In reality, there is no such thing as a perfect memory. The common memory that we know of is imperfect, vulnerable, and never recalls with 100% accuracy every detail of all our experiences.
The common notion that we know about memory is that it’s fallible in the role it plays inside our brains. People forget things; even short term memory loss is commonplace. Our brains can get tired and sleepy when overworked, and so we need to give it time to rest. The sharpness and creativity of our minds, as we know, are limited, too.
Traumatic memories are repressed, as if automatically, by a part inside our brains that enable us to survive without rehashing the painful, shocking, heavy experience that is too much for our minds to consciously remember over and over; never to be brought to the surface again until the mind chooses to, or another experience triggers it.
What is not widely known to many is that there is actually a part of our minds that lies beneath the threshold of our conscious thought or consciousness, known as the subconscious. In psychology, the study of the mind goes beyond the conscious mind.
The nature of the conscious mind is learning from information, experience, and observation. It also has a great functionality known as reasoning. It is responsible for performing tasks, commanding us each day.
It is where willpower originates but is limited in nature and subject to the fallibilities of the brain, such as forgetting, exhaustion, sleepiness, diminished capacity for willpower and limited creativity.
The subconscious mind is an inner mind. It is also known as the subliminal or subjective mind, as opposed to the objective mind (conscious mind) that we usually perceive as being our ‘mind.’
The subconscious mind never sleeps or rests and remains running in the background 24 hours 7 days a week. It does most of the heavy lifting, controlling all of our vital biological processes; it is responsible for involuntary bodily functions that include blood circulation, blood pressure, heartbeat, and digestion, among others, working day in and day out to keep us alive.
The Subconscious Mind – Where ‘Perfect Memory’ Lives On
The subconscious mind acts as the permanent storehouse of all our life’s memories and experiences. Being the concealed aspect of our minds, it equally possesses a similar capacity for storing memories away, but unlike the conscious mind, it never forgets.
Repressed traumas and suppressed memories continue to live within the subconscious realm. For this reason, healing and therapy can mostly be successfully done via the subconscious.
Our subconscious mind is powerful in many ways, but because of its subliminal nature, there are still many objective aspects of the subconscious that remain hidden.
In new age philosophy, the subconscious is even believed to carry memories even of past lives that people have lived.
Meanwhile, our subconscious speaks to us in dreams, and it demonstrates its greatest functionality when the conscious mind is at rest. When we are asleep or in a trance-like state during hypnosis, the subconscious mind continues working in the background. It communicates with us in dreams. We can communicate with it in return, and summon it for specific requests.
The subconscious mind never forgets. It remembers everything that the conscious mind has ever felt, seen, heard, and generally experienced via any or all of the five senses. It keeps information like a memory box, storing it away for future reference. It gathers and collects data 24/7, but it never runs out of space.
It’s virtually unlimited in its capacity. It does not think for itself, but ultimately, it remembers your every thought, emotion, actions, working tirelessly to keep you thinking, feeling, acting, behaving in a similar way you always have.
Having assimilated every part of your being and psyche, your subconscious mind works to keep you in your comfort zone, where it feels safe. It alerts you when there is any change which it perceives as imminent danger and makes you feel uncomfortable when you introduce a new, different stimulus to it.
That’s how memory gets recorded in you forever and that is why you act like the same person every single day of your life unless you are actively working on changing an aspect of yourself.
Modern science and psychology have only gotten as far as the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding the impeccable design of the subconscious mind and subconscious memory. However, much of what there is still left to know objectively about the subconscious still remains within the realm of uncharted territory to mankind, and clad in great mystery.
