In our age filed with journalism, photographs and motion picture cameras we have often been seduced by the idea of memory as a preserver of fact. Careful research has shaken this idea, yet it still generally persists. Our estimation of the power of recall is too great, both for ourselves and for others. We can recreate ourselves, and do it all of the time. Our memories are not necessairly fixed or accurate.
I’ve seen this happen all the time. People’s memories of events will distort to fit what was funnier, happier, sadder, more profound. We constantly reinvent the past with new information. History books are constantly rewritten to include new findings, which we believe to be more true. Memories are the same. We include new information into old memories to reinvent the “truth” of situations already occurred.
imagination and memory are deceptively familiar. both lack the vividness of actual experiance and hence the idea is sometimes hard to distibguish from the memory./
People can recall memories that are experienced as undeniably true but alas are completely fictitious. The feeling of deva vu that one sometimes experiences is no definitive proof that one has experienced something similar before.