How do NJ's experience memories?

[Skarekrow]

There are a lot of exercises you can use to train your memory. Talk to @Skarekrow about meditation. It is very helpful for him.

Have any INFPs weighed in about whether they remember things in list form, or as a movie/in 3D? I tried to ask a close INFP friend and she said both, but explained 'list' when she is around other people, and 3D when she is sleeping. I don't consider dreams "memories", even if they are about something that happened in the past, but she didn't differentiate.

Yes it has been!
Send me PM if you want.

 

[Littlelissa]

I think it's pretty interesting that as @Eventhorizon said you can be lying in bed and imagine yourself to be in another time and place and instantly feel as if you are actually there. Memory is such an amazing, poignant thing. It reminds me, although this is a different phenomena - of how strange it is when you are staying somewhere strange and you awake and can sometimes temporarily be dislocated in time and space, like your 'unplugged' from the circuit and have no idea where you are.

I was thinking recently about several memories that I have from childhood, They are a bit like peak experiences I think because as they were occurring I had the sense that these moments in time were somewhat 'timeless' and that I would always remember them and they have actually remained as 'crystallised' experiences and feel like mini poems of a sensory, experiential sort (if I can describe it like that).

But then other types of memories just 'come up on me' out of the blue, in a way which I think is most often a pleasant experience. Memory is really the sum of us, who would we be without our memories? Also the way that we store and interpret these memories was dictated by us and our particular perception at that time.

It's a huge and interesting topic of which little is known about. In my limited knowledge on this several things come to mind,-

When we remember we are also recreating our memories so that they evolve and change (to a degree) as they are 'reenacted' (apparently), therefore in line with this research there is no one 'true' experience of a memory because it is always morphing to a degree...
In contrast to this as the olfactory system, or other of the senses are triggered we seem to be instantly flooded with sensory data out of the blue, (this seems to be different to the more 'consciously remembered' memory).
Also, the experience of remembering or thinking about something is the same (in terms of brain patterning) as actually experiencing it (if I'm remembering this right)..woa...yes, so in this respect, on the memory plane the time line does seem to dissolve.

I'm not sure though how I experience memory differently as an INFJ. Perhaps it is to do with the intensity of the sensory impressions that are experienced in remembering? Or the impressions that result afterwards through Ni... But then sensory experience triggering memory happens for all the types as far as I'm aware, so I don't know how it might be different for people with Ni. It's a huge fascinating topic much like consciousness and dreams.

 

[PintoBean]

I really like the hypothesis you present @wolly.green. My memory is really weird. I have extremely good memory of most anything someone has told me about themselves, even if casually in passing. For years. It is because of this that I get an inflated sense of how good my overall memory is. I am missing huge amounts of autobiographical memory from my childhood, probably because it was unhappy, I don't know.

 

[Ren]

Sometimes I feel like I can access memories in a 3D kind of way, like an imaginary library. The library would be my mind and would have its own codes. What has made its way into the library is there to stay, I can access it at will with surprising levels of detail. The majority of the external information's "sense data" does not make its way in, but what does, really stays. It's like the entrance is narrow but the room behind it is large.

As a result, in practice I forget many things but what I remember I can remember frighteningly vividly.

There is nothing I remember better than abstract insights I have formed over the years. I even have little names for them.

 

[acd]

There are a lot of exercises you can use to train your memory. Talk to @Skarekrow about meditation. It is very helpful for him.

Have any INFPs weighed in about whether they remember things in list form, or as a movie/in 3D? I tried to ask a close INFP friend and she said both, but explained 'list' when she is around other people, and 3D when she is sleeping. I don't consider dreams "memories", even if they are about something that happened in the past, but she didn't differentiate.

I don't usually remember things in lists or facts.
I remember vividly the sensory and emotional experience of the event. I can recall details tied to these things.

 

[Impact Character]

It is possible that the difference is not in "how we experience it" but rather in "what place value/status" it has in a process.. and probably in the quality of recreating the memory as @Littlelissa pointed out before.

A couple of things (not only infj):

• there is already a difference in perceiving in the present moment (depending on the process/focus) as in what is actually perceived and/or valued to be stored away..
• this differs in ..quality in quantity (the depth of details or the breadth of details... some is more neutral other is connected to associations..) ...
• and then there is the question on when and why you recreate memories.. and how they are altered/modified in the process.. possibly also how easy you forget certain things or reduce/filter them ..or how you get stuck with them

I've been pondering about what memory in general is as well.. like how memory was actually rather connected to a "feeling" than pure data. Then again if you think towards photographic memory the whole scale goes up to remembering something as if you were in the present moment. My father is really really good in recreating sensory details.. you pick a day in a year and we would recall it perfectly..

What @Ren described reminds me alot of a memory palace (check out sherlock series there is one episode that illustrates it entertainingly ). I actually know what you mean, Ren.. I had it, too.. that spiritual mansion. You might want to observe yourself if your current om mansion isn't actually connected to this. ^^

To be honest I am not the most nostalgic person and I might have bad memory. I always perceived "the past" as something rather alien. Also my role in the past..it's a bit bestranging. I don't exist in the past, it's connected to me but it's some other kind of me. Sometimes I forget something happened to me or I did something in particular. Same goes for my output and it's quality, when I look at old pieces I am sometimes suprised to the better which makes me ponder if the Ni-Se thing isn't overshadoing things alot (envisioning and realistic output + perfectionism tendencies). Remembering a vision and maybe some disappointment associated with it on how you actually delivered/extraverted the vision might actually be some kind of way to describe memory.. if you recreate a memory but you don't refresh Se input (revise) you can actually really easily turn your memory into total false "backward perception" and associate it with a very strong feeling of "not being good enough". ^^""

I'm probably using the wrong words but this is the first time I talk about it ^^""" please bear with me.. rephrasing is totally okay with me!

 

[Ren]

What @Ren described reminds me alot of a memory palace (check out sherlock series there is one episode that illustrates it entertainingly ). I actually know what you mean, Ren.. I had it, too.. that spiritual mansion. You might want to observe yourself if your current om mansion isn't actually connected to this. ^^

Yes, I think that OM in some sense represents my spiritual mansion But let's say that, through Fe mainly, I seek to identify how that mansion is actually merely an expression of a universal mansion, if you like. And if, with Ti, I can get to express another Ni insight, which is that my mansion, as an expression of the universal mansion, is structurally related to it, then by analysing my own mansion, I may infer the content of the universal mansion, that is, of the oneness.

It is thus a movement from my own experience to the meaning of being.

 

[Impact Character]

Yes, I think that OM in some sense represents my spiritual mansion But let's say that, through Fe mainly, I seek to identify how that mansion is actually merely an expression of a universal mansion, if you like. And if, with Ti, I can get to express another Ni insight, which is that my mansion, as an expression of the universal mansion, is structurally related to it, then by analysing my own mansion, I may infer the content of the universal mansion, that is, of the oneness.

It is thus a movement from my own experience to the meaning of being.

The mansion is probably a save place your mind enters, too. Have you deamt of this mansion yet? I believe there are a couple path that lead there.. yet it is nothing I can really explain ^^"
don't ever misplace the blueprint or map that leads there