Memories: The role in changing beliefs

I have written several times about belief in the past. To revisit, beliefs shape our thoughts and actions. But we have to ask, how did our beliefs form in the first place?

What was the role of memory in forming beliefs?

Memories form in several phases. I am simplifying but immediate, short term and then long term. When you experience something, your mind recognizes it as an experience.

A memory forms temporarily.

When you sleep, your brain consolidates all the memories you formed during the day. The brain determines the usefulness of the memory and stores or deletes them.

These become part of short-term memory.

But if you do not relive your memories, sometimes the memories can be forgotten. They may not become part of your long-term memory.

But we are chasing the concept of how memories become beliefs and whether there is anything we can do about it.

When you formed a memory, depending on the experience, you could form a belief.

Do not go into a dark forest alone, because you could get lost, for example. Forests are dangerous places.

Your memory became a belief.

Now imagine you want to rewrite this belief. You are older, wiser and understand that a forest is not a dangerous place in itself. It is how you visit that makes it so.

One way to do this is to reprogram the memory.

Which is where it gets interesting.

Most people believe that memories are permanent. In fact, each time you retrieve a memory and put it back, it changes.

The change is a function of how your relive the memory. So if you brought back the forest memory and thought about it differently, the memory would change.

If you thought your brain was neuroplastic, in fact even your memories are. Each time you retrieve and store, it alters.

The manner in which it alters is in your hand.

If the memory changes, your belief can change alongside. You are new. As if the experience had not occurred. Because your experience was just a point of view, but not the only possible view.

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