Reminiscence - what is it, term, examples, features

The human psyche is very complex in its structure. Until now, many phenomena cannot be accurately explained. It is necessary to put forward assumptions and theories in order to somehow touch on a phenomenon that is still unclear, but clearly manifests itself in humans. The same thing happens with the phenomenon of reminiscence, the concept and examples of which will be discussed in the online magazine psytheater.com.

How do memories arise? In simple terms, a person pays his attention to something, after which he consciously remembers what he saw, heard, said, did, etc. However, a person cannot pay attention to absolutely everything. For example, while you are standing at a bus stop and looking for minibus numbers to catch the one you need, at the same time people are passing by you, other cars are passing, the wind is blowing, birds are flying, people are talking about something, etc. All around Many events happen to you, but you pay attention only to what interests you at a given second of time.

It seems that a person does not remember everything that he did not pay attention to. Scientists refute this idea. Reminiscence is precisely those memories that the brain has imprinted, although the person himself did not pay attention to them.

Since memories are images from the past that have a clear picture and theme, then during reminiscence the memories are clear and clear. Only they are incomprehensible to a person, because he did not remember them consciously, did not pay attention to them when these events occurred in his life.

According to psychologists, the brain remembers absolutely everything that happens to a person, both inside and outside. A person may not pay attention to something, but if his eyes saw it or his ears heard it, then it will definitely be remembered and deposited in the subconscious, from where memories will arise in the future.

What is reminiscence?

The phenomenon of reminiscence remains far unexplored, since it is still impossible to logically understand how memories arise that a person did not remember. Reminiscence refers to memories that a person reproduces without repeating them several days or even years after remembering them. Moreover, these memories are very clear and logically constructed. Undoubtedly, such memories evoke emotions in a person who did not even suspect they existed.

Reminiscence is the reproduction of information some time after its perception, which happened unconsciously, without repetition or intentional human participation.

This concept was described in 1907 by the Serbian scientist Urbancic, who observed how people reproduce verbal, nonverbal and sensorimotor material. Scientists note this phenomenon in children of preschool and school age. They are the ones who can reproduce the material several years after it was perceived, when this happened once, without memorization.

Many psychologists have been interested in the phenomenon of reminiscence. Everyone tried to describe this phenomenon, trying to explain the mechanism of its occurrence. However, so far no one has managed to do this. It’s just that a person automatically performs actions or reproduces material, which happens not by his will, but unconsciously.

Reminiscence appears as often as the material is interesting to a person. For example, logical chains are more often reproduced than incoherent material, and what is interesting to a person can pop up in the head just a few months after it is perceived.

Reproduction is influenced by many factors. For example, if a person does not master the material sufficiently, then it is not reproduced.

If the material is reproduced immediately after it has been memorized, then the individual relies on associations.
If information is reproduced some time after receipt, then it is based on logical connections.

Reminiscence often manifests itself in children, since it is based on the unreflective perception of information. This happens when a student memorizes material but does not understand it, or when a student learns a poem without understanding it or emotionally perceiving it. As soon as the test is passed or the teacher hears the poem, the information will be erased from the conscious part of the memory.

Thus, reminiscence is the perception of material without understanding it. There is simply memorization by repeating it many times, so that later it can be forgotten (the information will go into the subconscious) as soon as it is used or will not be used for a long time. Reproduction of this material after some time will be a reminiscence, when a person suddenly remembers what he forgot, and this will be facilitated by favorable environmental conditions.

Reminiscence is a sudden memory. The person doesn't remember him. A person does not participate in the process of remembering it, that is, he is not even aware of its presence. However, certain conditions arise in the external environment that help to pull out certain information from the unconscious. This happened to everyone. Eg:

Someone could remember the words of the song.
Someone could remember events that preceded memory loss.
Someone suddenly remembered the material that was told by the teacher at school.

The person is not trying to remember something. Reminiscence is memories that arise suddenly and unexpectedly for the person himself, but he forgot about them or did not even know that he had them.

In psychiatry, reminiscence refers to intrusive images and memories that are often reflected in nightmares.

A deviation from truly forgotten memories is a type of paramnesia - pseudo-reminiscence. This is when past events are distorted in memory and incorrectly localized in time due to negative emotions that arose at the moment of remembering them.

Characteristics and properties

Reminiscence is characterized by the following properties:

This is a common phenomenon, affecting 41% of cases, among which there is a place for incoherent, unintelligible material. That is, the situation is typical for those who “just like that” can remember an event in life while going about their business.
The rich content of reminiscence suggests that the emergence of memory echoes may indicate a disruption in brain function. This process is characterized by a sharp memory that a person can convey through speech with accurate data.
The semantic content will always exceed the meaning of memories for a person. That is, he will talk about what he sees “inside his head,” without understanding why exactly he remembered it and keeps it in his subconscious.
This phenomenon is typical for those. Who is already leaving this world. Before death, people often experience a process of reminiscence to make death seem less futile. Having lived for many decades, “life flashes before your eyes.” This phenomenon helps brighten up the process of dying.

Reminiscence does not have properties, since the process is a property of other situations that arise with a person:

Changes in the sensitivity of a sensory organ under the influence of a stimulus. Along with reminiscence, apathy, synesthesia and adaptation to what is happening are observed.
The properties of information perception cannot be associated with reminiscence. This sense organ will always transmit only positive results to the brain after searching for the desired memory.
Distorted perception of an object (déjà vu syndrome) gives rise to illusion, reminiscence, apperception and integrity. If an organ does not work correctly, a person may mistake for one object a completely different one, which will be identified with other senses.

Accordingly, social memory was formed as a collective memory, which is a set of actions taken by society for the value-symbolic reconstruction of the past in the present. The preservation of the past as a collective memory in traditional society was determined by its very way of life.

In modern and postmodern society, collective memory, precisely because of its axiological load, often becomes a source of legitimization for those social groups that, through manipulation of the value-semantic content of the historical past, which constitutes a significant section of social memory, try to create in the mass consciousness one or another often falsified image of the past:

Expanding the mental capacity of social memory allows us to better understand the value of the past, the meaning of the present and the hypothetical significance of the future, which to a certain extent can prevent manipulation processes.
The richer the social memory, the richer the historical and actual existence of man and society.
It is the essential, existential significance of social memory in modern society, especially during the period of revaluation of the value-semantic existence of society, that is especially significant, since it is it that can, on the one hand, most adequately identify the process of self-identification of society, and on the other hand, reveal possible variable-modal characteristics of his future.
The existence of social memory in its various forms is the subject of theoretical discourse within the framework of modern humanitarian knowledge.

The most productive properties are:

associationist;
cognitive;
cultural and historical;
semiotic.

Simultaneously with the crisis of positivism, the idea of reminiscence within the framework of cognitive psychology lost its attractiveness. A way out of this situation was proposed by the domestic school of psychology in the works of L. S. Vygotsky, A. Ya. Luria, A. A. Leontiev, where a scientific position clearly emerges, which allows us to consider memory as a cultural and historical phenomenon.

Reminiscence in psychology

Reminiscence is a normal phenomenon because it relates to the properties of memory. As already mentioned, it often arises in childhood and refers to material that has brightly saturated emotions and logical connections. Then they are easily reproduced in the future, even if a person has forgotten about them or did not know about their presence.

Reminiscence often occurs in situations:

When fatigue passes. During a period of fatigue, a person remembers the material, but cannot reproduce it because he does not understand. After fatigue has passed, it is possible to understand the information.
When there is no layering of material. If a person is in a situation of perceiving a large amount of material, then he forgets a lot. However, in the absence of receiving new information, material may emerge from the subconscious.

Scientists say that the brain constantly repeats existing information. This is why reminiscence occurs, even if the information was not specifically learned.

Speaking about pathological conditions when reminiscence is obsessive images from the past, psychologists talk about the phenomenon as a psychotraumatic event. If a person finds himself in a similar traumatic situation, then negative emotions will lead to memories - reminiscence.

Other reasons causing reminiscence are:

Neuroses.
Depression.
Panic states.
Intoxication.
Irrational fears.
Pathologies of the brain with impaired memory functions.
Traumatic brain injuries.

External factors that push a person to sudden memories are called allusions. They are a hint, a hint that pushes you to the right thought. An allusion is an external stimulus that provokes reminiscence.

Plato

The authorship of the ancient Greek philosophical term should be attributed to Plato. The concept was used in Plato's doctrine of the nature of the human soul and the doctrine of ideas. Plato believed that intuition serves as a tool for the soul to collect information about another world. This term is found in three of Plato's major works. In the Meno, Socrates talks about the universal relatedness of objects to each other, thanks to which one can literally remember everything and find everything. The Platonic concept, put into the mouth of Socrates, is that the mechanism of recollection ( anamnes
,
anamnesis
, ancient Greek ἀνάμνησις) opens access to judgments about causes. The Phaedo repeats the dogma that knowledge is actually recollection. In the Phaedrus, Plato postulates reminiscence (remembering) as initiation into the sacraments and an approach to spiritual perfection.

Treatment of reminiscence

Do specialists treat reminiscence? Since this phenomenon has not been fully studied, it is quite problematic to treat it. The normal state is reminiscence, which does not cause obsessive states. It requires neither medication nor consultation with a psychiatrist.

More worrying is the lack of reminiscence in a person, which, according to psychiatrists, may indicate a dysfunction of memory or pathology in the brain. It may also indicate the development of senile dementia.

Drug treatment consists of eliminating the causes that caused the pathological reminiscence and the symptoms that manifest themselves:

Sedatives are prescribed to normalize sleep.
Increased anxiety and panic conditions are eliminated with antipsychotics and sedatives.
Antidepressants help relieve depression, which causes intrusive memories.

Drug treatment takes place in parallel with psychocorrection. Here, identifying underlying problems and hypnosis, aimed at changing negative memories into positive ones, helps.

Individual counseling is carried out, which helps eliminate fears, panic and anxiety, as well as repress memories that cause discomfort when they appear. During group work, art therapy methods are used.

To prevent negative memories from arising in the future, psychologists offer their help. A person will benefit from the so-called debriefing, which is carried out immediately after a stressful or traumatic situation in order to change its perception (from negative to positive) and not repress it into the subconscious so that it does not suddenly emerge.

If reminiscence occurs in a normal form, then it should not be treated. Only pathological forms of reminiscence that take on an obsessive state require psychological help. A person cannot cope with this problem on his own, so it is better not to delay treatment.

Russian literature

Reminiscence in the literature of Russian classics is most often found in poetry. The authors unconsciously borrowed other people's images or rhythmic-syntactic moves. You can find similar examples in the works of A. Blok, A. Pushkin, O. Mandelstam and many others.

Many Russian poets consciously used the technique of reminiscence to create complex associations in the reader that enriched the perception of the work.

Literary reminiscences in poetry:

In A. Pushkin’s poem “Eugene Onegin,” when describing Lensky’s grave, the author created an association with the then popular elegy of C. Milvois.
In his work “Scythians,” A. Blok uses a phrase from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”
In their poems, A. Blok and O. Mandelstam deliberately hint at the work of I. Annensky.

What is the outcome of reminiscence?

A completely normal phenomenon for a healthy brain is reminiscence - an involuntary rush of memories that a person might not even be aware of. However, if they are negative, emotionally overwhelming, intrusive, and appear in dreams, then we may be talking about mental disorders. The outcome depends on what measures the person takes.

Every person at least once remembered something that was long forgotten. Everyone periodically has clear and vivid memories that have never been reproduced by a person consciously. This brain function often manifests itself in a situation where a person finds himself in circumstances that are triggers. They have some logical connection with the memories that they evoked, which can be of interest to psychologists and the person himself. If you ask yourself why these memories occurred, then you can see the connection between the trigger and reminiscence.

Russia

At the same time, the word entered the Russian language as an everyday Gallicism and allusion. In a letter dated February 1, 1840 to the Russian historian T. N. Granovsky, the philosopher and poet N. V. Stankevich called the platonic relationship of the addressee with N. V. “reminiscence.” In the second half of the 19th century, the word became a traditional musical term. In a letter to the Russian composer M. P. Mussorgsky, pianist and conductor M. A. Balakirev dated June 10, 1863, gave a description of the past opera through musical “reminiscences.”

In the modern period in Russia, the methodological problems of literary reminiscence were dealt with by M. M. Bakhtin, D. S. Likhachev, Yu. M. Lotman, A. Gollovacheva (), A. Arkhangelsky () and P. Bukharkin (). A number of fruitful solutions were found by Lo ().

In the early 1990s, reminiscence in drama (in the works of N. Sadur and others) was carried out by St. Petersburg mass media arts theorist T. A. Marchenko and her students.

Causes

The presence of moments of reminiscence is often the norm, based on the peculiarities of memory functioning. The effect is most common in childhood, especially if the initially remembered material has a strong emotional overtones and internal logical connections. If an emotional reaction at the first moment may interfere with the reproduction of acquired knowledge, then after “processing” the material, logical connections are “activated.” This is what allows you to remember something in more detail and correctly after some time.

Students also encounter reminiscence when actively preparing for exams. And what comes to the fore is not understanding the material, but targeted memorization. When initially retelling a large amount of educational material studied at once, its retelling may be incomplete, in particular under the influence of fatigue and boredom. After a day or more, remembering (reminiscence) is easier, and information is perceived to a greater extent.

Psychological reasons

From a psychological point of view, the reminiscence effect manifests itself due to the normalization of the state when fatigue passes. The material “fits” in your head, which makes voicing it later easier.

Another option for explaining the feature is the absence of “layering” of additional details on previously obtained data. In a situation where a person tries to remember many facts at once, they “overlap” each other. Because of this, confusion arises, conditioned forgetting. After a certain break, reminiscence can manifest itself, since there is no additional load on the memory.

Psychologists also believe that even when memorization stops, the involuntary process of repetition continues in the mind. This allows you to thoroughly remember any data. And then leads to reminiscence in certain circumstances.

Forms of manifestations

An analysis of modern philosophical literature devoted to the problems of reminiscences has made it possible to identify the specifics of the emergence of reminiscences and to reveal their functional and semantic characteristics.

In the process of the emergence of reminiscences, both 2 homogeneous (to a certain extent) and 2 heterogeneous cultural phenomena can be involved. One of them is the essence that is designated in this process, and therefore acts as the primary subject form of manifestation.

The second is an auxiliary entity (secondary, subsidiary subject), as a form of manifestation.

It is correlated with the designation of a ready-made name:

The heterogeneity of these entities and the associated associative complexes make it possible to go beyond the boundaries of both the old and the new circle of ideas, synthesizing a fundamentally new reality.
The process of reminiscentization itself can be considered as a problematic cognitive-nominative situation with many variable factors, among which there may be facts of a person’s personal intellectual, spiritual cultural life, and the existence of the society in which a person lives.
The reminiscent process is extremely rich and diverse in its forms of manifestation. It covers the entire intention of the subject of reminiscence, including the moment of choosing one or another way of expressing the meaning of reminiscence.

The idea of reminiscence is an urgent need to name a conscious (often quite vaguely) but not yet thought-out concept (thing, object) by using an already existing text, sound, paint, genre of art.

Psychological theories and schools

Reminiscence in psychology, according to the concept of M. Wartovsky, these artifacts act as the objectification of human needs and intentions, already saturated with cognitive and affective content.

The first level of artifacts consists of the so-called primary artifacts.
Secondary artifacts include, in addition to primary artifacts, ways of using them.
The third level is a class of artifacts that, while remaining intermediaries between a person and the cultural world around him, at the same time go beyond their own limits, constituting, as it were, their own, autonomous world.

There is a unified theory that shows the specifics of the analysis of social reminiscence. It is based on the works of Yu. N. Davydov, V. A. Kolevatov, A. I. Rakitov, M. A. Rozov, L. P. Shvets, in which social memory is considered from the perspective of information theory.

O. Mandelstam. "I'll tell you from the last one..."

Let's try to read together the poems of a very difficult poet - O.E. Mandelstam.

Ma voix aigre et fausse…
P. Verlaine[1]
I will tell you with the last directness: It’s all just nonsense - sherry-brandy - my angel.
Where Beauty shone for the Hellenes, Shame gaped at me from the black holes. /10/
The Greeks bonded Elena over the waves, and for me - with salty foam over my lips.
Emptiness will smear my lips, Poverty will show me a stern fig.
Oh, whether it’s like that, whether it’s blowing, whether it’s blowing - It doesn’t matter; Angel Mary, drink cocktails, blow wine.
I will tell you with the last directness: It’s all just nonsense - sherry-brandy - my angel.
March 2, 1931

“What nonsense!” - you might say. Moreover, it’s kind of frivolous: “sherry brandy” (obviously a drink), “blow wine” and the rhythm is kind of rollicking. The poet is playing the fool, and that’s all! And if you read other poems created by Mandelstam at the same time, you will be even more surprised. For example, the poems “Leningrad”, “You and I will sit in the kitchen...” or this:

Help me, Lord, to get through this night, I’m afraid for my life, for your slave... Living in St. Petersburg is like sleeping in a coffin.

How could it happen that the poet, at the same time as tragic poems, writes lines that seemed so frivolous to us?..

Let's try to find the answer to this question. In the poem “I will tell you with final directness...” our attention was attracted by the words “the Greeks bonded Helen along the waves.” “Sbondili” - in modern non-literary, colloquial language means “stolen.” But why does the poet use such a word in relation to the beautiful Helen, whose fate, as the legends of the ancient Greeks tell, became the cause of the Trojan War? It is not even in one of the best dictionaries of the modern Russian language - the dictionary of S.I. Ozhegova. /11/ You can only find it, perhaps, in a dictionary of synonyms. The task of the compiler of such a dictionary is to bring as many synonyms as possible for this or that word, and they have not only subtle semantic differences, but, as a rule, also different stylistic colors and belong to different stylistic layers of the language.

Another feature of this poetic text will help answer the questions that arise. It is worth thinking about which Mary the poet is addressing? Isn’t this the same Mary who sings “sadly and drawn-out” in one of Pushkin’s “little tragedies” - “A Feast in the Time of Plague”?

Read the work of A.S. Pushkin, Mary’s sad and tender song does not prevent her from being a participant in the feast and, to use the expression of O.E. Mandelstam, “blowing” wine. A feast during a plague cannot but seem blasphemous. At the same time, the tragedy of what is happening is obvious: all those feasting are themselves on the verge of death. This is evidenced by the very first monologue-toast of one of the participants in the feast, dedicated to Jackson, who “two days ago” was still among the feasters, but has now gone “to the cold underground dwellings.”

In O.E. Mandelstam’s poem, the lyrical hero also finds himself among the feasting: the words “blow wine” are colloquial to such an extent that they are almost intimate; with such words one can, perhaps, only address a drinking companion. This feast is both similar to Pushkin’s and different from it. The plague is also rampant in Mandelstam’s world. Only this is a different plague, the “plague” of Stalin’s time. Having lost the meaning of a real infection, it did not become any less terrible. The frivolity of the poem turned out to be imaginary. It does not stand out from the number of other tragic poems by Mandelstam of that time. Like Pushkin, we have before us a song (note the regularity of the rhythm, the refrain). This is also a song on the eve of non-existence, next to the horror of non-existence. Because

Where Beauty shone for the Hellenes, Shame gaped at me from the black holes.

That is why to the Greeks - Elena, and to the poet - “foam” on the lips; “emptiness” and “fig”, shown by poverty. Words that seem completely unpoetic, words of colloquial and even colloquial style turned out to be appropriate and even necessary, and for you and me they became the stylistic key to understanding the poem. They expressed the state of the lyrical hero, who feels both himself and the world are standing on the brink of death. /12/ A person who speaks “with utmost directness” does not choose his words—and O. Mandelstam’s lyrical hero does not choose them either. They are selected by a poet who shows the condition of such a person.

Mandelstam's poem combines words belonging to different styles of speech. The “memory” of the song of Pushkin’s Mary also entered here in the most organic way. This is not a mechanical connection. This is the case when a violation of unity creates a new unity, an individual poetic style. Perhaps, it was precisely this kind of unity that A.S. wrote about. Pushkin: “True taste does not consist in the unconscious rejection of such and such a word, such and such a turn of phrase, but in a sense of proportionality and conformity”[2]. Individual literary style is not only a feature of the verbal structure of a work. This is a combination of many aspects of the artistic world of a work, many techniques used by the author to create this artistic world. Thus, the style of the poem “I will tell you from the last one...” is created by rhythm, genre features, and composition, developing a parallel between the plots of the ancient myth of the beautiful Helen, Pushkin’s “little tragedy” and the original plot of Mandelstam’s poem. As we have seen, a reminiscence from “A Feast in the Time of Plague” by A.S. also plays an important role here. Pushkin.

Practice

Psychology

The effect of better reproduction of memorized material after some time than immediately after memorization.

Literature

The difference between reminiscence and literary borrowing lies in the unconscious nature of reminiscence, which helps to realize specific artistic goals. Reminiscence is detected by a prepared and insightful reader (viewer or listener) where the author used the experience of predecessors. In the novel by the German writer Hermann Hesse “The Glass Bead Game” (), reminiscence is represented as a structure-forming element in the existence of characters in the fictional world. The novel by the Irish writer James Joyce “Ulysses” is oversaturated with reminiscences - there can be up to several dozen of them on one page. Anthony Burgess's novel "The Long Walk to the Tea Party" is structured in a similar way, referring the reader to Lewis Carroll's fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland." The American poet Ezra Pound was a master of reminiscence.

Movie

Leni Riefenstahl used reminiscence as a method of maximizing the impact on the viewer. For example, in the film “Triumph of the Will,” the climax was achieved in shots in which the viewer from above could see a sea of poles and waving banners, but the figures of the standard bearers were not visible. These frames should be considered as a reminiscence of the famous painting by the founder of impressionism, Claude Monet, “Rue Saint-Denis. Holiday June 30, 1878. (Flags)".

Explicit reminiscences from the film “Triumph of the Will” are often found in modern world documentary cinema. For example, in the English film “Lord of the Golden Triangle”, dedicated to the merging of rebel armies with drug dealers on the territory of the Asian Shan people: in scenes with a youth brigade, a morning military review, in an episode with the ceremonial raising of the flag in the army of an Asian drug lord and during location shooting singing soldiers moving in army columns through the mountains. Without entering into open conflict with the commander of the illegal army, the authors of the film designate the analyzed social phenomenon as a “great threat to the Western world” solely thanks to reminiscence as a technique accessible only to the viewer of Western European culture.

In the political film drama “Three days of the Condor,” when explaining the CIA’s position to the main character, Officer Higgins mentions the interests of a crowd of consumers who need oil at any cost and contrary to international agreements. This dialogue between cinematic characters can be considered a reminiscence of the monologue of the Grand Inquisitor from the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky.

The American film “Ike: Countdown” () turned out to be full of reminiscences from the more objective, and sometimes self-critical American military drama “A Bridge Too Far” (A Bridge Too Far,).

Symptoms

Since reminiscence is either the norm or one of the symptoms of the disease, there is no need to talk about the various variants of manifestation of the phenomenon. The psychological features of reminiscence are the basis on which the psychiatric component is based.

In the form of a norm

The conditional symptom of reminiscence is clearly reflected in the direct explanation of the essence of the phenomenon. A person, after a certain amount of time, is able to clearly talk about something that seemed to be forgotten.

In the pathological variant

Pathological reminiscence is characterized by the effect of obsession with images and thoughts that cannot be controlled. They arise spontaneously, despite the fact that, as it seemed, the negative experience of the past was forgotten.

Depending on the strength and vividness of the memories, the effect can provoke an emotional reaction (increased anxiety and restlessness, fear, panic reaction, etc.), and affect physiology (trembling, pallor, uncontrollable behavior, etc.).

Since manifestation is an additional symptom to any negative condition, along with reminiscence, other manifestations characteristic of a particular disease may appear.

Correction

Not being a deviation, this pathology does not require intervention from a psychologist or psychiatrist. Of greater concern may be the complete absence of this manifestation of the psyche, which in old age may indicate developing dementia, or in other situations be a signal of pathological states of memory and brain.

If remembering is considered as a form of negative obsession, then correction methods can be either medicinal or psychotherapeutic.