What Do We See With Our Mind’s Eye — Is It True or a Lie

Poetry prompt: Illusions

Sensory input The only port of entry For memories to form Filtered by a lifetime of events And experiences

Brain is the customs officer Checking sight, sound, touch, Taste and aroma Making split-second decisions Based on the past Trained to fast-track Only that which has something New to declare Discarding surplus goods

Imagination fills the blanks In our memory banks When the picture is incomplete Our brains make up stuff Off the cuff

What you think you saw Or heard Or touched Or smelled Sounds absurd

May be an illusion!

Backstory

A research study in the UK, published in 2018 in the journal Psychological Science, showed that 40% of the 6,641 respondents who were asked to recall with 100% accuracy their first memory and at what age, recalled a false one!

Analysing the ages at which respondents recalled their first memory, the suggestion is that the mean age at which encoding, or memory formation, starts is 3.2 years.

Martin Conway, director of the Centre for Memory and Law, Dept. of Psychology at City, University of London says:

“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like ‘mother had a large green pram’. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time, these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top.”

“The thing is, the people remembering these memories do not realize they are fictional. When they are told, they often don’t believe it.”

Our brains have a memory storage capacity of 2.5 Petabytes — that’s 1-million gigabytes! A super-duper-computer, but less reliable.

Each time we retrieve a file, it changes.

“A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes. Memory is a ceaseless process, not a repository of inert information. It shows us that every time we remember anything, the neuronal structure of the memory is delicately transformed, or reconsolidated. And that is why it’s so easy to convince naïve subjects that they met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland.” — Jonah Lehrer in scienceblogs.com

Well, I haven’t been to Disneyland — not my cup of tea — though I recall enjoying Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid.

However, doubt of the reliability of my memory creeps in when hubby and I remember an event differently. We have 35-years-worth of memories to share, so there’s a lot we could disagree on, but we let it ride. Who’s saying who’s right or wrong?

It begs the philosophical question — what is reality?

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” — Albert Einstein

Enjoy this performance by a country singer from Southern Africa. (Thinking of you Robin du Plessis!)

Thank you, I enjoyed this one Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她)!