Forget to Remember
By Sage Grothe
Have you ever heard someone say, I am thankful that I forgot where my keys are or I love the feeling of not remembering why I came into this room. Most likely you have heard the opposite. People usually wish they could remember more and not have to go through the frustration of forgetting things or memories from their past.
My goal here is to show you that for a healthy individual, being able to forget things from time to time can have many positive aspects, especially for memory and mental health.
First, I want to show you what life would be like if you did not have the capability to forget, and then discuss how fading or forgetting memory could be a blessing in the human experience.
Over the last few years, a growing number of studies have been done on a small group of people who have what is called Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory or HSAM. According to the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, these people have “a superior ability to recall specific details of autobiographical events, tend to spend a large amount of time thinking about their past, and have a detailed understanding of the calendar and its patterns.” For example, if you were to ask what day does June 2nd, 2001 fall on, they would be able to tell you it was a Saturday and then any vivid personal memories that happened to them that day. Sounds like an amazing gift, but it can also be a curse. In Dr. Julia Shaw’s book The Memory Illusion AJ, one of the first people to be known to have this ability, describes HSAM as a condition that has ruined her life and is intensely bothered by the autobiographical memories running through her mind all day, every day.
A metaphor for HSAM that I think works well is being a collector of souvenirs, which represent memories; but the caveat is you cannot throw anything you’ve collected away. Instead, the room you store your trinkets in becomes cluttered, messy, and disorganized, which makes finding one memory impossible without having to rummage through the entire pile. Not only would you fully remember these “collected” memories but also any emotion attached to them, positive or negative. In an ABC Science interview Rebecca Sharrock, another person with HSAM, describes she could be doing something that makes her happy, but at any moment could also start crying, if a tragic memory was triggered. Instead of it just being a recollection of the past, she feels that she is re-living that moment with all the pain and emotion attached. Our memory is an amazing power but as we can see, too much can have negative effects on our lives.
As our understanding of memory becomes more advanced, scientific studies have shown that our ability to forget actually improves our memory. Benjamin Storm and other researchers have found that being able to forget helps our minds get rid of unnecessary information, and cut’s down messaging interference when we try to recall memories. Storm (2011) has also found that forgetting can have a positive effect on our ability to problem solve and inhibit fixation on certain memories. This allows us to eliminate information that will not help and clear thought pathways, allowing us to solve the problem faster and be more efficient. Being able to forget can also have a major effect on our mental health. Being able to let go of bad experiences lets us move on without being bogged down with the emotions attached to these memories.
Dr. Shaw, in her book The Memory Illusion, talks about how people with PTSD have the inability to forget terrible events bringing emotional torment and devastating setbacks as these memories are triggered. I, like many other people, have had traumatic experiences in my life and most of them have faded to the point that I hardly remember them. Only one or two I still remember in great detail but the strong emotions that used to be there are no longer attached. If I had a memory like people with HSAM do, those horrifying events would take all my time and energy, to the point I would not be able to function. Instead, the power of forgetting has allowed me to move forward and have a clearer mind for the future.
Now I ask, how do you feel about forgetting things every once in a while? As we have seen, being able to remember almost everything that happened to you is not as glorious and peaceful as you think. I have mentioned a few reasons why being able to forget is good and necessary for us to function properly, but there are many more being explored. Like most things in nature, there is a balance between forces and if we get rid of one piece, the whole system becomes inefficient and chaotic. So instead of getting frustrated when you can’t remember something, take a moment and remember the gift of forgetting.
References
ABC Science. (2019, April 11). Mind Boggling [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9gbYuQ_Ck
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. (n.d.) Highly Superior Autobiographical
Shaw, J. (2016). The Memory Illusion. London, Great Britain: Random House Books
Storm, B. (2011). The Benefit of Forgetting in Thinking and Remembering. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 20(5), 291-295. www.jstor.org/stable/23045741