Memory

It amazes me how often I think I know where I'm going with posts and then as I'm searching for an image to help convey my thoughts I discover what I'm looking for plus even more, adding a new twist to my thoughts. 

I have a very small amount of knowledge on memory but if you'll accept that I have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd like to share a few thoughts based off of a slightly twisted interpretation of the image above.

Operates over a few seconds:

Our mind is constantly pulling in sensory information-- 5 senses.. sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches. These bits of information require very little thought and flash through our mind unbelievably fast as we draw in our surroundings. Many times a day there are things that catch our attention and will remain in our memory for a period of seconds rather that milliseconds. These temporary pauses in our memories are relatively unimportant things whether they be an attractive person we saw, a really delicious tasting bite of ice cream, or a funny joke we heard. They are of enough interest for us to pause for a few seconds and take time to highlight them among the thousand other intakes of information during those five seconds. Interesting, with a bias displaying a hint of our personalities, but temporary none the less.

Temporary storage:

I like to think of this type of memory as a stashing memory-- a box where you deposit odd bits of information. Educational facts, who is dating whom, and one that I find frequently intriguing: first memories of someone else. These are usually all memories that will be erased over time unless they get bumped up a level. One of my absolute favorite questions to ask others is what their first memory of me was. At what point did I become an individual instead of a figure in the crowd? I've gotten all kinds of answers from being the girl who yelled at a Sunday School class to shut up to being someone's date at a party. Sometimes you simply don't remember any significant time that a person first made an impression on you or sometimes, it's just a temporary memory that has already slipped away.

Manipulates information:

Isn't it interesting that our minds can change their input, no matter how solid? My mind has taught me a lesson or two on how wonderful it is at manipulating information. In fact, it is something I've spent a lot of time in my life working to improve. I'll explain in a sec how improvement on this subject would be desirable. Some prominent examples of minds manipulating information are questioning spiritual witnesses, analyzing someone's attraction for you, and maybe something as simple as replacing the lyrics to a song. I'm particularly good at accidentally singing lyrics to songs that are way off base. The reason I have worked to improve my mind's ability to manipulate information is for a refuge. Two examples: I went spelunking a few months back and realized it really scares me to be trapped in a small space to the point where I had to often remind myself that there was still plenty of air to breathe. By manipulating information and my thoughts to make myself believe I was fine, I was able to continue through the tight places and have a rockin' awesome day. I'm that same way with relationships, I'm really good at blocking people out of my life or out of my mind mentally as a refuge for one reason or another. It is necessary that our mind has the ability to manipulate information in order that it can fill the gaps and troubles we can't realistically solve.

Focuses attention:

I think this section of our memory stems in some part from the "operates over a few seconds" and "temporary storage" sections but on a much more important level. The things that we focus our attention on-- really focus-- are very indicative of who we are and what we care about. During those extreme moments of joy and pain, who is it that we want at our side and who do we ourselves want to be? Usually the things we really focus our attention on are the answers to those questions. Our minds hold important memories for the times in our lives that we are in dire need of them. For the past several months until recently I had this quote written on the mirror in my room:
"Memories are June roses in the December of our lives."
How beautiful is it that when we lose ourselves and our dreams that we have beautiful roses our memory has stored? And not just for the bad moments-- they're for the good too. We focus our attention and save those things that are most important to be joys we can to return to.

I think it is amazing the many ways our minds and memories work.. the things they focus on.. the way they heal and provide..

Beautiful.