My own experiences with long term memory and deja vu...

One thought I had while reading our last chapter and during our last class discussion centered around how long we retain a memory. Granted, our next chapter in encoding probably answers that question. I probably don't have an unusual LTM, although I like to think I do, but I have pretty strong memories of experiences and dreams from when I was very young. The oldest is from when I was around 2-3 living in a row house in Baltimore, Maryland. I can still mentally tour the house and neighborhood. Granted, some of it probably has been reinforced by pictures but I know our family doesn't have many during that time, but I have distinct memories of exploring a creek nearby with a group of neighborhood kids or playing in the street and very small front lawns. I even remember watching Romper Room on our living room TV: it featured kids tumbling while disco music played (I think it was the BeeGees). And, I remember having a dream about that episode. I'm curious to know why I have retained these very specific memories. I would think that the reinforcing nature of having a dream about a TV show explains that memory: or maybe it was the first time I realized my day to day experiences could affect my dreams. It's very fascinating stuff, I hope to read a bit more about memory retention in the coming chapters!

Deja Vu: Ok, there's supposed to be accents over the e and a, but I'm not going to spend time figuring out how to place them using blogger.com's interface. Deja Vu is another fascinating topic because we've all experienced it at one time or another. It's that strange feeling we get when we feel we've had the same experience that matches a current situation. The handout we received had several theories: one being that an incomplete memory from a past experience matches or reminds us of a current situation as we "fill in the blanks." Or, it is a neurochemical reaction that "have nothing to do with memory." The last theory explains why people who have epileptic seizures have feelings of deja vu before a seizure. I'm not going to judge which one is valid or not because they both may be valid! Our brains are too complex for simple explanations. I experience deja vu as a memory of dream that has come to life. I'll stop, and say, "Whoa!" (like Keenu Reeve's in the Matrix), and I'll look around as if dumbfounded. Now, I have never gained any insight into a situation when having this feeling (some people in our class claimed that they could predict a conversation/situation based on this feeling), but the combination of excitement, discovery, and sometimes fear (good and bad) creates this strong emotional reaction to the deja vu. Actually, since I am a vivid dreamer and I have lots of them, I do realize that the probability of dreaming something then having it vaguely match a real life situation are great enough to get this feeling once in a blue moon. Well, that's my brief take on deja vu!