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Reprogram your memory, reprogram your life
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David B. Chamberlain, put it best, when he said, "Memory is the quintessence of human experience without which we cannot make progress, cannot learn from experience, and cannot develop a personal identity. Learning and memory are interlocked: learning depends on memory, and learning is evidence of memory". Memory is a fundamental part of the human experience, yet the scientific focus remains on studying memory and maintaining its healthy function. Conditions such as Alzheimer's are considered a disease, instead of a normal process that could be interpreted from a different point of view. It is curious that, although it is a condition of memory, most individuals experiencing it share a common ideal; the desire to "go home". Just about all books on Alzheimer's will have a chapter on this phenomenon. Most loved ones tend to understand these two words as a literal request from the patients, despite most of the time the patient being in his house. Ms Jo Huey explains it like this: "It appears that when they are asking to 'go home' it is really their way of saying they want to find a better place in time, in their mind. After all, Alzheimer’s causes the sufferer to travel back in time to another part of their life".
Seeing the same concept from a completely different spectrum, dogs have lived within the human family and society for millenia. Man's best friend may actually have something of great value to teach his ultimate master. How can two species with so many differences get along so magnificently, specially when their cognitive capacities are so far apart. Humans are gifted with exceptional intellectual and memory capabilities and their success in society is based on navigating through complex social achievements, and yet dogs survive just fine right in the middle of it all. Dog's memories are basically one dimensional, they depend on arbitrary memory, as it was found in the Psychological Bulletin, (Vol 128(3), May 2002. pp. 473-489), "animals are "stuck in time" [source: Roberts]. By this he means that, without the sophisticated abilities it takes to perceive time -- like truly forming memories -- animals only live in the present. Roberts thinks animals are "stuck in time" because they can't mentally "time travel" backward and forward. Humans can consciously and willfully think back to specific memories and anticipate events, animals cannot".
Could dogs then be constantly showing by example the secret of a happy life by constantly living their present. This type of existence protects them from resentments and pains of past experiences and from the stresses and anxieties of a constructed fictional future. If the memories create the individual, then why not pay special attention in creating the best life by choosing very carefully which memories are maintained, created or rejected. To maintain desired memories happens automatically, to create desired memories is what is commonly called visualization and to reject memories is just to consciously decide not to replay negative episodes in the mind's eye. Just these three simple internal habits can eventually create an individual that will never see things as half empty or half full but rather will always be...grateful!
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