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When a memory intrudes into your consciousness, seemingly unrelated to your ongoing thoughts, pay attention. That memory may be trying to tell you something. In fact, involuntary memories may be more informative than dreams of communicating unresolved interpersonal or developmental issues.
Stop and take note of the memory, and when you have time, consider its connection – symbolic or literal – to your current life. Why is it making its presence known now?
Often, we know the reason for the appearance of a memory. The most obvious examples are individual memories that leave behind lessons. Standing by your garage, you remember the time you left the garage door unlocked and someone stole your bicycle. During a serious discussion with a friend, you briefly recall joking with a person who was in no mood for humor. When walking into an airport, you remember the time you left your cell phone at the ticket counter. Now, you always lock your garage, you don’t joke when having a serious talk, and you always check for your phone before going through airport security.
We accumulate these lessons throughout our lives and we usually remember the events that gave rise to these lessons. But when the reason for the sudden appearance of a memory is unknown, when it appears to have no connection to our current life, it’s worth spending time to figure it out. And if the memory recurs, it’s especially important to understand why.
Most memories form within three to four days but may continue to accept new information long after that. A memory that demands attention could be seeking new information and a new interpretation of its meaning in your life.
Memory representations of personal events can remain vivid and detailed over many years, even while retrieval pathways become overgrown and inaccessible with disuse. When these unused pathways are suddenly reactivated by a specific thought or a distinctive feature in the environment, then a memory we haven’t considered for years can return abruptly, with surprising clarity and detail.
We may become aware of the pertinent retrieval cue rather quickly. But if not, we should look to immediate features in the environment or to our most recent thoughts, just before the memory appeared. This is similar to figuring out the path of a conversation that led to a particular topic. Like a conversational topic, a suddenly-retrieved memory usually relates to the immediately preceding thought or environmental cue – or the one just before that.
One complicating factor is that the pertinent thought or environmental cue may be metaphorical. In general, retrieval cues that work analogically are more difficult to figure out. (I had a recurring memory of continuing to water a jasmine plant after it had died. It took a while to figure out the meaning of that memory. Apparently, I had been hoping that an unrevivable relationship would blossom again.)
When you discover why the memory suddenly appeared in consciousness, that discovery may be superficial or profound or somewhere in between. The discovery may have a small consequence for your life or it may elicit a useful personal insight. In any case, it will reveal the benefits of examining your involuntary memories.
