Do you ever find that you have lost the original memory and now only remember your memory of it?
Absolutely.
Absolutely. I’ve also had memories, especially from really early childhood that I’m really not sure if I remember them or if I’ve just heard about the events or people/things described so much that I’ve formed a memory; for example, my mother had a really close friend who died when I was not quite three years old, and I swear that I can remember her, but she always said I was too little- it’s possible that what I remember is- if this makes sense- a time when I could remember her fleshed out by what I’ve heard about her. She was somewhat eccentric: she was very heavy and had a raucous laugh and if the weather dipped below 60 degrees she wore fur and if she was only going to the gas station she put on make-up, but might wear an old t-shirt and high top tennis shoes at the same time- and hearing things like this forms a mental image.
Oh yeah. I very clearly remember some things. But that’s so tied up in the fact that I so clearly remember them, that I’m not sure if my memory of the event has changed due to remembering it so much. Basically, oh yeah.
ETA: To build on something Sampiro said. I remember when I was in college, I was sitting behind a woman who was telling one of her friends about how she posed for some nude photographs a few days ago. I’ve told the story a bunch of times (because it’s a pretty awesome “You’ll never guess what I overheard” kind of thing), but I have no idea if all the retellings have shifted the memory away from the actual event. The only thing I know for sure is that when asked why she did it, the woman replied “It paid for the pizza and beer.” All the rest of it is a haze of memories of memories or memories.
I was thinking the other day to post a thread asking whether it’s even possible to access “new” memories from childhood, or any other arbitrary limit of lifetime experience. Everything I remember from childhood I’ve remembered before, if that makes sense, as if my present consciousness has been handed a package of well-worn recollections from my self of ten years ago, who in turn was handed that same package by my self of ten years before that, and so on. Memories of memories of memories.
Is it possible to come up with a genuine moment of “whoah, I haven’t thought of that since I was five years old!”
Objects can do that for me. that’s part of why I’m such a pack rat. If I see something that I haven’t seen since childhood, or at least for many, many years, it can bring back a memory that hasn’t been accessed in at least as long and sometimes not since the event itself. I found something I hadn’t seen since first grade and it brought back a memory that I don’t recall having since that time.
So, yes, definitely. But it requires a powerful and fairly unique stimulus.
I’ve also thought that my few very early memories were more like memories of the memory; i.e. the memories are preserved because I’ve rehearsed them.
But perhaps rehearsal is essential to maintaining long-term memories, so there may be little distinction between a memory and the memory of the memory.
As others imply, this means memories can drift, without the rememberer knowing they’re drifting. Read accounts of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony to see how dramatic such drifting can be.
I have a memory of being weighed as a baby. But it can’t be real, because in the memory my younger sister is there, when clearly she would not have been born at that point.
So I think I have a memory of a dream, that was in turn sourced from a real memory.
Just chiming in to say “yes” to the OP’s query, and to mention the memory of smells that I no longer have the ability to experience directly.
I know what the OP is getting at, and I think it probably encompasses the “Vague Recollection” thing too… lots of stuff that you’ve read somewhere (for example) and thought it was interesting/worth remembering- but you can’t remember the specifics or where you actually read/saw it.
I have an interesting memory of a memory. I still have the original memory, but it’s corrupted. The memory is so old, I remember it wrong. Does that make sense?
Okay, I’ll be more specific.
I remember the very first time I watched The Sound of Music on TV. I was watching it with my parents, and when “all the kid stuff” was over, they put me to bed because it was past my bedtime and I was too young to care about Nazis. However, my parents had forgotten about the Little Goatherd. As soon as they realized “Oh damn, the puppet show!” My mother burst into my room saying: “Quick! Quick!” and I got to see the marionettes yodeling. I wasn’t asleep yet, I was lying with my feet up on the wall, so I remember that too.
What I find fascinating, is that what I remember of the sequence is not “goats”. I remember just blobs of fur being jerked around by strings. Imagine if you replaced the goats with large Tribbles. My memory of this is quite vivid. Of course I saw The Sound of Music many times since, but I never thought back to the first time. Then when I was about 8 or 9, my mother was telling someone about the first time I saw the classic and she said: “She almost missed the marionettes.” That jogged my memory, but I sat there thinking to myself: “But wait, I just remember clumps of hair, not goats.” I even told my mom that there were no goats in the first version I saw, so when did they change the scene to have goats? The first-time memory was from when I was so little, it was… just… off. Like a faded photo.
So, I have two very different, vivid memories of the Lonely Goatherd. It’s almost as if I saw two different versions of the same movie. And I remember distinctly remembering the memory, and having the bizarre realization that my first memory of it was messed up.
Is that an issue with memory, though, or with your perception at the time? I remember things from when I was very little, looking out from my crib, and images of people I saw then seem to be made up of moving abstract shapes rather than recognizable human figures. I always figured that just must be how babies perceive the world.
I had a dream the other night about a job I had more than 20 years ago. At that job I had to wear one of those plastic coil bracelets you keep keys on, and one of the two keys had a green stripe of paint on it. I have not thought of that green painted key or even having to wear that coil bracelet in more than 20 years and they were completely real, and even though they weren’t remotely important in my life the second after I left that job it’s just always weird to me how such a specific memory can linger in a back alley somewhere and then run into you one day.
I swear that I can remember not being able to talk, but perhaps I remember the memory.
Ah. That’s another related topic - distinguishing between dreams and memories. For me that’s always been pretty easy since my dreams aren’t really visual. It’s hard to explain except to say that I never see actual objects or people or scenes but more the concepts of the things that make up the dream. I think that’s how I get people who are an amalgamation of the characteristics of 2 or more real people.
Anyway, if you have very realistic dreams, apparently they can masquerade as actual memories. I think I might be envious of people who have vivid dreams - but I’m not sure.
No, I have many very clear and detailed memories from ridiculously young ages. At the time I first saw The Sound of Music I was a toddler, and I remember other parts of the movie and that particular evening quite clearly.
I have a few other corrupted memories from babyhood. For example, I remember getting an inoculation, but the “syringe” in my memory is a yellow-handled screwdriver. In that case, I think it’s because I remembered the event but had no concept of “syringe”, but within a year or so I was familiar with some of my father’s tools. I presume the syringe contained a yellow transluscent fluid, so it looked similar to my dad’s transluscent yellow screwdriver handle so it got mapped to my fuzzy-concept memory of getting the shot. I remember other aspects of getting shot quite clearly, from the doctor with the ruddy hair and blue eyes making a goofy face, to the nurse who helped immobilize my arm, the paper sheet on the examination table/bed etc. My perception was very clear. But I think in some cases where there were some strange and unfamiliar things in my memory, but brain said to itself “Oh, it must have been THIS-more-familiar-thing” and retroactively slotted the more familiar item in the strange-thing’s place in my really old memory.
In my corrupted Lonely Goatherd, the giant Tribbles aren’t even the same colour as the goats really were. However, they were the same colour as some toys I had: a stuffed Benji and a stuffed Scottish terrier. So I assume my brain tried to map my familiar toys to the not-really-goaty-looking goats. I suppose it’s some type of memory bias.
Speaking of Benji, I saw that movie in the theatre when I was two. In my memory, when Tiffany, the little white dog, bites the kidnapper’s ankle, she has MASSIVE teeth. Like they were as long as my adult fingers and went all around the bad guy’s entire ankle. Clearly that’s not what happened, but that image is also crystal clear in my memory. A lot of scenes from the movie are crystal clear in my memory, but not “off”. I’ve only seen it the one time.
In most situations, I find it hard to prove this is happening. But, an exception is where I no longer remember actually doing certain things, but remember watching myself doing them on film, and, at that time actually remembering it. But I’m getting to where it goes to the next level: remembering myself watching the video and remembering myself watching the video and remembering.
But there has to be that level of separation. Otherwise, I’d have to admit that every time I remember something, I am actively recreating the memory, just like everyone else. In other words, it happens every time.
Definitely!
Especially of childhood memories. There are some things I cant really remember any more from back then. I can just remember remembering them.
Kind of like “There was a time I could remember grandma’s laugh…”? Or “I used to know this magic trick my uncle taught me…”? I have a few of those, and a friend of mine can imitate some of his dad’s behaviour. Specifically, he can apparently imitate his dad yelling at the Iron Sheik and the Boris guy from 1970s era WWF wrestling. He says he has no actual memory of his dad yelling at the TV anymore. He pretty much only remembers how to play the role of his dad yelling at the TV, but not that actual memory that inspired the performance.
I remember I went to the Football Game last week…But, I cant remember anything about it, other than we lost in the last 2 min. :mad:
Does that count? 
I remember a Playoff game in 1974 ish I went to…don’t remember anything much of that other than you could smoke in the stands. I remember that we went to the after party, with no memory of what it consisted of but big large people.