Thoughts And Trivia

Of the bewildering and encyclopedic events in our life, some memories stick to the brain and some do not. The selection of remembered event is based on the intensity of interest that we had in the event at the time of occurrence.
But this interest changes as we grow older. As a child the level of curiosity is so intense that large percentage of memories of our lives from age of 3/4 years to 17/20 yrs get remembered. Later on this percentage goes on reducing. This makes interesting study when you compare the memories of life spent together with your children or parents.

Recently my son suddenly recalled, that once I had fainted due to vaso-vagus syncope. This nothing but a metabolically programmed, shut down of brain due to intense pain, to reduce the damage to the body. I learnt that I was more prone to it as a trait. About 25 years back, my wife, me and my son (then only 5 years) were sleeping and I woke up due to some stomach pain. I sat up on the edge of the bed slightly leaning forward due to intense colic pain. I had vaso-vagus syncope and I fainted, just keeled over, and hit the wall in front like a sack of potatoes. The sound of my head hitting a ledge must have woken them up. I do remember this event, but the detailed imagery that my son recalled, was very vivid. He could create a complete visual scene, although very small kid at that time. The boom of the tree, the exact place I was lying. The sounds , the colour of the floor etc. I did not have that much detail in my mind.
Being at the center of the three generations, I recalled my and my father's relative memories of shared events- and found it to be true in reverse order.
I think that is good as well! Otherwise our minds would have been clogged with too many memories of more busy portions of our life.

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at Wednesday, August 13, 2008