Response to "The Memory of Mind": Three Kinds of Memory Plus a Probable Fourth
Hi Lawrence ~
I started this post as a direct response to your Share but discovered I couldn't attach a couple of pertinent articles unless I made it an original Share in its own right. I have indulged in paraphrasing your questions some. In doing so, I hope I haven't changed your intended meaning. Based on my 'working hypotheses', the short answer to your questions is there is empirical evidence of three kinds of memory -- conscious, immortal, and divine plus a probable fourth called "universal memory". For the long answer, read on.
1) Where are our memories of day-to-day events stored?
Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California San Diego Larry Squire's (1992)view is that physiologically-based memory is not a single entity but consists of at least two processes or subsystems: explicit and implicit.
Explicit Memory. Squire says explicit memory is remembrance of facts and events and depends on the integrity of the hippocampus and related biological structure (describes as a biologically real [explicit] component of memory that depends on particular structure and connections to the brain).
Explicit memory's primary synonym is declarative memory. In terms of consciousness it is often linked to the ability to explicitly declare one's knowledge, memory for faces, spatial layouts and other material that is declared by bringing a remembered image to conscious mind, which may or may not include verbalizing it. Thus, the kind of information acquired by explicit memory includes semantic (facts) and the episodic (events).
Implicit Memory. Implicit memory, on the other hand, refers to a kind of heterogeneous collection of distinct [para-memory] learning and memory abilities where performance changes but without affording conscious access to the experience or experiences that caused the change.
Here described is a more psychologically [implicit] component of memory that may depend in part on structures and connections in the brain other than the hippocampus). Synonyms include nondeclarative memory and habit.
In terms of consciousness, implicit memory seems linked to a subconscious or unconscious heterogeneous collection of nondeclarative memory abilities which are expressed only through performance and which are seemingly independent of the structures damaged in amnesia. The kind of information acquired includes motor, perceptual, cognitive habituation, sensitization skills and habits; perceptual and semantic information acquired through priming; simple classical conditioning and operant conditioning dispositions.
Thus, in summary, explicit memory appears seems dependent on an undamaged full functioning hippocampus while implicit memory does not appear linked to any particular organic structure and, therefore, seems very diffuse. This may be compatible with the view of other neurologists that the brain is not limited to the cranium but includes the whole body. Still other scientists, such as Ervin Laszlo (2004) see evidence that mind is more than brain and probably the creator and evolver of brain.
Now, in response to your question . . .
2) Do we have any memory of our psycho-spiritual-biological life events after bodily death? If so, where are they stored?
In response to that question there are some interesting 'working hypotheses' which I have drawn from Dr. Michael Newton's painstaking analysis and synthesis of the experiences of approximately 7,000 clients he hypnotherapeutically regressed to their life between lives.
Caveats: The data is empirical evidence based on case studies, not scientific evidence. Also, I have lifted these statements out of context so you may want to read his book to ascertain their whole meaning.
Michael Newton wrote in his book Destiny of Souls (2004), "All souls who come to Earth leave a part of their energy behind in the spirit world, even those living parallel lives in more than one body. The percentages of energy souls leave behind may vary but each particle of light is an exact duplicate of every other self and replicates the whole identity.
"This phenomenon is analogous to the way light images are split and duplicated in a hologram. Yet there are differences with a hologram. If only a small percentage is left behind in the spirit world, that particle of self is more dormant because it is less concentrated. However, because this energy remains in a pure, uncontaminated state, it is still potent.
"A client emphatically told me, "If we were to bring 100 percent of our energy into one body during an incarnation, we would blow the circuits of the brain." A full charge of all a soul's energy into one human body would totally subjugate the brain to the soul's power.
"If we did not divide our energy, we would experience a higher level of spiritual memory retention in each human body. Amnesia forces us to go into the testing area of the laboratory of Earth without the answers for the tasks we were sent here to accomplish. Amnesia also relieves us of the baggage for past failures so we may use new approaches with more confidence.
"I have been told of physical planets where souls can go that allow for all our energy and the retention of full memory. Sure, and many of these life forms allow for mental telepathy, too.
"Very few of my subjects have the memory capacity to go back to their origins as particles of energy. . . . at best, my level I [newborn soul] subjects have only fleeting memories about the genesis of Self.
" . . . past observational memory is metaphoric as a current perspective. Original scenes from all our lives never leave our memory as souls . . . memories of past events in our soul life are reconstructions of circumstances and events based upon interpretation and conscious knowledge. All client memory retrieval is based upon observations of the soul mind processing information through a human mind. Regardless of the visual structures of spiritual settings, I always look to the functional aspects of what a subject is doing in them.
Based on his empirical research, Newton describes three kinds of memory: Conscious, Immortal and Divine (2004).
"1. CONSCIOUS MEMORY. This state of thought would apply to all memories retained by the brain in our biological body. It is manifested by a conscious ego Self that is perceptive and adaptive to our physical planet. Conscious memory is influenced by sensory experiences and all our biological, primitive instinctual drives as well as emotional experiences. It can be faulty because there are defensive mechanisms related to what it receives and evaluates through impressions from the five senses.
"2. IMMORTAL MEMORY. Memories is this category appear to come through the subconscious mind. Subconscious thought is greatly influenced by body functions not subject to conscious control such as heart rate and glandular functions. However, it can also be the selective storeroom of conscious memory. Immortal memory carries the memories of our origins in this life and other physical lives. It is a repository of much of our psyche because the subconscious mind forms the bridge between the conscious and superconscious mind.
"3. DIVINE MEMORY. These are the memories that emanate from our superconscious mind which houses the soul. If conscience, intuition and imagination are expressed through the subconscious mind, they are drawn from this higher source. Our eternal soul mind has evolved from superior conceptual thought energy beyond ourselves. Inspiration may seem to spring from immortal memory, but there is a higher intelligence outside our body-mind which forms a part of divine memory. The source of these divine thoughts is illusive. Sometimes we conceive of it as personal memory, when actually divine memory represents communication from beings in our immortal existence."
(Note I have attached a piece about Michael Newton and an overview of his research findings under the title Institute for Life Between Lives Hypnotherapy.)
MEMORY OF THE UNIVERSE
Possibly similar, even identical to Newton's Immortal Memory and Divine Memory is a fourth, all-encompassing universal memory, inherent in what Ervin Laszlo (2004) calls the Akashic Field.
He says, "Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record.
"Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in science's zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field conists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness.
"This zero-point Akashic-field -- or 'A-field' -- is the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened on Earth and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen."
Lawrence, I'll be glad to discuss this subject further at your request.
Yours with empathy and trust in integral natural science and our timeless, mysterious, all-caring, remembering Source,
Bob
REFERENCES
Johnston, Robert Wayne (1994). "A Case Study: Self-Managing Through Implicit Memory Scripting," Paper presented to The Braintree Hospital Rehabilitation Network, 15th Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference, September 26-28, 1994.
Laszlo, Ervin (2004). Science and the Akashic Field -- An Integral Theory of Everything. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions
Newton, Michael (2004). Destiny of Souls -- New Case Studies of Life Between Lives. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications
Squire, Larry (1992). "Memory and the Hippocampus: A Synthesis from Findings with Rats, Monkeys, and Humans." Psychological Review, Vol. 99, No.2. (In the public domain)
