Why we remember certain things so vividly

www.slate.com/articles/health_and_scienc...ood_better_than.html

Interesting article about why certain experiences stand out in memory, and why memories from certain periods of life are so persistent.

An excerpt: "It could be that we favor recollections, whatever their emotional charge, that reinforce who we think we are. Integral to this account is the notion that identity and memory are interfused: Our self-image hangs on the experiences we salvage from the past, and we select certain moments for safekeeping because of how they anchor our self-image. Maybe the fact that the Bangladeshi survey takers remembered a period of political strife so lucidly meant that they found it personally formative. Likewise, if we recall more experiences from young adulthood, perhaps that’s because our sense of self glimmers between those early milestones."

Has links to a bunch of studies on memory, too, if that sort of thing interests you.

I suppose because I don't spend extensive time in memories or planning/fantasy thoughts, tending to be more present, that when I do have a strong memory or story-thought it tends to stand out. I hadn't thought of keeping track of what sorts they are or from what time periods. Maybe I'll take note of that and see if there's anything interesting about it.

Seems to be.

Chris Marti wrote: That shouldn't surprise any experienced meditator. It is abundantly obvious that "I/me/mine" is the primary reference points for almost all thought activity, right?

Well, we are of the lineage of Rene Descartes, non? "I think, therefore I am."

Somewhere in the course of my midafternoon doze, I saw the juxtaposition of Descartes' dictum and "In the seeing, only the seen..." -- this seemed the experiential answer to Descartes unwitting koan. Once I started gnawing at that ancient truism, its paradoxical provocation revealed itself: it seems the ultimate statement of self-as-reference-point. But only because it simply assumes a self to start with, that thinks and therefore demonstrates its existence.

I don't know any Descartes besides that quote. But what if he meant "I think, therefore I am.... and in non-thinking, I am not"