Kira (Kira Greene)

And I think it's also, whenever I talk about this and I mention this kind of positivity bias, somebody in the audience will always say, but I have these really, really vivid memories of terrible things that happened to me.

And I'm like, yes, of course you do.

Because, you know, we're not suggesting that there's a big eraser in the brain that just comes in and wipes out all your negative experiences.

It's not that black and white.

It's not that simple.

Of course, those negative events are still there.

Those can be very traumatic.

Those can cast a big shadow on people's lives.

But we're just saying that on average, over the course of all of your lives, all of the events of your life, you're likely to recall a lot of your past experiences in this slightly more positive light.

Yeah, I think this is something that a lot of people, of course, have a lot of concerns about.

And it's often one of the worst parts of grief is that sense that you're starting to forget the person and that they're drifting away and that, of course, there's no more new memories with that person coming.

So I'm not sure there really is a straightforward answer to how we can avoid that because we can never really avoid the natural course of memory.

I mean, of course, what we can do is try and keep someone's memory alive is talk to other people about them.

And then keep, so rather than having their memory sort of preserved in amber in your own brain, that you're keeping it active, you're keeping it engaged by talking to other people, by getting their experiences of what that person was like and incorporating those into your own memory.

And in many ways, that kind of flexibility of memory then can allow you to incorporate other people's perspectives into your memory and your understanding of

that person and can help keep their memory alive and keep their memory fresh but yeah I'm afraid I don't actually I don't really have any tips for how to not forget somebody I'm afraid that is just sometimes the way things go Hmm

Yes.

So we talk about this idea of collaborative memory.

So people remembering together.

And that's often framed in a very negative way.