{Dreaming and memory}[12th February 1969]

[Redbook1:77-79][19690212:0000]{Dreaming and memory}[12th February 1969][Age 17]

Wednesday 12th January {=February?] 1969.

            If dreaming is the assimilation by the subconscious of conscious memory, held over in a sort of "holding bank", then what happens when one remembers a dream?  The act of remembering the dream would itself be dreamt -- transferred -- a few nights later, and if that 2nd dream was remembered, that memory would have to be transferred to the subconscious in a 3rd dream!  And so on....

            But this does not happen.  Why?  (1) (Most likely) One remembers so little of one's dreams that one is unlikely to have to repeat more than once, or (2) There is some kind of straining mechanism which rejects false memories -- memories of dreams -- after the second time.  In other words, one may remember an impression, and one may remember that dream which "occurred" while that impression was being transferred -- though the two may have no connection in one's mind.  But one will not remember the 2nd dream which “occurred” as one transferred the first dream to one's subconscious memory.

            The other alternative (!)  is that dreams bear so little relation to the memories they transfer that one does not connect the two -- so the second dream is remembered but not connected with the first (which it transfers).  There are two objections to this: (1) the number of dreams to be transferred ought to grow steadily, if every remembered dream would "echo" for any length of time, and since memory itself is something which grows with practice. (2) it is illogical -- why should the dreams be different from their memories?

            Since I remember more dreams on some nights than others, could it be that when I do remember some it is because I have so many impressions waiting to be transferred that my dreaming time extends to a point nearer that point at which I wake up than normal?  In other words, does it mean I am short of sleep?  (Theory only).

            Surely the art of memory is that of holding something in one's conscious mind until it can be transferred to the subconscious, and also that of withdrawing that piece of information from the subconscious to the conscious when needed, and putting it back again when it is finished with.  Or perhaps the last stage is unnecessary -- only an impression, a copy, is withdrawn, leaving the original in the subconscious?  This would explain why people recite something before they go to sleep, and find it helps them to remember it -- they are refreshing the conscious mind, which soon afterwards transfers the memory to the subconscious (while dreaming).

            The whole idea of pattern in memory intrigues me -- There was the man with a near-perfect memory who saw his memory as a street with houses, each one containing an association.  When I did ’O’ level Geography, 2 1/2 years ago, I was taught the South Yorkshire and Derbyshire rivers, flowing into the Humber -- possibly the most complicated complex to remember in England -- by a mnemonic (spelt?!): S.U.N.O.W.A.C.D.T.,  giving (from the north) Swale, Ure, Nidd, Ouse, Wharfe, Aire, Calder, Derwent, Trent.  That is not a perfect memory, because I have left out (a) the Don river and (b) the river that flows S.W. from the Yorks. Moors.  But it isn't bad.  Any other river I would have learned painstakingly by "photographing" a map in my head.  In other words I already have two important kinds of memory -- photographic and ... or do I?  My memory of SUNOWACDT (or was it OSUNOWACDT DO?),  if imperfect, was also photographic. 

So perhaps, in my memory the photographic element is the basic -- perhaps the only -- element: that, and its associations.  I would like to learn to develop it.  At the moment my memory is occasionally brilliant, but always erratic!

Lack of time is my handicap: I open this book full of ideas, and desperate lest I should lose the inspirations; I only have time to write one down, then I have to get on with my work.

Again, I may start something in the first flush of enthusiasm, without realising what a long job it is, and then get bored half way through and feel I have to finish it -- so it becomes a drag to write and hence a drag to read (expressive word, drag -- one of my few concessions!).

[PostedBlogger19102012]