What is remembering story context like for you?

[thecodewarrior]

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, which leads to a rather odd way of remembering story context when I’m coming back to the latest chapter of a story, or especially when hopping between stories. I thought some folks might find the way my brain does it interesting, and I’d be fascinated to hear how things work for others.

For me each story I read has a corresponding “box” in my head that contains the memories of that particular story. When I go to read the next chapter of a story I take its box off the shelf, get myself settled in the corresponding mental state, and then I suddenly just have all the context for the story. All I have to do is read the last couple paragraphs to remind myself where the story left off, and I’m right back in it, almost as if I had binged the story up to the last chapter an hour ago. I have all the context of the story so far at my fingertips, without any other stories cluttering or making things confusing. When I finish the chapter I take the memories and information I just read, pack it in the box with all the rest, and then put it back on the shelf.

For those familiar with dissociative disorders, I don’t believe it’s a full switch, though hot-swapping memories like that does subjectively feel pretty similar to a switch.

I’m fairly certain this is… atypical, since much to my bafflement most people can’t just box up and compartmentalize memories like that. That leaves me with my question for you fine folks: what does it feel like remembering context for stories you’re reading, and how do you keep multiple stories straight, if you follow multiple?

 

[Arkus86]

I have similar experience. Most of the relevant context of a story gradually comes to me as I read, with some holes in my memories, so I generally have little issue jumping between stories or picking up something I have not read in a while again. I would not call it boxes of memories myself, to me it feels more like... orienting yourself by landmarks. The story mentions something, and I draw memories relating to that, which might draw out further memories.

It's just a little baffling to me some people can't do that, but I know one of them, and it's not nearly as strange as people without inner voice or mental visualization.

 

[thecodewarrior]

It's just a little baffling to me some people can't do that, but I know one of them, and it's not nearly as strange as people without inner voice or mental visualization.

I mean for all intents and purposes I’ve had near complete aphantasia for most of my life. I’ve slowly been getting better at visualizing over the last year or so, and have reason to believe that at one point I had hyperphantasia, but had to dissociate it away.

 

[thegingernut]

Is that not how memory works in general? I remember being a kid and being able to recall last christmas like it was yesterday on christmas day. The human brain stores memories based on pattern matching. Right?

 

[thecodewarrior]

In some ways yes, but as far as I’m aware, in my case the memories are more siloed than most. Most of my memories (as an alter) are like a vast sea, organized, tagged, and interconnected. There are specific things however that aren’t in that normal sea, floating amidst the others. Instead they’re siloed in various nearby lakes, and so when I read a story I dip my feet into that lake, and those memories become accessible, while the other lakes become less so. Looking up information about a story while not reading it amounts to rummaging through its box, because the memories aren’t fully accessible otherwise.

Again, a departure from the typical experience not in that it’s fundamentally breaking how memory works, but in the extent of isolation of certain memories. It’s a lesser version of the amnesia between alters caused by DID.