The following might be long but it might help some of you understand the answers to your questions. It is something I wrote for an on-line conference a few years ago and is on my web page. Hope it helps.
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MEMORY
....Many people have difficulty understanding the nature of memory, why we forget and what causes us to remember. We doubt what we remember or others doubt it. We think we must be crazy to even think certain things. We have nightmare that keep us awake and we try everything in our power to make the bad memories go away. We have heard stories of created memories and false memories and half-true memories. So how can we be sure that what we do remember is real? How do we trust ourselves and what is contained in our memory.
First let’s talk about what memory is. Many people think that memory is the picture in your head of something that has happened. We rely so much on visual memory that we tend to forget or don’t realize that there are other kinds of memory.
For example how many of you can remember the smell (olfactory memory) of a bakery or the sound (auditory memory) of the wind in the trees. What about the softness of your favorite material (tactile memory) or the taste of your favorite foods. Memory. Your mind has the ability to recall information through all of your senses (gustatory memory) not just sight (visual memory). What about feelings? (emotional memory) How many remember feeling scared or happy, sad or proud. We can also remember what we were thinking or saying in a situation (cognitive memory) or what we were doing (behavioral memory). Those are memories too. And each of these types of memory is stored in your brain in a different place and in different ways which means that each can be triggered independently.
Triggering one of the sensory memories often will trigger the other parts of the memory. For example, as a kid I used to go to the fish market with my father on Saturday mornings. Now whenever I think of cod, it triggers the olfactory memory and I smell cod (not a smell that I like). The smell of cod triggers the picture (visual memory) of us walking into this store (behavioral memory (with huge tubs of fish packed full of water and fish. I remember feeling sad (emotional memory) for the fish and wondering how they could breathe in there with so many other fish (cognitive memory). I also remember the sounds of the market (auditory) of people shouting and fish and water splashing. I also remember I hated going anywhere with my father because he was always yelling at us which created a lot of anxiety (emotional memory). I could go on but I think you get the point.
In most cases one piece of a memory will trigger the next piece and so on until you have the whole memory. Another very common problem that people have with memory is called "Tip-of-the-tongue memory". This occurs when for example you are trying to remember someone’s name. You can see their face and maybe even remember where you saw them last or what they were doing but for the life of you, you can’t remember the name. This is an excellent example of knowing that you know something but not being able to access the part of the memory you want even though other parts are recalled. The more you try to remember the harder and more frustrating it becomes. Most often if you forget about it and start talking about something else the name will pop into your head. It usually takes me until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning for it to finally trigger.
It is essential that you understand this separateness of memory. When something happens to us we do not put the entire memory in one place in our brain and label it as "Memory of learning to ride bike". Each part of the memory is stored in different places which actually means that there are many pathways to a memory. For example, in the fish store memory, almost any one part of that memory has the power to trigger all the other parts or only a few or on rare occasions none.
This is what happens to a lot of abuse survivors. One part of the memory gets triggered and nothing else. For example I might smell cod and start feeling anxious and not know why because none of the rest of the memory gets triggered. So I am left feeling anxious and not understand why I am having that reaction.. By not being able to make the connection and not understanding the nature of memory I might start to believe that I have an anxiety disorder. By being able to connect the anxiety I can begin to connect the rest of the memory by trying to find the other parts of the memory (This should initially be done with a therapist who understands the nature of repressed memory especially if there is a history or suspicion of abuse).
When I went to college there was a candy factory across the street from the building where I had to go for some of my classes. One morning they were making something that smelled like coconut cream pie. A good memory of a special candy that I loved as a child. But it took me almost the whole semester to remember the connection to the candy. For a long time I went in to school every morning and I was the only one smelling coconut cream pie. The smell had connected with going to school. So I didn’t need the smell anymore to make the connection. School was enough to trigger the memory of the candy.
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All memory works this way. But there is an additional component to it. The more emotionally laden a memory is the more likely the memory is to be encoded into the brain in ways that might be difficult to recall in its entirety. It is more likely that you will get bits and pieces of it.
Refiner's fire - I would suspect that in your two memories of the bird and the spider you were confronted with the concept of feath. At the ages you are speaking of children do not have the ability to comprehend any concepts. It is not until children are about 15 that they begin to think conceptually. Therefore you were faced with an experience that was beyond your understanding - most likely resulting in the kind of strong memory that you have of those experiences. Also idf you were a JW at the time I would think that the teachings of horrifc death of most people on the earth might have added emotional impact to the memories.
I would suspect that when pleasant memories are triggered we (as in Beck's) we simply enjoy them. But then the triggered memory is troublesome we might tend to think about it longer or search our memory for missing pieces.
Lee
Rejoice in the healing and not in the pain.
Rejoice in the challenge overcome and not in the past hurts.
Rejoice in the present - full of love and joy.
Rejoice in the future for it is filled with new horizons yet to be explored. - Lee Marsh 2002