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Memories–GoodandBad

Memories—GoodandBad

A

’s

memory

can

be

like

a

mansion

with

many,

many

rooms.

Some

of

the

rooms

you

visit

frequently,

while

others

you

may

not

enter

for

many

years.

As

you

age,

some

of

these

rooms

may

change,

and

you

may

remember

things

slightly

differently

than

how

they

actually

happened.

In

other

cases,

the

rooms

may

stay

the

same,

but

the

doors

may

become

locked.

Sometimes

these

rooms

can

only

be

unlocked

if

you

find

a

special

key.

Some

of

these

rooms

you

may

enjoy

visiting;

some

of

them,

you

may

just

wish

the

door

stayed

shut.

One

of

the

keys

that

can

often

unlock

a

’s

memory

is

a

specific

sensory

input—

something

you

can

see,

smell,

touch,

taste

or

hear.

There

is

the

famous

case

of

the

novelist

Marcel

Proust,

who

tasted

a

madeleine—a

kind

of

—and

it

caused

him

to

suddenly

remember

an

enormous

amount

of

his

childhood,

memories

that

had

previously

been

locked

away.

He

went

on

to

write

a

seven‐volume

novel

called

In

Search

of

Lost

Time,

in

which

he

explored

these

memories

and

what

they

meant

to

him.

Proust

might

not

have

written

these

volumeactly

as

they

are

had

he

not

eaten

that

fateful

madeleine.

As

Proust

demonstrates,

while

we

can

consciously

summon

certain

memories—for

example,

if

you

try

to

think

of

your

mother’s

face,

you

cmost

certainly

t—there

are

others

which

visit

us

involuntarily.

This

has

to

do

with

how

the

human

brain

is

wired.

While

much

of

the

brain

is

still

mysterious

to

scientists,

it

has

been

determined

that

the

memory

center

of

the

brain,