I suppose scientists never fully understood how our brains store and retrieve memories. Certain parts of the brain—although I don’t remember which ones—are known to be the primary locations where it is believed that the brain stores our memories, but there have been countless documented cases of people who suffered severe or catastrophic brain damage in those areas and still retained access to those memories. Sometimes the recall would not come for years and years later, or after much time spent in therapy and rehabilitation. Even then, sometimes there were gaps in the continuity of those memories or, in some rare cases, a concatenation of memories that did not match the actual event.
It feels slightly morbid to even be considering this. My memories appear to be intact, except, of course, that so-far-unexplained four-year gap following my “death”. If my mind is playing tricks, concocting memories of events that never occurred through the random association of memories that it can find, how would I know? If the sequence of incidents that make up that event seems make logical sense, again how would I know? Can I even be sure of what I perceive to be logic?
That, I fear, veers off into the realm of philosophy. Although that was one of my better series of courses in college, and I did find it to be far more interesting and engaging set of studies than I thought it would be, I never could fully grasp some of the metaphysical foundations of some of the philosophical disciplines. I do remember the professor who taught two of the courses, although I never could remember his name even years later. He was more than middle-aged man who regularly dressed in khaki cargo pants and Birkenstock sandals and white socks. He had white hair and a beard that, while you were unlikely to mistake him for Santa Claus, certainly made you consider that he was probably one of jolly old elf’s close relations.
