How does our consciousness instantly know the location of certain, even distant, memories?
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Our “consciousness” does not, and our brain does not “index” memories. It is in fact terrible at that. And there’s no specific location in the brain where memories are stored.
Memories are basically connections between neurons. These neurons can be in any part of the brain — namely, all the parts that were involved in whatever it is you’re trying to remember. And possibly other things that were involved when you were _thinking_ about whatever it is you’re trying to remember. The more connections, the stronger the memory.
When you remember something, you are engaging those parts of your brain again.
Because the prevailing theory in neuroscience is that memories are never really “deleted” or lost, but rather your brain no longer has a strong enough link to find them.
So when we look at memories you frequent, think of it like a beaten path to your favorite place. You go there often, so often you’ve made a path there. When you want to return, all you have to do is follow it. Sometimes you don’t have a beaten path, but a number of markers (memory wise this would be a certain smell, touch, tastes etc..) that help you get there, even if you can’t find your path. In the reverse, if you have a place you don’t visit often, it doesn’t just disappear, you just don’t have that same path to get there. That being said, you can still stumble your way there by accident.
Same thing with your mind. Psychologists call this phenomenon “spontaneous recall”. You sort of “stumble” into the answer, usually in the form of finding a “marker” such as a taste or smell that lets your brain find its way to the memory.
The links to memories are like paths the more often the memory is accessed the more movement down the path the wider and more “solid” the path becomes https://youtu.be/2JUxf3a_dHE
Cool question.
I love stumbling across random memories. Happens frequently to me.
LSD seems to be a good way to stumble across some old memories.
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