Psychologists are studying the various ways in which we forget our past, and biologists are investigating the mechanisms of forgetting even at the cellular level. Here are some weird facts about how people forget events from their own lives.
A common but mysterious example of amnesia: a lapse in short-term memory, when a person suddenly finds himself in a room, not remembering why he was there. The researchers say a phenomenon called "doorway" may be to blame: the very act of walking through a doorway gives the brain a hint that a new scene is beginning, so it must sweep away the previous memory - and this creates a strange memory gap.
“Entering or exiting through a door is an event boundary that separates episodes of activity in our mind, erasing some moments. Mental event boundaries are a useful tool for managing the unconscious because they help us organize our own intellectual activity and store memories of more significant moments and things,”explains Gabriel Radwanski, a psychologist at the University of Notre Dame.
Scientists believe that humans have several types of memory, and our brains have the unique ability to erase each of them. However, at the same time, memories can live on, even if we may lose access to them.