We don’t always remember how things were, but how we need them to be. Here’s new evidence reported by NPR, titled, Our Brains Rewrite Our Memories, Putting Present In The Past”:

Think about your fifth-birthday party. Maybe your mom carried the cake. What did her face look like? If you have a hard time imagining the way she looked then rather than how she looks now, you’re not alone.

The brain edits memories relentlessly, updating the past with new information. Scientists say that this isn’t a question of having a bad memory. Instead, they think the brain updates memories to make them more relevant and useful now — even if they’re not a true representation of the past.

I’ve written a lot more about memory research here.