One of my earliest memories takes place in the living room of the first home I remember. It was sunny. I was playing Barbies with my sister. I’m pretty sure Princess Jasmine’s head had not yet been ripped off in a quest for vengeance. We were both little – I was probably around three years old. Then mum came in with two old people. They seemed nice. They smiled a lot, acting like they knew me. I asked my sister who they were.
“That’s Gran and Grandad, stupid.”
Sister, approx. 1994
The old couple gave me a colouring book and I decided that this was a good sign. They could be my Gran and Grandad.
There are a couple of interesting things about this memory. Firstly, and most obviously, is the fact that little me didn’t recognise my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were, from what I’ve been told, very involved in my life from basically day one. My sister and I stayed with them practically once a week throughout early childhood, before we moved further north. I should have remembered who they were. Unfortunately, the best we can conclude is that I’m secretly some sort of alien or changeling; I have several early memories around the same time period where I was effectively reintroduced to people I should have known. Incidentally, this always seemed to include me being given presents…
But the second interesting thing about this memory, and the reason that I’m posting about it instead of my planned conclusion of the author branding trio, is the perspective. This memory with Gran and Grandad is one of the only ones I have where I see it from my perspective, as if seeing it through my eyes again. I’m small, playing on the floor when they come in and sit on the couch. I have to look up at them. This isn’t the way most of my memories work.
Third person POV memories
I’m not going to lie, I’m not even fully sure where I’m going with this post. It’s kind of half a thought spilling onto the page, partially because I’m not in the right headspace to write the author branding conclusion, and partially because of a conversation with one of my friends last night. You see, I’ve known for a while that seeing your memories from a third person perspective isn’t typical. Then, in a winding conversation with my friend my friend, we discussed the differences between primarily oral cultures and literate cultures (hello, Ong) and then stumbled on how we think and remember things.
This is going to be such a weird post – and terrible SEO-wise – but stay with me here. From my often faulty memory, we were talking about how we study and learn. This was as a branch-off argument about how primarily oral cultures learn versus literate ones, as we both became curious as to what role text played in our own learning. She said that, if recalling something she’d studied, she would visualise the page and effectively read off of it to remember what was said. I, meanwhile, tend to remember the images generated in my mind by whatever I was reading. Effectively, I seem to learn by remembering the stories I tell myself.
Linking this to the way I remember the majority of my childhood memories, I feel like it makes sense that I remember in third person. Memories are more stories I tell myself. But my friend also experiences most of her memories in this way – like a camera looking at yourself doing the thing – so goodbye to that theory!
Memory, perspective, and writing
I’m interested in why my memories present the way that they do. This project throws up so much self-interrogation and so it makes sense to think about something that is so tied to how I think of myself. Who I am now is based on who I used to be, but what effect does this third-person disconnect have on that process? Anyway, having thrown my friend into an existential crisis through this discussion of memory, we both fired off messages to other friends and loved ones. Most people seem to either be in the first-person perspective camp, or some kind of blend between the two. I definitely want more input on this though, so please tell me in a comment which side you land on!
My friend and I tried to rattle out some ideas about why we remember things in this way, but struggled a little. There is some research on this, relating third-person perspective memories as more common in those with depression and anxiety (which unfortunately does make a lot of sense when it comes to me – hello, lack of author branding post), but an acknowledged weakness in most of these journal articles was that they tended to take place in clinical settings. They didn’t talk about the general population.
Most importantly, from my perspective, is the fact they didn’t talk about imagination. I wonder if part of the reason my friend and I remember things this way is due to our shared tendency to daydream. I’m obviously a writer – daydreaming is my thing – while she is a booklover, always immersing herself in storyworlds. Could this play a part? We remember things by doing what we do best: telling ourselves stories.
It could, however, work the other way around. Maybe my writing is influenced by the way I remember, and this is why I like writing in third person limited all the time? That is essentially how my memories work after all; I hover close to past-me, I know how she feels, but I’m definitely outside of her. Input from other writers is definitely needed though. So, please, sound off below and tell me how you remember things!
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