Mystery of memory

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Do you ever wonder why you remember certain things very clearly, some very faintly, and some things not at all? Some childhood or past experiences just stick with us whereas others just don’t bother to stay in our brains for long. 


Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan


In simple terms, anything to be stored in our brain as memory has to pass via “memory compartments” for the brain to judge if it is even important to keep for a long time or not. This judgment is mostly based on how important or effective the thing is or how it affected us, though many other reasons remain unknown.

Memory is broadly classified as short-term and long-term. However, many more subtypes are known depending on the experience and category the memory belongs to. For example, things that you remember about yourself are referred to as “autobiographical memory, ” and “working memory”  comes into action when you are listening to a thriller story while trying to figure out who the killer is. 



Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan

The most common reason why we forget things is that the memory created was not strong enough that it can be recalled, and one of the reasons for this could be absent-mindedness, i.e, we probably were not paying attention while the memory was being created. Scientists give various theories of forgetting namely decay theory (if you do not think about this memory it will fade away with time), interference theory (where old memories are replaced by new memories), and cue-dependent forgetting (when we forget things because of missing signal that was used to create that memory, this cue could be a mood or a trail of thoughts).


Apart from these theories, age, stress, high alcohol consumption, and lack of sleep can be a few of the factors resulting in forgetfulness. However, light exercises, being more attentive to the matter, repeating or writing down the information you want to retain could help you sharpen your memory. Interestingly, getting a good night's sleep is an important aspect related to memory building. As it's observed that memory consolidation occurs while sleeping, wherein the short-term memories are sieved; either they stay back and turn into long-term memory or are eliminated without bidding goodbyes. Hence,


Next time you contemplate sleeping more 

Don’t!

Just sleep...for your memory, of course!



                                                         Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan

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