Memories of Home: A Keepsake You Create

Product Information

Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Philippians 2:2 We need help to jog our memory. "When we're younger, an internal cue — just thinking of something — can help retrieve a memory," Dr. Budson says. "But when we're older, we rely more on external cues to retrieve memories, like a sound or an image." Cue the memory A competing theory, known as systems consolidation theory, instead proposes that memories are initially stored in the hippocampus but are gradually transferred and strengthened in other brain regions over time. The difference between a house and a home is this: a house may fall down, but a home is broken up.”— Elbert Hubbard

A cue from your environment (such as hearing a song) or a cue that you generate (such as thinking about your high school graduation) can help you retrieve a memory. "The more specific the cues are for the episodes of life you're trying to remember, the more likely it is you'll have a pattern match and pull up an old memory," Dr. Budson says. Ideas for cues Of the many memories you accumulate every day, only those marked as meaningful are recorded in your brain's long-term files. "We have a system in our brains that tags memories that are important in some way so we'll remember them in the future," explains Dr. Andrew Budson, a neurologist and chief of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at VA Boston Healthcare System. And our memories aren’t just suspecetable to suggestion. We are all unreliable narrators of our own stories as we go through life.

Context in the brain

Does the word “home” make you think of family and love? Here are some quotes that give positive and negative views of the home. We think they pair perfectly with songs about family.

Remember accidents happen and it’s just stuff.– It’s good stewardship to value and care for our belongings, but rememberit’s still just stuff. Everyonemakes mistakes. Accident happens. The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” ~Henry David Thoreau This similarity between contexts is important when it comes to retrieving memories. Your brain’s memory search process is rather like a Google search, in that you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for if your search terms closely match the source content. During memory search, your current mental context is your set of search terms. In any given situation, your brain is rapidly rifling through your memories for ones that most closely resemble your current state of context. Simple but deep Sometimes memories of certain experiences remain crystal clear for life, like the moment you said "I do," or the first time you held your baby in your arms. Other significant memories from long ago can be harder to recall. But they may still be with you; it just takes effort to retrieve them. Which memories stay with us?At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, a parent.” ~Barbara Bush

This is not to say that all evidence that relies on memory should be discarded or regarded as unreliable – they often provide the most compelling testimony in criminal cases. But it has led to rules and guidelines about how witnesses and victims should be questioned to ensure their recollections of an event or perpetrator are not contaminated by investigators or prosecutors. There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits.”— Robert Southey Be still as you try to summon old memories; close your eyes at times and focus on the sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, and feelings associated with each one. The reason may tap into something far deeper in the human condition – we crave a cohesive narrative of our own existence, and will even invent stories to give us a more complete picture.There are very few words that inspire such emotion as the word “home.” Here’s a list of quotes about home, and most people agree that it’s a wonderful place to be. Jump ahead to these sections: A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.” ~Author Unknown Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam. Where the deer and the antelope play. Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word. And the skies are not cloudy all day.”— Brewster Higley Not just holidays and celebrations. Not traditions. Not evenscrapbooks, digital photos, videos, or anything you put on social media to save for the future. I’m prancing around at a party in a garden with incredibly neat flowerbeds on a scorching summer’s day, enjoying the attention of my grandmother and of the older children who are wearing puffy pastel dresses. I was around two years old at the time. My recollection of this is fuzzy and indistinct, but nonetheless, it feels authentic and I treasure it as one of my earliest memories.

The traveler can get the greatest joy of travel even without going to the mountains, by staying at home and watching and going about the field to watch a sailing cloud, or a dog, or a hedge, or a lonely tree.”— Lin Yutang Around four out of every 10 of us have fabricated our first memory, according to researchers. This is thought to be because our brains do not develop the ability to store autobiographical memories at least until we reach two years old. Personal significance. "You probably remember what you had for breakfast this morning and what clothes you wore yesterday. But if I were to ask you about those in a few days or a month, you'd have no memories for them because they're just not that important to you," Dr. Budson explains. Aging affects retrieval Say “I’m sorry.” Don’t go to bed angry.–Don’tlet your pridebecome more important thatyour relationships. Sometimes it’s hardest to say “I’m sorry” to our spouses and our children. There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”— Quentin CrispLeave yourbad mood at the door.– If that’s not possible, use words to talk aboutyour mood rather thanemotionally taking that bad mood out on your family. Memorize a verse like 1 Peter 5:6–7 to repeat when you’re mood tanks… According to the theory, rapidly repeated material is associated with a single state of context, whereas material repeated across different times and events is associated with several different states of context. This pays off later, when you’re sitting in the exam hall desperately trying to recall the chemical formula for potassium permanganate, because your current state of context will be more likely to match one of the many states of context in which you so diligently did your chemistry revision. Memory goes downhill after age 30. "There's good evidence that our ability to retrieve information peaks between ages 20 and 30. By the time we're in our 50s, the frontal lobes, which are in charge of searching for memories, don't work as well as they used to," Dr. Budson says. Everybody’s always talking about people breaking into houses, ma’am; but there are more people in the world who want to break out of houses.”— Thornton Wilder Emotion. "Getting married is an example of a highly emotional event. In that circumstance, a whole host of brain chemicals become active as these memories are being recorded," Dr. Budson says.