See this picture here? The picture that Sideview has set as her weekend theme for this week? The picture of the corridor with all those doors, and the shadows and the light parts and the other door at the end? That picture is how I see my mind.
Not all of it, but the place where I need to go when I’m searching for a memory or two. And, it isn’t as though I actually do the searching myself – my mind takes care of that itself too, but this is how I see my mind when it is searching for a memory.
Well, in this and many other corridors. This one corridor would not be large enough to contain every single experience I ever came across in this lifetime, the lifetimes before (and after) this one, and the many different lifetimes that have existed in the dream world.
Each of these experiences gets stored somewhere, and I imagine each experience is grouped together and stored in the most relevant room. And the Memory Keeper is the aspect of me whose sole task is to go and retrieve the memories when needed.
Usually, my Memory Keeper does a wonderful job. Sometimes he takes his time, and sometimes he gets a memory from the completely wrong room – I’m sure he does that deliberately just to confuse me. I’m sure he’s aware that I’m confused most of the time anyway, but his job isn’t to think of that – his job is to go and get the memory in split second timing.
I don’t know how his filing system works, but I’d imagine him firstly having corridors for years, and then each door along the corridor would be for either every month, or possibly every week.
Or, he could have a corridor for names, with each door containing memories of everyone I have ever come across with that name.
Or, he could have a corridor for feelings and emotions, and each door along that corridor stores the memories associated with each emotion I feel.
Or, he could have a corridor for places, with each door here holding ways to get to people, sights and sounds, smells and any other thing associated with that place.
And now, I think he’s had to open up a brand new corridor to contain doors, with their corridors and rooms beyond them, for my characters I’ve created throughout my time writing this blog… together with some ‘artificial’ memories of theirs also.
My inner Memory Keeper is very busy, it must be said. I don’t think he ever rests, even when I do, he’ll be firing something at me from one of the many rooms for one reason or another.
But with all that said, I simply wonder what it would be like to walk along the corridor itself. Would it be deadly silent, with only the echoes of my footsteps reverberating along with me as I walk from end to end? Or would the sounds of every single memory stored within each room be deafening, even with the doors closed?
I’d like to think it’s the first option, the quiet one, which is what I feel when I look at the picture. Who knows what could be inside each room, but the corridor itself is calm. Even through light and dark.
Tom
How interesting. Inside your mind is order and structure.
This one would be quiet to walk along, it is covered in desert sand.
LikeLike
That’h how I think it is, Sideview… although it’s probably just as chaotic as the rest of me!
So t was sand… I was wondering what that was!
LikeLike
Me too, Sir Aquatom.. my mind is an endless corridor. and behind every door there’s a room … full of those big metal filing cabinets, endless ways to lose info, (now where was that letter I sent to the brain, saying it shouldn’t go on a go slow next Tuesday. ‘cos there was an Extraordinary General Meeting called for the same day? )…. Infinite ways to get lost methinks … inside our minds… Shiver!! Now where’s t’exit?… xPenx
LikeLike
I agree, Pen… it’s very easy to get lost if we go too far. I like to go a little further, exploring, every time… but I always make sure I come back. I wonder though, if I got lost, would I actually know???
LikeLike
Beautiful post.
LikeLike
Thank you, Maire.
LikeLike
Good Post Tom! 🙂
My memory is confused, so I have trouble retrieving stuff, but I love the concept! 🙂
God Bless!
Prenin.
LikeLike
Thanks, Prenin.
I’m perpetually confused… it’s quite funny at times!
LikeLike
Love your take on the theme, Tom.
I was surprised to learn some time ago that we don’t catalogue memories chronologically. Instead, our memories are filed under sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, etc. . . . so, in theory, we have many possible avenues that will lead to the same memory door.
LikeLike
That’s fascinating, how memories are filed. I can believe it though. There is one particular smell that has occurred a handful of times in my life, and it is the smell of the orphanage I was in after Mum’s suicide. Unforgettable, and that smell brings it on.
LikeLike
That actually makes more sense than memories being stored in chronological order, Nancy.
LikeLike
Oh, and thank you by the way!
LikeLike
I like you take on the theme. Quiet corridor of the mind.
My mind has been updated and computerized. The problem is it keeps crashing and shutting down. Sparks fly and it’s getting harder to reboot. Yours is simpler and most likely the better model. (ha ha)
LikeLike
Thanks, Tess.
Sometimes, I think my mind could do with an overhaul… or a service, or something!
LikeLike
Thank you for the thought-provoking tour inside your mind, Tom. If you could take a walk down that corridor, I don’t think it would be quiet at all. I imagine that it would be a cacophony of sounds that would fade in and out as you’d walk from one door to the next. Of course, that’s just me projecting my own POV here.
LikeLike
Thanks, LA. Yes, I can see, or rather hear, those sounds fading in and out as I walked along…
LikeLike
Those memories that come from nowhere, like when I hear a sound or get a whiff of a passing smell, are some of my favorites. This post has been a great walk down my own corridor. Thanks, Tom.
LikeLike
A pleasure, Andra!
LikeLike
Sorry, Tom – I meant to comment to you too!!
I just wanted to say this is very thought provoking, very.
LikeLike
Thanks, Noeleen. It’s amazing where an image can take you at times, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Tom, I love the thought that your mind is a corridor like that. What a fantastic metaphor. I think mine might be more like lighthouse stairs, but I’d have to go away and think about it.
LikeLike
Like a spiral staircase, Kate? Things going round and round all the time… I can see that as well.
LikeLike
I like the way you think. Great response to the prompt.
My husband says the mind is like a computer: the older we get, the more memory it has to search to retrieve information, and that’s why it takes so long.
LikeLike
Thanks, Tilly.
Yes, I can see that… it uses a lot of storage space, the mind, when you think about it!
LikeLike
I honestly thought I’d commented on this…
I really, really like the way you described the mind…and it sounds so perfectly plausible too. Though the many ways memories can be stored would over whelm me..hehe
LikeLike
I’ve always seen my mind this way, Shree, and the picture brought my mind to mind when I saw it.
When you think about the things the mind can do, it does take you back a step or two!
LikeLike