Tending Memory: A Phenomenological Study of Engaging Memory as Living Image

Abstract

On the backs of ancient philosophers to current neuroscientists, cognitive and depth psychologists, this work argues that memory is not a fixed substance residing within the brain; further, the writing seeks to demonstrate it unwise to shove memory into the binary buckets of true or false. Highly influenced by the present self, memory also influences that self and the perception it holds of its past, present, and future. Twisting and shifting as images in the brain made conscious through both dreaming and remembering (membering the past anew), memory is of the imagination and the imagination is of memory. Consequently, a hypothesis is made: memory is psychic image, specifically living image meaning that is autonomous—separate from the ego—where the image innately possesses its own wisdom and purpose; its presence guides the self and is also guided by the self in a dance of interdependence. Thus, in this interpretative phenomenological analysis study of memory-tending (tending to memory as living images; approaching memory-images in the same way some have approached dream images), the research suggests that to tend to our memories as psychic image invites self-reflection, growth, and healing; it is a work of and for the soul.