The embellishment of memories is a widespread phenomenon. Sometimes, the distortion of memory goes beyond embellishment and becomes fabrication: false memories are common, and they can be easily induced. Simply put, memory is prone to distortion. Research shows that human memory is constructive (or reconstructive) rather than purely reproductive; we fill in gaps in memory…
View Post
Anemoia, a coinage from the writer John Koenig – author of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows – refers to a feeling of nostalgia for a time one didn’t live through. I previously wrote about why this feeling arises, namely, by connecting it to Daniel Laidler’s concept of hagioptasia: the tendency to project ‘specialness’ onto certain aspects…
View Post
Emo music is full of references to car crashes. When you’ve listened to enough of this type of music or watched enough music videos for emo songs, it can become apparent how recurrent this theme is in the genre, similar to the theme of ‘getting out of this small town’, ambulances, or hospitals. Examples of…
View Post
Writing is sometimes described as both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because of the enjoyment and all the benefits that come with a writing practice, and a curse because, as many writers know, it can feel like an itch that always needs to be scratched. When not writing, or there’s a writing project…
View Post
Jungian psychology is highly popular in New Age culture, and this is for several reasons, some perhaps quite obvious, and others less so. I would like to detail these connections between New Age spirituality and Jungian psychology mainly as an effort to show how particular models of reality and mind lead to an embrace of…
View Post