Brain and Memory

Brain is one of the most complex organ in our body; and by complex I don’t mean it’s ability in controlling various functions of our body, rather it’s ability to randomly store and retrieve humongous amounts of information in no time.

Though not that big an organ, it has baffled scientists for thousands of years. Even today, it is unknown as to how the brain stores all the information we learn in our lifetime.

The other day, I was reading a small intro about a book on studying English literature and I came across a few questions, left by the author, for the reader to reflect upon. As I tried doing the same, I was literally taken aback as to how accurately I was able to describe the second apartment I lived along with my family; the color of the carpet and the doors, where the furniture was placed, the size of the rooms and even the appearance of the elevators. For another question, I was able to recollect the name of my high school English teacher without even thinking for a minute. I was immediately able to visualize how she looked like, the kind of sarees she wore and her fluency in the language.

So what’s the point of all this ?

Well, for someone who struggles with remembering stuff especially names, I was intrigued as to how I could recollect entries of my childhood, something which I hadn’t thought about in so many years, in a moment’s notice. This makes me all the more curious about how the brain does what it does.

In the end, I do hope that someone somewhere will eventually shed light on the conundrum that our brain really is.