"The brain is an anticipation machine that shapes ongoing perception by what is automatically expected based on prior experience."-- Daniel Siegel
Click here to listen to this podcast on the The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast.
Your prior experiences prime the brain to anticipate something familiar ...
Memory is the way in which a past experience affects how the mind will function in the future.
Memory is NOT a thing. Memories are the heartbeats of the nervous system.
Explicit memories are memories of events. Explicit memory development begins around 18 months of age. But implicit memory is operational before you come out of the womb.
1. Everything you learn in the first 18 months of life is recorded in implicit memories NOT explicit memories.
You have to be paying attention to record something in explicit memory. For example, a test. You must pay attention to study it and record it in your memory. Implicit memories are recorded whether you are paying attention or not.
In the book A General Theory of Love, a man named Mr. Underwood lost all of his explicit memory. He was then taught how to braid -- how to take three strands and braid them together. After he had mastered braiding, the people who were doing the experiment asked him "Do you know how to braid?" He of course, had to reply, "No," because he can't record explicit memories. He can't remember the event of learning to braid. However, when three strips of cloth were put into his hands, he braided them immediately.
2. When you recall an implicit memory, you do not have the sensation that you are remembering something.
When you recall an implicit memory, there is no sensation of recall. You don't recall that you are retrieving a memory from the past, therefore it feels like the present. It feels like the memory is happening in the present.
Your implicit memory tells you how the world works and what you can expect from the world.
Implicit memory is about the feel of things.
Your brain summarizes all the experiences of relating with your mother and father, and instead of thinking "This is what a relationship with my father is like," you instead think, "This is what all relationships are like."
And so when we set out into the world, we carry with us a storehouse of implicit memories.
And yes, this is an oversimplification. You are having experiences, of course, with people outside of your parents. And all of those experiences affect you. However, the relationship with your parents wields a disproportionate influence on your implicit memory. We continue to record implicit memories throughout our life. But experiences as adults have a much weaker influence on the brain. Childhood influences create the foundation of our brain. And later experiences merely make adjustments to that foundation.
"What's crucial to understand about implicit memories is that implicit memories cause us to form expectations about the way the world works based on our previous experiences. Implicit memory creates something called priming in which the brain readies itself to respond in a certain way. The brain is an anticipation machine that shapes ongoing perception by what it automatically expects based on prior experience." --Siegel
You never forget how to ride a bike for example.
Do you ever experience intense emotion that seems larger than what the situation calls for? These reactions are directly proportional to how your brain takes the other person's words and interprets them through the grid of your implicit memory. Something through the other person's facial expression or choice of words, has brought to mind past memories. And you are remembering these experiences, but because these experiences are stored in implicit memory, you are not aware that you are remembering anything at all.
When people say you are making a mountain out of a mole hill, that's wrong. In your brain, it IS a mountain. There is no way to experience it differently because that is how it is stored.The sensations in your body ALWAYS tell the truth. They never lie.
The sure-fire way to begin to understand in your implicit memory is to pay attention to when you feel shifts in your body, shifts in your level of arousal. When all of a sudden your body suddenly experiences a shift in your affect ... that is telling you that implicit memory has just been activated.
Situations that evoke strong emotional responses from us, make implicit memory known.
Curiosity says, "Wow. I wonder what that is touching in me!?" Ask questions instead of making accusations.
Implicit memory is the reason you have had such a hard time telling yourself truths that don't seem to make their way into your "heart."
You can't get those cognitive truths from your head to your heart.You can't tell yourself, "It's okay, that Cocker Spaniel is okay," and have it change your bodily response to the fear. The reason is, it is very hard to use words or cognitive thinking or words to change what is inscribed in implicit memory.
So how do you change it then?
I used EMDR. But Experiences is the way without therapy!
Please take a minute to watch THIS video. This will summarize what is happening with our brains with implicit memory.
You change these memories by healthy relationship experiences.
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