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Sue Cauhape's avatar

It's interesting how memories can be triggered by some arcane daily moment: a song playing on the radio, a smell, or someone mentioning a name that recalls a strong experience way in the past. The memories may be pruned, but with a little water, they grow back with renewed vigor if not the same twigs and blossoms as in previous versions. As an old lady, I'm recalling many experiences to write about ... it's my stock in trade. Some ideas are so pruned, I have to graft new information on them to make them balanced. Pardon me, Alvaro, I'm having too much fun with this metaphor. Anyway, a lot of the stories on my page are graftings from the past.

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Álvaro García's avatar

What an interesting metaphor, Sue.

I love the way you use it and I have thought of similar metaphors more than once because of the name of the Newsletter "Mental Garden".

Indeed, what happens to memory, as you say, is that it never repeats itself the same way, it always mixes or blurs a little with newer memories or ideas that come to you in order to reconstruct the memory.

It is fascinating how the brain works and it shows us that it is not such an advanced machine, it has its limitations.

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Curing Crime's avatar

Beautiful column and a marvelous example. Thank you.

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Álvaro García's avatar

Thank you for accompanying me in every letter 🤗.

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Suzy Lindgren's avatar

I love this! Thank you so much! I recently have been healed of chronic insomnia that lasted over a decade. The lack of sleep absolutely changed my brain. Thank God I am sleeping now to reconnect to my creative self!

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Álvaro García's avatar

Hi Suzy! I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that you were able to catch up on your sleep. Getting a good night's sleep is a fundamental part of how we function. Dreams are also a source of inspiration, couldn't forget the story of the Yesterday song!

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Lissa Johnston's avatar

I really love the explanation of neuronal pruning. That is really going to stick with me.

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Álvaro García's avatar

Isn't it impressive? It was a tremendous coincidence when I started reading about neuroscience and saw that there is a concept that fits perfectly with the idea of the Mental Garden. That concept has stuck with me too! Hahaha.

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