There are different kinds of memories. |
First of all, there’s one’s memory of oneself. |
You know what self-understanding is? |
You know that you are a girl named Lain with a certain face and height and weight? |
That’s all recorded at a molecular level. |
Aside from the brain, there are places throughout the body that carry residues of things that have happened. |
You know that if you get cut, you bleed, but if you wait a while, it scabs over and heals? |
That has to do with information stored in cells going to work. |
Take a look at athletes and people who have gone through intense physical training. |
They seem to do things effortlessly. |
That’s because their bodies have their own recollection or memory. |
If you generate a recording, you have a memory? |
You might be able to say that sometimes, but not always. |
Humans are haphazard and unpredictable, aren’t they? |
I don’t remember everything that happened to me as a kid precisely. |
I have happy memories of times I spent with my family, but my family might not have happy memories of those times at all. |
I may have had misperceptions in the moment, or I may have remembered things incorrectly and by mistake. |
But we all walk around with memories, thinking that what we remember is what actually happened. |
Suppose you meet an old friend that you haven’t seen in a long time. |
Don’t you remember the things you used to do with that person right away? |
Your memory has a way of linking things together. |
If you can’t link things together, you’re sick? |
Well, there is something called memory impediment. |
People who have this can’t remember things that happened only moments ago. |
They have no idea of how things in the past took place. |
They don’t know what happened and in what order. |
Since they don’t want anyone to know that they don’t remember things, they often make up stories about the past to fool people. |
Humans are complex. |
We do all sorts of things. |
You’ve seen senile old people on TV shows, haven’t you? |
As humans, there are some things we can’t do anything about. |
Things we can’t do anything about? |
I’m not saying that you’re sick, Lain. |
There are things we can’t do anything about, aren’t there? |
We can’t flap our arms and fly, can we? |
There are memories in the body and the brain? |
There are still many things we don’t understand. |
The human brain is made up of many different things. |
When something is recorded there, there is a change that takes place that becomes the foundation for memories. |
I don’t understand. |
Yeah. |
When you go to high school and college, you can study up on all this stuff. |
But it’s good that you have a healthy curiosity. |
I don’t think you’re sick, Lain. |
I feel that my memories aren’t my memories. |
Sure! I feel that way sometimes, too. |
Even when it’s me. But I don’t remember anything else. |
You’ve just forgotten something, that’s all. |
Didn’t I say that human beings are haphazard and unpredictable? |
We remember things the way we want to remember them and often forget what we want to. |
That’s being human. |
That’s normal. |
Normal? |
Yes. You dwell on things too much, Lain. All those things are normal. |