Much has been written on the wonders of human memory: the astounding feats of recall, the way memories shape our identity and are shaped by them, memory as a literary theme and a historical one. But what of forgetting? This is the topic of a new book by , author of and a professor of the history of psychology at the University of Groningen. In , Draaisma considers dreaming, amnesia, dementia and all of the ways that our minds — and lives — are shaped by memory’s opposite. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor .
What is your earliest memory and why, do you suppose, have you not forgotten it?
Looking back on this memory from a professional perspective, I would say that it has the flash-like character typical for first memories from before age 3; ‘later’ first memories are usually a bit longer and more elaborate. It also fits the pattern of being about pain and danger. Roughly three in four first memories are associated with negative emotions. This may have an evolutionary origin: I never again had my foot between the spokes. And neither have any of my children.
"Forgetting" is usually thought about in a negative sense but you come to it with a different perspective. Can you explain how you arrived at this way of thinking?
Why a colleague remember an idea, but not whose idea it was?
And, tell me what an “art of forgetting” might look like — why would that be useful, and what might some of its techniques be?
What light do dreams shed on how and why we forget?
I wonder, do you see any connection between forgetting and sleepwalking, where someone wakes up, but fails to forget the dream in some sense?
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