When Memories Deceive

in psychology •  7 years ago 

Remembering things is pivotal for progressing in #life. But are we always remembering things that happened in our real life?

brain dream memory.jpg

When I think of things, at times I have had an image in my mind that is related, a #memory of something. But something about it is off.

I think about it more, and start to question if this memory is of something real that actually happened in reality, or if it's only a phantasmal image from a #dream that I am recalling.

I can differentiate and remember which is which after thinking about it.


  • Have you ever been tricked by your memory?
  • Have you ever confused a dream memory for a real memory, or thought a real memory was a dream?

Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.


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Yes I have been tricked. As one who tracks and studies her dreams and makes note to remember them, sometimes I won’t remember if something happened in my dream or in my waking life. Especially because emotions can be so strong in a dream and transfer to waking life, it’s common for this to happen. Memories perhaps are sparked by emotions, smells, images, sounds, people’s voices... so the interplay between what has happened and what is just a thought in our mind is really very small.

There have been times in my life like I’ve felt like my life was a memory. It felt like I’d already been somewhere or experienced a place or group of people when in reality it was my first time. Was this a trick of the people, the place, my emotions or something in my mind triggering a familiar radar, I am not sure. One thing is for certain and that is that our experiences are mysterious, even to ourselves. I like it that way. thanks for the thoughtful question.

Yes, me too! I have had deja vu but it was because of a similar image in a dream lol. The sounds, shapes, smells, emotions, they can all trigger recall and often it's not from real life, but a dream. Thanks for the feedback!

@krnel there this issue i am having; something when i am in a place or engage in an activity, i always felt that i have dreamt above it before and what is happening is like play what have happen before, though, it does not happen alway can this be termed as dream memory?

Like deja vu? You think you experienced it and it will happen a certain way? That's the brain/mind trying to predict things base don past memories, real or not. We have a lot of heuristics in the brain that act as shortcuts, some of them work to predict the very very short-term future. Think of how we can know to catch a ball in a certain place, we move to catch it before it even gets there. We know the position in future and act before it happens.

Thanks

When I was younger, I was drinking a lot when on Saturdays. Many times when I woke up, I have had memories for which I wasn't sure if they real. For example, I remembered kissing a girl that I know, telling friend a secret, or arguing with a friend, and had no idea if that was just a dream, partially true memory (due to my perception being altered by alcohol), a real memory, or even something in-between.

Yeah watch out for alcohol :/

We're all tricked by our memories all the time. I've read that every time we recall a memory, it is rewritten slightly so it changes over time. My mom has an uncanny ability to plant memories in other peoples heads so they believe they witnessed something that never happened. It's quite impressive (and frustrating). I don't usually have a problem differentiating between dreams and memories, but sometimes I think my dream was real until I think for a couple minutes and remember where I am, etc...

Hehe, making people believe in things that didn't happen is similar to gaslighting, that's a manipulate tactic to control people.

Good point! That's exactly why she does it, but I had never connected that term with it before...

Interesting thing about memories is the emotions are stored with it. In one tight bundle.

Yup, emotions, and other senses, can trigger memories, real or not :)

It has happened to me to confuse something from a dream with something real and it is usually disappointing XD also once I had a lucid dream it was great!

hehe, cool!

Sometimes it is hard to remember which is which, however I don't get to upset about it anymore as I have come to believe that my dreams are as real as my waking state and that often times I can't tell them apart. It really matters not to me in the grand scheme of things as it is all so real for me on both sides.

Well, one is really real, that exists in the actual reality shared by everyone that exists. And the other is not real in the world, because it only exists in your consciousness, in imagination.

All the time ill wake up some days convinced i had something to do because in my dream i was on some vivid quest to get somthing done. Dreams freak me out because i have conversations with people and see them right away or something. Totally love when i get corrected for a false memory too.

Haha, funny times with dreams ;)

great post. i like your post to much. thanks for sharing post.

I am from the UK ( and drive on the other side of the road to the states).

I lived in LA for three years, and drove there.... everyday.

My memory has me driving on the 'UK' side of the road !

I can't actually visualize driving in LA, on the correct side of the road.

How trippy is that?

To many times I get lost In it

Very good picture and your story

Mind game :p
I'm trickled many times,
I used to think that the work I'm doing today, I've done them a long ago,
but in reality, i never did them before.
i don't know why it happens to me.

our mind is so powerful, it can take you to the level where you never ever dreaming of achieving.

@krnel, I have thought about this a lot. I am not sure if my memories are accurate; actually I am sure they are not - at least not 100% - accurate. The brain has to differentiate between information based on their relevance and will not even register - or sense - a big part of it during the "real experience". No person - or observer in general - could ever experience "objective reality". As a consequence of that, no two observers will ever agree 100% on how they experienced a given event.
Instead of trying to have the most accurate memory, I try to have the most practical - useful or meaningful - memory. Knowing that the brain discriminates "unimportant" information, I try to maximize the precision of the mechanism that does that; I try - and this requires some conscious focus - to compress the information to only what is valuable - or meaningful - and let the brain discard the rest; if it wants to of course.
Unfortunately this leads to confusion some times; I tend to be fuzzy on whom I had conversations with or who wrote that interesting book I read because I tend to focus on content instead of people - that may be different for all observers.
In the end I have come to question the usefulnes of the notion of "objective reality" as a tool for decision making. You might be interested in how "reality" works if you are an engineer that needs the laws of physics - derived from experiment in the "real world" with the scientific method - to build something that is supposed to be working in the same way for all people - independent of the observer. If it is not your goal to build such a system but to be healthy, wealthy or just have a good time, the notion of objective reality does not serve you well. There is no way to define happyness - meaning or value - in an objective way and even assuming that there might be is counterproductive for your decision - it slows you down while not adding any precision to your decision.

To answer your qestions directly:
Yes, my memory plays tricks on me all the time - it is still useful though.