a strong emotional element.
Once memories have been coded, they need somewhere to live. While they’ll remain in the hippocampus for a while, eventually, they’ll move further into the cortex. You can think of your brain like the internet, with information spread across it and linked together by multiple connections, those synapses. Or if you’ve seen the animated kids film, Inside Out, you can think of rows and rows of colour-coded balls. You’ll find similar memories together, such as spoken memories or visual memories. And, just to confuse things further, memories aren’t static; the more they’re activated and used, the more they’re changed and updated.
Recalling Long-Forgotten Memories
So, as we’ve learnt, our memories don’t disappear as such; they’re all in our brains somewhere, stored in the depths of that huge interconnected web of information. The difficulty, in fact, is working out how to access them.
The more we use our memories, the easier they will be to recall. But, if you haven’t thought of something for a long time, there are also things you can do to help. Being in the presence of something related to the original memory can help. If you remember that something significant happened to you while you were in a particular place or doing something in particular, try to go there or do the same thing, you might just find it makes it easier for you to recall what it was. And you don’t always have to go anywhere. Pulling out old photographs, documents and treasured items can spark memories, and those memories can spark other memories.
The fact is that every person I’ve spoken to who has been worried about their memory has been surprised at how much has come back to them while writing their life story. The very act of talking about your past will cause your brain to serve up long-forgotten information. All the memories are in there; it’s just a case of letting them rise to the surface.