Is there a real "me" or is it just an illusion

How we filter memories

When a person tells a story from the past, he does not use all available memories. Instead, he relies on a psychological selection mechanism - a filtering system that chooses what to recognize as memories. Most often, they are bright and emotionally charged episodes.

These episodes are then validated using the same filtering system. For example, if a person remembers in detail how he flew through the air, the system recognizes that this cannot be true, the memory is marked as a fantasy.

Another stage of filtering is checking the memories for compliance with the general idea of oneself. Let's assume that you have always been a very kind person, but after a stressful experience, you become aggressive. This will change not only your behavior, but also your personal story. If you are now asked to describe yourself, you will include in the narrative details that were previously left out of the frame. For example, you will have stories about those moments when you showed aggression.

And that's only half of the problem. Even those carefully selected and appropriate memories that we rely on can be completely false.

We often cherish the memory of events that never happened.

Why is our memory full of false stories

Brain scans showed The functional neuroanatomy of autobiographical memory: A meta-analysis that personal memories are located not in one of its departments, but in a whole network of several interconnected areas. Part of this network - the frontal lobes - is responsible for processing information, filtering out inappropriate elements and adjusting to a person's image of himself. If the event is unsuitable or unimportant, memory discards or changes it, information is added or removed.

Memory is very malleable, it changes easily. Changing beliefs and memories through dream interpretation. With Imagination, we can create false autobiographical memories. detailed and emotional autobiographical memories. They will be bright and lively, but completely fictional.

Nonbelieved memories are known to science for many cases of false memories, all of which are perceived as real. Scientists deliberately created “Creating Non-Believed Memories for Recent Autobiographical Events” in a laboratory setting: they used fake videos to convince study participants that they were performing certain actions.

When people were told that memories were created artificially, they stopped believing the memory, but they still felt what it was.

If all our memories are thoroughly filtered, what then defines our personality and how do we know who we really are: brave or cowardly, sacrificial or selfish? Not a single psychological test will certainly help to do this, because it is you who answer his questions, determining the qualities of your personality.

The best way to tell if something was real is to ask other people if they remember the situation. In other words, find witnesses. The same can be done with your personality.

How to correct your vision of yourself

Find the closest people who spend a lot of time with you and see how you act in different situations. The main thing is that they form an idea of you not from your words and stories, but from what they experienced with you.

Let them take a psychological questionnaire, pretending that they are responsible for you. You can use this test for strengths of character (when registering, indicate the Russian language - all questions and results will be in Russian).

Keep in mind that other people are not necessarily right. But if everyone agrees about some qualities that you do not notice in yourself, this will be a good reason to reconsider your self-image.