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Jaclyn Chow

Forgetting vs. Remembering

Don’t you think it’s funny that you tend to forget the things you want to remember but also remember the things you want to forget?

You remember the events that does not need to be remembered but forget the events that needs to be kept in your mind.

Like how you forget the amount of water to pour into the mixture although you’ve read the recipe for more than ten times, but you remember the way you said “thank you” to the bus driver last week.

Or like how you forget the phone number you had just recited in your head 2 seconds ago, but you remember the place you were at when you first heard your favorite song.


It’s like your brain is doing it on purpose.


If only there was a button to inter-switch the two.


What I hate the most is the way I would remember every nightmare I had and not remember a single pleasant dream.


I would remember details of the nightmare. What was said, what was done and what I felt. And every time I revisit the nightmare, the pain and fear would come instantly, like it never left my heart.

All that’s left from the good dreams I have is the short realization that I had one. I wake up and I know, but I can’t remember.


Why is it that we tend to remember the bad things and not the good ones? Why do we carry the hurt more than the happiness that we deserve?


Both dreams have equal emotional attachment- we feel the happiness as much as we feel the hurt. Still, why?


Is it because we feel that the hurt in the dream is far more real and is bound to happen much more than the sweet things that might not happen to us in reality? That pain makes more sense to be felt than pleasure. Is that right?


I have a book of dreams. It’s where I write down every nightmare and pleasant dream I have, so I don’t forget them. But its initial purpose was to only write down the good ones.


I realized that the pages written for nightmares were longer. They would take up to two pages. But the good dreams would only take up one or even half a page. And the number of nightmares written does not even come close to the other. All because I don’t remember enough of the details from the good dreams to write about.


So, it all comes back to the first line of this post.


Don’t you think it’s funny that you tend to forget the things you want to remember but also remember the things you want to forget?

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