Identity And Memories Quotes & Sayings

That is the problem with repressed memory and dissociative identity disorder. Your mind represses certain traumas for reasons of pure survival. And then you learn that to survive as an adult, you must uncover the memories, find the parts, and relieve the traumas. The contradiction is almost too much for the mind to comprehend and for the heart and soul to endure. — Suzie Burke

And the air is new. And everything, instant by instant, is as it is, preparing to appear. [ ... ] This is the only way I can live now. To be reborn moment by moment. [ ... ] I die at every instant, and I am reborn, new and without memories: live and whole, no longer inside myself, but in every thing outside. — Luigi Pirandello

Over centuries, organised perpetrator groups have observed and studied the way in which extreme childhood traumas, such as accidents, bereavement, war, natural disasters, repeated hospitalisations and surgeries, and (most commonly) child abuse (sexual, physical, and emotional) cause a child's mind to be split into compartments. Occult groups originally utilised this phenomenon to create alternative identities and what they believed to be "possession" by various spirits. In the twentieth century, probably beginning with the Nazis, other organised groups developed ways to harm children and deliberately structure their victims' minds in such a way that they would not remember what happened, or that if they began to remember they would disbelieve their own memories. Consequently, the memories of what has happened to a survivor are hidden within his or her inside parts. — Alison Miller

The neural basis for the self, as I see it, resides with the continuous reactivation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography, on the basis of which a notion of identity can be reconstructed repeatedly, by partial activation in topologically organized sensory maps ...
In brief, the endless reactivation of updated images about our identity (a combination of memories of the past and of the planned future) constitutes a sizable part of the state of self as I understand it.
The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of an individual's body ... Of necessity, this encompasses background body states and emotional states. The collective representation of the body constitute the basis for a "concept" of self, much as a collection of representations of shape, size, color, texture, and taste can constitute the basis for the concept of orange. — Antonio R. Damasio

There are so many different forms of silence: the silence that tyrannical states force on their citizens, stealing their memories, rewriting their histories, and imposing on them a state-sanctioned identity. Or the silence of witnesses who choose to ignore or not speak the truth, and of victims who at times become complicit in the crimes committed against them. Then there are the silences we indulge in about ourselves, our personal mythologies, the stories we impose upon our real lives. — Azar Nafisi

Switches among identities occur in response to changes in emotional state or to environmental demands, resulting in another identity emerging to assume control. Because different identities have different roles, experiences, emotions, memories, and beliefs, the therapist is constantly contending with their competing points of view. Helping the identities to be aware of one another as legitimate parts of the self and to negotiate and resolve their conflicts is at the very core of the therapeutic process. It is countertherapeutic for the therapist to treat any alternate identity as if it were more "real" or more important than any other.

Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision — James A. Chu

People with dissociative disorders are like actors trapped in a variety of roles. They have difficulty integrating their memories, their sense of identity and aspects of their consciousness into a continuous whole. They find many parts of their experience alien, as if belonging to someone else. They cannot remember or make sense of parts of their past. — David Speigel

That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tale told by inattentive idealists. — Ralph Ellison

Buddhists Believe In Reincarnation Buddhists don't believe reincarnation but they believe in rebirth. Reincarnation is about endless and set identity that moves from life to another, having the same emotions and memories with it. While rebirth on the other hand doesn't carry any memories or emotions you had in your past life, it is simply a small inscription of them in what's we called karma. Reincarnation and rebirth are rationally different concepts. Reincarnation is a belief that every person has a soul, and the soul travels to another body once their previous body dies. Rebirth explains that there's no permanent thing in the world. Every living creature is a nonstop accumulation of changing conditions that establish the body and mind. — Kiera Goodwin

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling his/her story - that it's now safe, no harm will come to us from telling or from knowing. There was once a time when it was very important that we didn't know what had happened; that knowing meant danger or being so overwhelmed with pain and grief that we wouldn't survive. But now it was different. We're safe and strong, and our goal now are to uncover the grisly truth of what's happened to us, so that it's no longer a powerful secret. We can look at it and face the past for what it is - old memories of old events. Today is now,and we can choose to live a different way and believe different things. We were once powerless and vulnerable, but now we were in a position to make choices. We had control over our life. — Carolyn Bramhall

So couples relive romantic memories, families watch home movies, and friends "catch up" with each other, as if they've lagged behind on a trail. Sifting memory for saliences to report, they reveal how vital pieces of their identity have changed. Aging, we tailor memories to fit our evolving silhouette, and as life's vocabulary changes, memories change to fathom the new order. Lose your memory, and you may drift in an alien world. — Diane Ackerman

In the words of the late Francis Crick ... You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. (13) — Mary Roach

The first thing you need to know if you are a survivor is that parts of you have probably been trained to create a variety of symptoms and behaviours. Abusers actually train child parts to cut the body, to make other parts cut, to attempt suicide, to create flashbacks by releasing pieces of visual or auditory memories, to create body memories of pain or electroshock, and to create depression, terror, anxiety, and despair by releasing the emotional components of memories to the rest of the personality system. The front person and most of the rest of the system do not know that this is the source of these feelings and behaviours. p126 — Alison Miller

And all these things she always counted on to revisit, they made up a map, the map of a true home. It was the only place where she felt she had an identity and a history behind her. — Effrosyni Moschoudi

METAPHYSICAL LECTURE 1
It has been said that after undergoing certain ordeals - whether ecstatic or abysmal - we should be obliged to change our names, as we are no longer who we once were. Instead the opposite rule is applied: our names linger long after anything resembling what we were, or thought we were, has disappeared entirely. Not that there was ever much to begin with - only a few questionable memories and impulses drifting about like snowflakes in a gray and endless winter. But each soon floats down and settles into a cold and nameless void. — Thomas Ligotti

I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any. — Jorge Luis Borges

You are the stories and incidents that you never tell to anyone. You are the thoughts that you get while standing under the
shower. You are those memories that won't lets you sleep at night peacefully. You are those words that you will never say while
speaking with someone. You are those scars that you always hide from everyone. You are those little secrets that you will never let the world know. You are everything that you hide under the identity that you call the real you. — Akshay Vasu

Our sense of self, formulated in large part by the untold number of cross-related connections that we make with our physical, social, and family environments, is reliant upon fitting into our social fabric. The educational environment, family relationships, peer groups, books, television, films, music, along with an assortment of other cultural events shape our emergent persona. Our successes and failures interacting in the world leave their collective imprint upon the wet clay of our forming brains. We are sentimental creatures who cling to past memories. We are inquisitive critters who venture forth from our protective dens to explore new territory. We are perceptive organisms equipped with five basic senses. We are sentient beings who can consciously organize our sense impressions into guiding ideas and useful principles. Our survival responses form a central cord of our emotions. We are receptive, compassionate beings that respond with both body and mind to global stimuli. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Dissociation leaves us disconnected from our memories, our identities and our emotions. It breaks the trauma into digestible components, so that different aspects of the trauma get stored in different compartments in our brain. What happens as a result is that the information from the trauma becomes disorganized and we are not able to integrate these pieces into a coherent narrative and process trauma fully until, hopefully, with the help of a validating, trauma-informed counselor who guides us to the appropriate therapies best suited to our needs, we confront the trauma and triggers in a safe place. — Shahida Arabi

When we attend to someone who greets us, it is not to require confirmation, attestation, certification of our identity. To respond to someone who greets us is to drop our concerns and thoughts, and expose ourselves to her. It is to expose ourselves to questioning and judgment. Simply responding to her greeting is to recognize her rights over us. Each time we enter into conversation we expose ourselves to being altered or emptied out, emptied of our convictions, our expectations, our memories. — Alphonso Lingis

During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience. — Bernard Lewis

Oh, I almost forgot. In case that anyone besides big-headed Near or the deluded murderer is reading these notes, then I shall at least perform the basic courtesy of introducing myself, here at the end of the prologue, I am your narrator, your navigator, your storyteller. For anyone else but those two, my identity may be of no interest to you, but I am the world's runner-up, the best dresser that died like a dog, Mihael Keehl. I once called myself Mello and was addressed by that name, but that was a long time ago.
Good memories and nightmares. — NisiOisiN

The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation. — Robert Louis Stevenson

This is the postmodern desert inhabited by people who are, in effect, consuming themselves in the form of images and abstractions through which their desires, sense of identity, and memories are replicated and then sold back to them as products — Larry McCaffrey

When it comes to identity we are all constructs. Who we think we are is the result of our upbringing, memories, skill set, knowledge, experiences and personal belief system. Of all the onion layers that make us who we are, our belief system is what powers our core. It's what creates the essence of a human being and makes it possible for each of us to exceed our limits, confound expectations and do the impossible. — David Amerland

That's grossing money for other people that has a multiplying factor, but the government doesn't see that. It doesn't see that making a film or culture or art is part of our economy. But the main reason is this, it's part of our identity. I think cinema is the memory and the imagination of the country. Take the memory and imagination out of an individual and he's stops being an individual. — Philippe Falardeau

So not only was it possible to implant false new memories in the brain, but people embraced and embellished them, unknowingly weaving fantasy into the fabric of their identity. — David Eagleman

Memory is the foundation of identity. Through our sense of identity, we act. We determine our moral judgements. We rewrite our own memories, of course, all the time. We create fresh narratives to use in our survival. We agree on fresh histories enabling us to take action. It is part of what makes us such flawed creatures. Creatures of such narrative fiction creating cause and effect. — Michael Moorcock

I guess what I find so interesting about memory, and its role in a person's identity, is how the attempt to achieve accuracy requires you to remove yourself from your life in an authorial manner. — Heidi Julavits

By identifying with a particular name that belongs to a particular body and mind, the self begins the process of creating a separate identity. Add in a complex jumble of ideas, beliefs, and opinions, along with some selective and often painful memories with which to create a past to identify with, as well as the raw emotional energy to hold it all together, and before you know it, you've got a very convincing - though divided - self. — Adyashanti

A child who is being abused on an ongoing basis needs to be able to function despite the trauma that dominates his or her daily life. That becomes the job of at least one ANP [alternate personality], whom the child creates to be unaware of the abuse and also of the multiplicity, and to "pass as normal" in the real world. The ANP is just an alter specialized for handling the adult world - in other words, the "front person" for the system. — Alison Miller

Death is a long process," Archer says. "Your body is just the first part of you that croaks." Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. — Chuck Palahniuk

Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia. — Thomas Merton

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.
Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil. — Megan K. Stack

FMSF Advisory Board Members Dr Martin Orne and Dr Louis Jolyon West are CIA and military mind control contractors with TOP SECRET CIA clearance. Both received MKULTRA contracts to study dissociative disorders, implantation of false memories, and techniques for creation of Manchurian Candidates. The dissociative disorders, false memories, and the therapist-created multiple personality are the focus of the FMSF campaign. — Colin A. Ross

You think of me that way because you look at me and at what I do through the lens of your mundane understanding of the world. Mundane humans create distinctions between themselves, distinctions that seem ridiculous to any Shadowhunter. Their distinctions are based on race, religion, nation identity, any of a dozen more irrelevant markers, To mundanes they seem logical, for though mundanes connote see, understand, or acknowledge the demon worlds, still somewhere found buried in their ancient memories, they know that there are those that walk this earth and are other. That do not belong, that mean only harm and destruction. Since the demon threat is invisible to mundanes, they must assign the threat to others of their own kind. They place the face of their enemy onto the face of their neighbor, and thus are generations of misery assured. — Cassandra Clare

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions. — Eckhart Tolle

It felt increasingly, as I became more whole, that I had made it all up, and that I was a phoney. I had to come to some place of acceptance. If I made it all up, then I am an unspeakably evil person, leading so many wonderful, intelligent people astray. What a scheming mind I must have. I knowledge will be hard too live with. But harder still is the thought that perhaps, just perhaps it is all true; that I really was horribly, ritualistically abused in a satanic setting, over and over again and as a result my mind fragmented. The implications of that are completely overwhelming. It was me, my body, that they did those things to. No, I would rather believe I am an evil and deceitful person. At least the I can change, and say sorry, and live a better life from now on. — Carolyn Bramhall

I was increasingly both horrified and sceptical about these memories - I had no recall of these things at all, though I couldn't imagine why I'd want to make it all up either. It felt as though it had all happened to somebody else, I was not there - it wasn't me - when those people did nasty things.
But then, of course, it didn't feel like me, that's the whole point of dissociation - to create distance between the victim and her experience of the abuse. The alters were created for just that purpose: so that I'd not be aware that it happened to me, but rather to "others". The trouble is, in reality it was my body that took the abuse. It was only my mind that was divided, and sooner or later the amnesic barriers were bound to come down.
And that's exactly what had begun to happen as I heard their stories. They triggered a vague and growing sense in me that this really is my story. — Carolyn Bramhall

My past identity separates from me and remains in the past; he becomes someone else. Is memory really as insubstantial as the fragments of information that we store in our heads? — Hideo Kojima

It is now recognised that dissociation is a way of forgetting, for a time. The mind siphons off the bad memories into a separate part, and reclaiming those hidden-away memories us a complex process. So, when the memories resurface it does not feel as though they belong to you, it feels alien, more as if someone had told them to you, or you had seen the images in a film. — Carolyn Bramhall

The few weeks I have had at my disposal have not given me the chance to revive and to work through my old memories in such a way that I might offer you a solid introduction into the psychic life of Indians. — Aby Warburg

I suggested that the system put all the potential offending [sexually abusive] alters in an internal prison. Jennifer said that would take too long. An alter popped out and said, "Just a minute," and then, after a brief silence, announced that they had "killed" all the offender alters; they were lying in the inside world dead, covered in blood! I was not very happy with such drastic measures, but accepted it for the interim, knowing I could rely on Jennifer to tell me if the risk recurred. I made a list of the "dead" alters.
The next morning Jennifer called; she had dreamed about sexually abusing a child. I asked her to look for more related memories before we met in the evening. She had to "reincarnate" all the dead alters to find the memories. (We already had a method for doing this, as some alters had previously experienced internal "death" in "disasters" in the inner world; when they were made new internal bodies, they became alive again.) — Alison Miller

Now I existed solely thanks to the quantum paradox, my brain a collection of qubits in quantum superposition, encoding truths and memories, imagination and irrationality in opposing, contradictory states that existed and didn't exist, all at the same time. — Robin Wasserman

I used to have a really sharp memory. And its loss has proven destabilizing from an identity perspective. — Heidi Julavits

We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship. — Robert P. George

Whenever the sadness got too much, I would hire a rickshaw and go to the Upper Bazaar. Those little rickshaw trips to the market and back, shopping for lipsticks and imitation Gucci bags and wind-chimes and what not, are some of my happiest memories today. You know, one day, during one of those trips, I sold all my well-thumbed copies of 'Inside Outside' to the Tibetan guy who ran the old book store on Netaji Road for seventy rupees, six Tintins and a disarming smile. And all of a sudden, that moment, standing at the corner of Netaji road, I found out who I was.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') — Kunal Sen

No two human beings are alike; it's a question of identity. And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin' from the aggregate memories of that individual's past experiences. The layman's word for this is the mind. Not two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don't, you don't, nobody does. All we know - or think we know - is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing. — Haruki Murakami

working slowly, destroying the mind, stealing a lifetime of memories, and robbing a person's dignity and identity, in the end leaving them silent. — Cindy Reynes

Simmy entertained slippery thoughts about identity and the meaning of any individual's span on earth. When it came right down to it, she supposed that all a person really amounted to was the sum of their memories. — Rebecca Tope

You are not who you think you are. You are not your fears, your thoughts, or your body. You are not your insecurities, your career, or your memories. You're not what you're criticized for and you're not what you're praised for. You are a boundless wealth of potential. You are everything that's ever been. Don't sell yourself short. Every sunset, every mountain, every river, every passionate crowd, every concert, every drop of rain - that's you. So go find yourself. Go find your strength, find your beauty, find your purpose. Stop crafting your mask. Stop hiding. Stop lying to yourself and letting people lie to you. You're not lacking in anything except awareness. Everything you've ever wanted is already there, awaiting your attention, awaiting your time. — Vironika Tugaleva

Imagination and recollection of cherished memories of the pastimes are closely related. We do not recall memories verbatim. As our perspective changes regarding our place in the world, we shift through our recollections and revise our memories. People possess the ability to edit their memories by repressing unbearable episodes and highlighting incidences that generate fond memories. How we perceive and comprehend ourselves in the past, the present, and the future shapes our evolving sense of self. Humankind's ability to repress unpleasant events and humankind's ability to act as the solo editors of our germinating awareness of the world that we occupy is ultimately responsible for activating our metamorphosing sense of identity. — Kilroy J. Oldster