Dr. Julia Shaw – The Memory Illusion
Why you may not be who you think you are
Blurb: Think you have a good memory? Think again. Memories are our most cherished possesions. We rely on them every day of our lives. They make us who we are. True, we can all admit to having suffered occasional memory lapses, such as entering a room and immediately forgetting why or suddenly being unable to recall the name of someone we’ve met dozens of times. But what if we have the potential for more profound errors of memory?
The fragility of our identity and why nostalgia is better than our past
I listened to this audiobook, read by Siri Steinmo, at the right time – while I was back in the town I grew up in for a part of my medical “electives”. Growing up here wasn’t easy, at least not for me, but coming back there were many beautiful feelings and also a longing to go back in time. I guess it’s just bitter-sweet to remember the good things and dream what could have been or to see who we (probably) were and who we became. Memory was already something I discussed a lot with friends and siblings. It fascinates me how different memories can be and Dr. Shaw explains how those disparities come to be.
Combined with the interesting topic of medical errors the book opened up so many possible research questions too. How much of the presentation of a resident or intern to higher up doctors is actually the information the patient shared with them and how much is a completion of a picture with information we’ve experienced before in similar situations. How much of that which the patient remembers actually happened and how does it impact our treatment of a certain situation?
I guess this will be one of those books I’ll get as a hard copy for my library since it’s a well researched book on an interesting and important topic. Also I’m really interested in the footnotes and references which I missed out on with this (very nicely read) audiobook.
4/5 “readingrats”