Haunted by Your Own Personal Ghosts

July 31, 2011 4:08 PM

Nostalgia? Place Memory? Grief? Saudade? What Causes this Feeling? What part of the brain controls/causes memories and feelings to be triggered by places or events? Is it different than the memory-smell connection? Is there anything stronger to explain these associations in the brain other than nostalgia?

I know that there's a link between memory and smell thanks to those functions being housed in one part of the brain, but what about the connection between memory and other factors? Same part of the brain or something completely different.

I'm curious after visiting a friend's house to see her off for a RTW trip has me in a slightly sad mood all week. Besides just being sad that she's not going to be in my community anymore, the visit set off a number of associations and experiences in my brain:

* She'd been living with a friend whose house sits in a neighborhood I've spent a lot of time in as both an adult and child. The house itself is the basic same design as a house I rented 2 blocks away, about 10 years ago.
* She's been sharing the house with two other grad students, again the house I had 2 blocks away also with 2 grad students (albeit her roommate seem a lot nicer).
* Sitting in the front part of the house with the door open to let in a cross breeze while talking about her itinerary and countries she'll be visiting. Some of these are countries I've been to but I also had a strong memory of all the times I sat in the front room of the nearby house waiting for my taxi to the airport for international travel.
*Thinking of travel during that period reminded me of a couple specific trips and how somebody I was close with died during that period (almost 10 years ago and was 3 weeks before 9/11)
* She's also been working for the exact same boss I had when I lived in that neighborhood and it's an organization I've had a connection with since childhood. She's left, my old boss retired and it sounds like there's nobody left working there who I know.
*Finally I met this friend right after returning to my hometown because I had a parent in hospice. So obviously the timing of meeting/becoming friends is connected to the period of having somebody in hospice.

Anyways, all of this stuff went off my brain and I almost starting crying on the trip home after, despite being really happy that my friend is embarking on a year of exciting travel and new experiences. Is it weird random connections to my personal life experiences that set this off? Or is there a specific theory for this behavior? Like I was talking with friends about the different memory associations we have for the smell of DEET (one person said gardening, I said camping), so I know it's possible for stuff to get linked in the brain. Or am I just being a weird sentimental cryer because my friend just randomly happens to have connections to these different places and experiences that I also have (and may be why we're friends)?

posted by gov_moonbeam to Science & Nature (6 answers total)

A convenient metaphor for memory is a web - points within the web can be linked to others where outsiders cannot see "logical" patterns or links. Other than smell, the things that tie new experiences or information to memory most strongly are strong emotions (anger, fear, embarrassment, love, exhilarated, etc.) or other memories (childhood/nostalgic and traumatic are the two most powerful ties).

Have you ever thought, "How did I end up on this line of thinking?" and then traced the line of thought back to the beginning and see that the track you took was not linear? That's how memory works - it goes off on little tangents easily, but particularly if your brain is not a "linear" information organiser (if you're into Myers Briggs, these would be Intuitive traits). Your post strikes me as this kind of organisation. I've got some links if you want that would explain this further.

Another way to think about this is similar to PTSD (in no way am I saying you have PTSD or am I trying to minimise the suffering of those who do). Having something painful in your past, such as the loss you experienced, the moving on of friends/colleagues/family, major changes in your life situaton, and now the temporary loss of your friend, can easily leave you a bit cut off and adrift in memory.

So. Dealing with these feelings. Here are some things that have helped me:
--acknowledge that the emotion is real, and valid
--journal about the feelings, exploring those varied connections and the feelings they elicit
--spend time with friends who can distract you but also draw you out
--take some walks in the woods, if that kind of thing is feasible
--read. Read. Read. My degree is in English, but my specialisation was in literature dealing with memory, trauma and identity. Indian and South African literature often highlight those things. Memail me for recommendations if you're interested.
--observe the small things around you and be grateful for all the experiences you've had that have made you who you are. Write them down.

I hope this gets easier. Please memail me if this is helpful; I regularly give lectures on these topics and can share other stuff if you'd like it.
posted by guster4lovers at 4:42 PM on July 31, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure about the actual neurocognitive answer to this question, since I understand very little about brain chemistry. However, I will venture to guess that in part we experience both spatial and sensory input simultaneously. So, for example, at any one time we have an active sense of where we are and how we spatially inhabit our environment, and we also map our experiences on top of what is a somewhat subconscious spatial reality. In that sense, our emotions and the maps that we make of our surroundings are often intricately linked and easily recalled in unison. I'm sure I'm murdering this explanation with psychobabble, but if you're interested in the humanistic approach to this, you might check out any number of authors including Rebecca Solnit's A Fieldguide to Getting Lost, Tim Cresswell's An Introduction to Place, or Lucy Lippard's the Lure of the Local, which all discuss the links between spatial and personal experience. Some of these works fall broadly under the topic of humanistic geography, which is the study of geography through the lens of human experience.

I think it's a beautiful subject of inquiry and I wish I understood more about the ctual cognitive mapping myself.
posted by ajarbaday at 8:02 PM on July 31, 2011

Response by poster: at any one time we have an active sense of where we are and how we spatially inhabit our environment, and we also map our experiences on top of what is a somewhat subconscious spatial reality

Great answers and the above is exactly what I've been wondering. Because the same neighborhood includes an apartment complex I spent a lot time in as a child (older sibling lived there and would babysit me) and another house that I lived in for awhile as a young 20something with several friends and local bands. I have zero emotional connection to those experiences. So maybe it is like a map, or a GIS where you have different layers - some (the Summer of 2001) are more prominent and active than others (being 9 years old and dancing to the Pretenders or being 20 and having house parties with local bands playing).

guster4lovers - I'd be interested in those links! Don't know about the Intuitive part though, I always score ENTP every time I have to take the Myers Brigg! Good point about the connection. It's been 10 years and that whole summer of travel led up to the unexpected death of one of the most important people in my life. It's been a really really really long time since I've felt any kind of grief or sadness (you do get used to somebody being gone), but I'm sure part of it was being reminded of a time when several people dear to me were still alive.
posted by gov_moonbeam at 9:54 PM on July 31, 2011

Response by poster: Oh and forgot to mention, but some of this reminds me of the classic Brazilian/Lusophone concept of Saudade, best known in the English speaking world via Cesaria Evora's song:

Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone ( e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. In Portuguese, 'tenho saudades tuas', translates as 'I have saudades for you' meaning 'I miss you', but carries a much stronger tone.
posted by gov_moonbeam at 11:36 PM on July 31, 2011

Best answer: The hippocampus is involved in both "conscious" memory and spatial ability, and some speculate that it is because all personal, episodic memories involve a spatial setting. Being in the same place will easily trigger recall of events that happened there, especially if they are strong memories - often privately relived, or because they were particularly emotionally-charged.

Simply put, spatial awareness and personal (i.e. non-semantic) memory appear to be subserved by the same brain region, and emotions are thought to reinforce the easy "recording" and recall of certain memories.
posted by monocot at 8:55 AM on August 1, 2011

If you're scoring ENTP then you are an iNtuitive (the I was taken with Introvert so they used an N). And N+P can give you a dreamy kind of personality. FWIW your "title" is Visonary.

Here's a few things I would look at:

Fairly accurate version of the online MBTI test (although honestly, I think you're right on with ENTP)
Basic description of the four preferences
Really good profile of how Rationalists learn (NT=Rationalists)
Profile of an ENTP (this is the best website I've found for describing Myers Briggs - at the bottom of that page are links to pages about relationships and careers for ENTPs)
How to foster personal growth in an ENTP
I like this page, especially for its connections to work and how to deal with stress.

From the bottom of that page:
Under extreme stress, fatigue or illness, the ENTP's shadow may appear - a negative form of ISFJ. Example characteristics are:
* being pedantic about unimportant details
* doing things to excess - e.g.: eating, drinking or exercising
* expressing emotions in an intensive and uncontrolled way

I'm not calling you pedantic or uncontrolled or anything, but I can see in your question the small details and intense drift into a sea of memory.

Along those lines, this paragraph sticks out to me from this website:
The Inventor is always imagining something new and bounces their ideas off willing listeners. They are usually very positive and often laugh off anything negative. But if excessive negativity comes their way and/or they become physically exhausted, their fluid imagination works overtime and obsesses about problems. They can withdraw and sleep a lot while their mind deals with the issues. In the worst case they can become phobic and lose their friendly social abilities. It's best if they can walk away from their problems for awhile and let their brain rest. Meditation often helps. Quiet support from others for their physical needs can help...

Hope that helps. I find personality theory really, really helpful, especially when things are rough. My husband is experiencing a lot of stress right now, and when we went back and carefully read over his type, it helped him understand that there really was nothing wrong with him - just as I would say there's nothing wrong with you - he was just experiencing the same problems other ENFPs often experience. It doesn't solve or fix everything, but in understanding yourself better, you can better come up with solutions to the things with which you're struggling.
posted by guster4lovers at 12:02 PM on August 1, 2011