What Memories Tell About Truth

Memories from the past are shown throughout our environment. Sometimes, recalling memories from surroundings are simple, like looking into the eyes of your father. As people proceed in their lives, they encounter moments that affect them deeply. Sometimes, a discharge of memories occur, showing a recognition of righteousness in people. In a short story called “Aero Bars” by Robert Hilles, the narrator acknowledges his father’s love through recalling the past. By reminiscing memories of remarkable values or behaviours, one is able to develop a moral conscience.

It is said that there are many different versions to a story. There is one persons story, then there is an other person’s story, and then, there is the truth. “Our memories change each time they are recalled. What we recall is only a facsimile of things gone by.” Dobrin, Arthur. "Your Memory Isn't What You Think It Is." (online magazine). Psychology Today. July 16, 2013. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201307/your-memory-isnt-what-you-think-it-is. Every time a story is told, it changes. From Disney movies to books, to what we tell our friends and colleagues. Sometimes the different sides to the story challenge the

Memories are important, they are a personal record of our past experiences, and could be called the history book for our life. In the poem "The Heroes You Had as a Girl", author Bronwen Wallace tells the story of a woman who meets her high school hero later in her life, reflects on her memories of him, and ultimately decides not to talk to him. The effect that this topic has on everyone is the knowledge that we can be captivated and let our memories control us, and by knowing that our memories hold that much power, it may make it more mentally efficient to make accurate, and personal decisions in a fraction of the time. The topic and overall meaning that this idea holds convey a message that resonates with the idea that memories are in fact the central hub of our decision making. People remembering memories can affect their perspective on their lives to such an extent, that they prefer to immerse their mind in their past memories rather than the current reality.

The sudden recovery of repressed memories from a traumatic event such as childhood sexual abuse can be both validating and confusing for clients that are seeking help with various problems. These new memories might be able to help client identify the cause of their feelings and issues that are affecting their life. However for others it can be a very difficult time because of the conflicting emotions about the abuser. Worst of all when dealing with the recovery of repressed memories they may be all together false. The accuracy of recovered memories in regards to sexual abuse is low and can come with significant consequences. These false memories can be very harmful to the client as

False memories are an apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur. The reason why false memories happen are due to the fact that one's brains can only handle so much.There has been several experiment pertaining to the phenomenon, to find how it works.In the next part of the experiment the psychologist showed the participants a word list.False memories are very common and can happen to anyone. On very rare occasions false memories can be harmful to someone and the people around them.False memories are so common that they affect all of a person's memories. False memories can be made more clear by others memories or they could become more distorted. False memories have caused many wrongful convictions. A psychologist

O’Brien describes that memories can affect one’s emotions in a detrimental way over time. Reflecting on memories that one felt affected them negatively can be bad for the mind and cause them emotional turmoil. O’Brien describes a “hard story to tell (O’Brien 172).” “For more than twenty years,” O’Brien, “had to live with...the shame.” O’Brien had been “trying to push (the memory) away,” The event O’Brien reminisces on

As humans when we speak about memory; we bring up “memories” that have happened in the past as if we knew what actually happened. However, everyone creates fillers to fill in information that you do not remember in memories. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien expresses his memory and states to us that his stories are true and are also created. O’Brien fills us with information about what he knows is true and then creates the rest into a story. Loftus and Jason both discept how our brain functions when we speak about memories.

The value of memory is an important aspect in a person’s life because most of the time our brains will go back into our memory and recall past events weather them being good or bad. Memory plays a part in every human being’s life, whether it may be about a great loss of someone you loved dearly or it be a great gift like having a child or a miracle happen like getting a perfect score on your SATs. Memory will always be an aspect in everyone’s life. In the passage, “Hope, Despair, and Memory” by Elie Wiesel, and in the excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger the value of memory are treated in both worthy and harmful ways using diction, repetition, and theme.

Not adhering or clinging to the facts of the narrative is later described as pointless. In this case, the world is saying to disregard the things that add to one’s identity. “You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard” (Rankine 63). Describing memory as facts show that there is some clear evidence to those memories regardless of what the world says. The importance of those facts in memories experienced through an individual help create that individuals present identity.

Memory plays a large roles of our identities as people. We use our past memories to shape who we are and the decisions we make everyday. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, the role of memory shapes the experiences of the protagonists and ultimately helps them to find their own identity. Both protagonists experience hardships in their life because of their memory, but ultimately use the power of their memory to navigate through their situations and find themselves.

False Memories are fundamentally, unintended human errors, which results in people having memories of events and situations that did not actually occur. It’s worth noting that in humans there are both true and false memories, these false memories occur when a mental experience is incorrectly taken to be a representation of a past event. For example, when people are asked to describe something that happened at a particular time, people rarely deliver accurate answers. Based on research, in eyewitness testimony, the confidence people show while recalling

Naturally, life is a continuous cycle of experience and learning. Yet often times so much is buried in our lives that we fail to remember or recall what we have learned. Memories that range from miniscule facts to important emotions can often leave unknowingly from our mind. Billy Collin’s “Forgetfulness” shows how memories are delicate and fragile, and that the process of forgetting is one that is nonchalant. Billy Collins effectively blends subtle humor and irony with a dramatic tone shift to explain that ideas and facts that people think are important flee the mind, showing that nothing good can last. Although he refers to memories in a lighthearted, thoughtful manner, the poem gradually shifts (just

After doing research on Post Traumatic Stress disorder, there seemed to spark a striking argument of truth in memory based on how it is retrieved and convoluted with people’s previous perceptions. Truth and fact can be altered based on one’s viewpoint of a subject and preceding experiences. Authors can portray common themes in novels using drastically different methods such as character development, stylistic structures, and literary devices. In the novel In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway, and Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, both pieces end up developing a similar idea, but use different literary approaches. The idea both novels end up concluding to is that there really is no certain truths in

I can see that the truth is a mirage. To put it simply, there is a real truth between hundreds of layers of manufactured truth. The truth I may know at a moment in time will be altered if a second point of view is added to my truth; the truth is therefore an illusion. What one person may regard as the truth is different from what another may believe and that is because we absorb specific moments of time based on what we think is important and that is how memories and truths are created or dare I say, manufactured. In relation to the short story “In a Grove” by Akutagawa, you can clearly observe this phenomena, as I choose to call it, occur. The bandit, wife, samurai and witnesses have all chosen to absorb specific moments of this event. The question I place forward is, is this deliberate or unintentional? Or is this an effect of cognitive biases?

The idea that our memories change the way on which we see the world and ultimately change reality is a difficult one to understand. An answer to this question depends on the way we define reality. If we define reality as objective- then it can not be altered by memories. However if we define reality as subjective, then, yes, our memories can affect our reality. But what do we mean by memories? What do we mean by relationship? What follows is an attempt to answer some of these questions, and see whether and how our memories affect our reality.