Thread: Memory Memory Memory

Memory is fundamentally reconstructive. A profusion of research in Psychology has shown that human memory is susceptible to interference, and tends to not encode data verbatim. Our expectations and preconceptions heavily influence what we recall, and how we recall it. No one can verify our dream memory but ourselves, and this is contingent upon itself; essentially, we are forced to believe that the memories of previous events are entirely accurate and valid.

So it begs the question: How do we know whether what we recall is what actually happened? It could be that we wake up with a rudimentary outline of last night's dream, and then inadvertently invent the details to 'complete the picture'.

Do we contrive most of last night's dream in the morning?

Hmm, that is interesting. There have been times that I have not seen a movie in years, and then when I rewatch it, certain details are not as I remember them. I'm sure the same can go for dreams. I think that the sooner they are written down, the "closer" they are to what really happened. That's a problem with my dream journal, though. I usually can't remember enough of a dream to form a cohesive whole, so I don't write any of it down.

Because I know I am doing it as I am doing it, since I am lucid rather than unconsciously dreaming?

Of course I could say that about RL and be wrong. I may not even be typing on a keyboard right now. Maybe I'm locked up in the looney bin.

I understand your argument, but it's not entirely true. I mean, sure we fill in the gaps and details a little bit by our own emotions, but it's not like we're totally reconstructing the main basis of our actual experience. I don't believe that those minor details really warp our own idea of what happened so much that we can't even trust our own memory of what happened. If that were true, that people couldn't trust their memories of past experiences, then we would live in a really weird state of mind. Everything that we know could be a lie.

Originally Posted by Shift

Because I know I am doing it as I am doing it, since I am lucid rather than unconsciously dreaming?

Of course I could say that about RL and be wrong. I may not even be typing on a keyboard right now. Maybe I'm locked up in the looney bin.

I'm questioning the validity of recall for unconscious dreams.

Originally Posted by Silox

I understand your argument, but it's not entirely true. I mean, sure we fill in the gaps and details a little bit by our own emotions, but it's not like we're totally reconstructing the main basis of our actual experience. I don't believe that those minor details really warp our own idea of what happened so much that we can't even trust our own memory of what happened. If that were true, that people couldn't trust their memories of past experiences, then we would live in a really weird state of mind. Everything that we know could be a lie.

Not lucid dreams, for they resemble real life. In waking life we are usually conscious of our actions, and furthermore, our memories are formed on the spot. However, standard unconscious dream recall involves a reconstruction of a previous event that we, ourselves, can't remember attending.

Hmm, this is difficult to explain. As an analogy: imagine that you have consumed enough alcohol to induce a paralytic state. In the morning you can only remember particular fragments of last night's event. With these fragments, you tend to construct a picture that makes sense, logically. This final picture, however, may be hugely inaccurate...as you come to find when your friends have photo evidence of you dressed in girl's clothes.

It is along these same lines that I question our dream recall, not in lucid dreams, but typical, unconscious dreams.

Originally Posted by Quark

Not lucid dreams, for they resemble real life. In waking life we are usually conscious of our actions, and furthermore, our memories are formed on the spot.

My memory of waking life is really good and I can tell you that most people greatly distort their waking life memories.

How do I know my recollection is true/better while theirs is not?
It's just an empirical fact. I tend to remember entire conversations word-for-words a year back. It's easy to check if things I remember are factually correct.
For example: we have a conversation about a persons vacation: where they went, their experiences and so on. 6 months later I check with them if I remember all the details correctly. And usually it turns out I do. Most of them won't even remember we had the conversation. Or even worse, they will think the conversation was about something completely different.

But this is not a new subject. I recommend you check out the movie Rashomon if you haven't already. It makes you question if there is such a thing as consensus reality.

What I'm trying to say is that with regards to the 'quality' or truthfulness of memories:

LD memories > nonLD memories> waking life memories

WL memories are formed on the spot, but they are interpretational.

nonLD memories do not interpret any external reality, whatever you remember dreaming is what you probably dreamt about. The process of filling the gaps and choosing what to fill them with is more conscious.

Example: The dream goes A-> B-> C. You remember A and C clearly, but B is hazy. You think about B and choose the most likely link between C. You are aware that B contains a lot of uncertainty. With WL memories this is done automatically, you don't think about it at all, you almost never question if B you remember is the same as B that really happened.

LD memories presuppose very high level of awareness and are therefor the most reliable of the three.

Originally Posted by Quark

I'm questioning the validity of recall for unconscious dreams.

Then why did you post this in the General Lucid Discussion forum?

Moved to General Dream Discussion.

Originally Posted by Quark

So it begs the question: How do we know whether what we recall is what actually happened? It could be that we wake up with a rudimentary outline of last night's dream, and then inadvertently invent the details to 'complete the picture'.

Do we contrive most of last night's dream in the morning?

Unfortunately, there is no definitive way to know. So many people assume that human memory is like a camcorder, but that assumption couldn't be further from the truth. No matter how certain someone is that what they remember is the way something actually happened, it's important know that certainty is not at all the same as accuracy. This is why there are so many innocent people in prison. There's a sad kind of irony in an eyewitness saying "That's the man who raped me, I'm certain of it!", only to see that man spend half his life in prison before DNA evidence exonerates him...and all the while, the real culprit is committing more crimes.

Yes, I think we definitely "fill in the blanks" to get a fuller picture of what we remember about our dreams. That's just the way the human mind works...if the "fill in the blanks" nature of human memory fabricates nonexistent details of events in waking life, it most definitely does so to what we remember of our dreams.

Very interesting topic!

I completely trust my recall as being accurate because, sadly, my dreams are more real and more easily remembered than my life is.
I live SO much in my own head that memories of childhood don't exist. Neither can I picture my own children playing as babies or toddlers. When I was a teen I was literally terrified of forgetting who I was because my life is such a blank. Things I recall, I recall mostly in the retelling of events from others and then repeating the story. After awhile it "feels" real and I can catch shadowy glimpses of the events, but it's almost as if picturing the events imagined from reading a book a long time ago.

My dreams are very different which is why I'm so horrible about LD-ing. My dreams are exceptionally vivid and full of life, mystery and intrigue. When there's a gap in a dream, I don't try to fill in the blank with wishful thinking. It would be akin to living a lie and I always try to be honest in all my dealings and especially with myself.

I think, also, that one thing that helped me was my venture into the study of spiritism etc and "the powers of the mind". When I was a kid and teen I took my dreams TOO seriously. I looked for signs and visions every time I went to sleep. Because of those beliefs, I paid a great deal of attention to the details of my dreams (while memories of living passed me by).
I've not had those beliefs for at least 10 years. But I do strongly believe, even now, that our dreams are the means our subconscience tries to communicate by. And if there isn't to be found some deep personal revelation, then I see dreams as a very interesting puzzle to piece together. I analyze every aspect of my dreams to see where I picked them up at.
For example, let's say I had a dream that I was running through a yard at night and got tangled in a web. I tried yelling for help but a train went by and drowned out my voice. Then I see my neighbors laughing and I feel confused but they look so happy and I can't help but feel joy for them. Just when I'm certain some giant spider is about to make a meal out of me someone running at an impossible speed races by, grabs me and takes me a cabin in some woods where I'll be safe. As I begin thanking her she vanishes, I'm saddened, and then I wake up.

The first thing I do after having such a dream is to break it down into key elements. In this case it would be: Spiders web, train or speechlessness, laughing neighbors, giant spider, running woman, cabin in woods, strong emotions.
Then I ask myself what could have inspired those elements. For me, my dreams seem to be influenced by a hodge podge of events a week prior to the dream.
And then I start putting the pieces together: I had a spider in my toilet a week ago which freaked me out and, oh yeah, I walked through a spiders web last night walking to the car which gave me the hebejeebies. The running woman was definitely inspired from watching Heroes.... but what about the neighbors? Why were they in the dream? Which emotion was strongest- confusion or joy? Oh yeah, neighbor so and such had his grand daughter over a couple days ago... but that still doesn't explain why they were in THIS dream. It's out of place.... Well, I do feel overwhelmed, sad and trapped by what's going on with my kids and when I saw them together I was a bit jealous but happy for them............... and so on.

Sorry this is so long lol, but I LOVE talking about dreaming and the theories behind it. I also love interpretting my dreams (not as in devination, but as in subconscious connections). I think it's hilarious how the brain can take random pieces of information we don't even consciously consider and then puzzle it together with other strange things.

In closing... I trust my dream memory and my interpretation of them about 95% of the time if not more. My waking memory, I trust maybe 30%. Some waking memories I have VERY CLEARLY are said to be false by others I was around at the time. For instance, my brother and I grew up in the same house, with the same parents, at the same time and we have greatly differing memories of certain events. Things I would SWEAR I did as a young child make my mother angry when I mention them because she SWEARS it never took place.

But ultimately, who knows

My psychiatrist seems to believe that lucid dreams aren't lucid at all, but merely preconstructed suggestions and themes which are later uncontrollably dreamed about. For instance, a person tells themselves: "When I'm lucid tonight I'm going to fly to the moon," and when they fall asleep they do indeed have that dream but only because it was implanted in their mind before hand. I don't agree with his theory but it makes sense when he tells it. I've been without sleep for at least 2 days now and my ability to explain matters thorougly seems to be suffering lol.

Anyhow...... I look forward to reading what other people think.

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

In closing... I trust my dream memory and my interpretation of them about 95% of the time if not more. My waking memory, I trust maybe 30%.

Intuitively, this makes sense: research (e.g. Labar & Phelps, 1998) shows that emotionally arousing events facilitate the encoding, and depth of memory traces. That is to say, whilst aroused, memory formation is superior to memory formation when sober. Dreams are usually full of peculiarities, and inspirited with vivacity; therefore, it follows that memory formation shall be great. Conversely, most of waking-life is mundane, usual, and lacks emotional charge; unless one desires to remember such events as close to verbatim as possible, then they’re encoded rather superficially. Nonetheless, emotionally charged events in real life that have led to incredibly deep encoding are entirely evident in sufferers of PTSD.

Furthermore, memories are interdependent on other memories. That is, attempting to recall a memory activates neural pathways of related memories. As such, they may interfere with the accuracy and fluidity of the memory one is trying to recall. Again, waking-life is usually mundane and doesn’t vary considerably, and thus such memories have many commonalities and overlap – possible interference. On the other hand, many dreams are disparate in nature, and probably form distinct episodic memories. Attempting to recall a bizarre dream may activate less related neural pathways – it’s likely that there aren’t any. Thus, because dreaming is both highly arousing and distinct in nature, it seems to have an obvious advantage over waking life in memory formation.

As for childhood memories, Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995) have shown how easy it is for these memories to be unwittingly fabricated. Experimenters ‘implanted’ contrived childhood memories into some of the participants, and some participants believed these memories to be accurate and valid representations.

Anyway, that’s what I seem to think (2 cents).

Thanks for sharing that information! It is most interesting.

The events that supposedly didn't happen in my childhood took place between the ages of 3 and 7. One "memory" is being in a crib with a baby brother next to a window. The curtain rod had falled off and into the crib and I was playing with it. But at some point, I found a sharp knife either in the crib or on the windowsill and a parent was angry with me when they saw it in my hand. I have always connected this memory with my baby brother who died of SIDS but the timeline doesn't match up and my mom swears such a thing never happened with my brother after him.
Another "memory" is of exploring some woods near an apartment complex we lived at in Virginia. I met a man who said he would give me a coin if _______ [total blank]. I was about 5 years old and very excited when I got home. I told my mom about what happened and she slapped me hard. That's one of my so-called memories that makes mom mad when I mention it lol If it did happen, apparently it didn't traumatize me because I specifically remember being excited.

There are a couple other such incidents, but I'll stop boring everyone

After I read your above post, cross-memories and false memories made more sense.
In my last dream journal entry, I wrote a couple dreams and then some aspects of other dreams I couldn't recall. I was certain I had dreamed about a baby and assumed it was a human baby. When I went out to feed my pets and my cat came running towards me, the forgotten dream was instantly remembered. I had dreamed about a kitten. In the dream, the cat ran toward me in the same manner she ran to me outside when awake and something clicked in my head which triggered the memory.