Lessons from Neuroscience

Brainy Breakthrough

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality” - Seneca

Every time you recall a moment, you’re not retrieving a perfect recording. You’re reconstructing it—reshaping it, filtering it, and sometimes, rewriting it entirely.

Our brains distort memories, remembering things not the way they happened, but the way that they fit into our cultural beliefs, narratives and emotions at the present moment.

Reordering events and placing emphasis on insignificant cues to try and make you see things a certain way.

That subtle pause in someone’s voice? Your brain's now telling you that they don’t like you.

When you're anxious about your health, suddenly every small symptom can seem like a horrible diagnosis.

When you're craving someone’s affection, their smallest gestures become profound signs of exactly what you are looking for.

This isn't just your imagination - it's your neurons literally rebuilding that memory.

And here's the crucial part: The more emotional the memory, the more your brain distorts it.

It's trying to protect you, to find patterns, to make sense of pain or the possibility of rejection.

But in doing so, it creates a version of events that never existed.

Neuroscientists call this memory reconsolidation.
Every time you recall a memory, your brain doesn’t just retrieve it like a saved file—it rewrites it. The details shift, emotions intensify or fade and your current mindset influences how you remember it. This is why memories become distorted over time and why painful memories can feel sharper the more you dwell on them.

So, that’s the explanation but what is the solution?

If you’re stuck replaying a painful memory, try recalling it differently. Consciously insert the missing context. Remember what else was happening.

Consider what a neutral observer might see. One might say that observing events without judgement is impossible, as humans are emotional creatures and not robots after all.

But we can think about how we process someone else’s problem. A friend tells us about a bad interview, an argument or a poor financial choice. In this situation, you can see it for what it is, a tough moment but not the end of the world.

In this scenario, we have distance, clarity and can see that the person is not as doomed as they might imagine.

Now if we can apply the same lens to ourselves, suddenly the story we tell ourselves about how unfair, permanent or defining an event was can be rewritten by stepping back and seeing how our emotions might have shaped the story.

Understanding this can’t change the past.

But it might just help understanding and giving closure to events we dwell on and those ‘What if?’ scenarios that keep us occupied.

Or, just a small way to not be too harsh on yourself for your brain seeing things a way that turned out to not be real.

Thanks for reading! :)