I am watching an interview with one of the fantasy writers I sometimes read, Laurell K. Hamilton and she said something about memory being a funny thing. She said if a crime was staged, everyone in a room witnessing it would not be able to accurately describe the criminal and would describe different hair colors etc.. . Hmmm... I have heard this before and I wonder if this is really due to memory and not due to perspective. For example to some people I am "really really" skinny while to modeling agencies I am on the curvy side. So if a modeling agent was present with other people some would describe me as a very skinny person because they are mostly around average sized people while an agent would say I was curvy because of what they are accostumed to. Neither of these has a bad memory just a different perspective. Similarly I have argued haircolors with people. Dark brown hair looks black to most, to me it looks dark brown and only jet black hair is black. Strawberry blonde hair is described as red while to me only really red hair is red. We see things differntly and we remember them as we see them so is it possible our persepective affects our description not a bad memory?
Speaking of memory, I had a funny dream that messed with mine a while back. The dream took place three years ago so it was a memory in the dream world. In it I was at work and saw in the Village Voice that Mos Def (my favorite rapper) was doing a signing that day. I went to the signing right after work, unprepared because I had found out about it at the last minute. So when I get there all I have is the copy of the village voice and everyone looks at me like I'm pathetic. Intimidated by all these "good fans" I slip out of the room and leave. I kick myself for being so cowardly. When I woke up I actually thought this had really happened and kept asking myself, "how could you do that? You should have talked to him." I beat myself up for twenty minutes and spent another forty trying to figure out if it was a real memory or not. Finally later in the day I realized that there was no way it had ever happened and I couldn't believe the dream had messed with my sense of reality so much. Yeah, memory really is a funny thing.