“El Sueño” by Antonio Cortina Farinós (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
From “Reactivating Memories During Sleep: Memory Rehearsal During Sleep Can Make a Big Difference in Remembering Later” (Science Daily, April 13, 2013):
“Why do some memories last a lifetime while others disappear quickly? A new study suggests that memories rehearsed, during either sleep or waking, can have an impact on memory consolidation and on what is remembered later.
The new Northwestern University study shows that when the information that makes up a memory has a high value (associated with, for example, making more money), the memory is more likely to be rehearsed and consolidated during sleep and, thus, be remembered later.
Also, through the use of a direct manipulation of sleep, the research demonstrated a way to encourage the reactivation of low-value memories so they too were remembered later.”
. . .
“‘The research poses provocative implications about the role memory reactivation during sleep could play in improving memory storage,’ said [Dr. Ken] Paller, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern. ‘Whatever makes you rehearse during sleep is going to determine what you remember later, and conversely, what you’re going to forget.'”
Read the entire article here.
Your Pages . . .
1. What memories have come to you on waking because you dreamed about them?
2. Has a sound you heard subconsciously in sleep ever triggered a dream-memory that you recalled in the morning?
3. How might you use knowledge of what this study reveals as an aid to your memoir writing?