Memorycemetery

I have read recently about an experiment conducted on mices (yep, once again!:(). The researchers tried to figure out how mices store their memories. Memories are subjective, but if we will anchor memories to certain events, they can be easily pinpointed.

To put it simple, mices had to go through some painful experiences. Afterwards the conditions of those experiences were recreated, so mices would expect they would be hurt again. However bad it sounds, they found that neurons are in charge of storing memories. More painful events recorded by bigger number of neurons. As the result, the more neurons would store the information about a particular event, the more vivid and strong memory is. It is an interesting thing to know, though it brings up some questions. Let’s say, we know what a lifecycle of a cell in our body is limited, from few seconds to 7 years max., and cells regenerate constantly.  How the information stored by neurons going through regeneration process could passed? How do we “select” what to remember? A couple of days ago I broke my toe. It broke in the same place as few years ago, in circumstances deserving a separate post, but that event was largely forgotten by me until it happenned again.

I went through quite a few painful experiences in my life, including broken bones etc., but they will not top my memories list. Sometimes when psychological experiments conducted, eg in Roershach test, they ask you to give the first word which comes to your mind.

 OK, I’ll do that with my memories now, without any logic and order:

1. Me, my wife and our little son leaving for Moscow. We stayed with my parents in their place for few months, after a long time: I didn’t see them for over5 years before, living in England. My parents came to see us to the train station. Last words said, last kisses departed. We are in the carriage, and my parents are outside on the platform. Finally train starts to move, and my father makes a good bye gesture he always used to do: V sign, two fingers up standing for Victory. This scene cut through my mind deeply at that time, though I didn’t know yet I saw him alive the last time. Two months later he died from a heart attack.

2. I’m 19 and I’m madly in love. I loved the girl from the first sight, and it was my first love. After nearly 2 years of hopeless feeling we’ll stay good friends forever, my love was answered. We’re rushing to the theater, being late because we couldn’t stop kissing for a long time. We walk very fast, her gypsy coin earings dingle. We can’t get hold of our hands from each other and I’m overwhelmed by her perfume’s faint flower smell. After a long cold  winter spring came unexpectedly, and trees by boulevard are blossoming with big white flowers; smell of flowers, fresh grass, happiness and her perfume are mixing together and sending my head is spinning. It is a very short moment probably, but everything comes to my mind instantly and bright: being so happy just rushing somewhere together, the strongest impressions being smell, sound and her touch…

3. I’m back to London after a week long Christmas trip to Russia with my friend. We are in our beautiful run down house; a squat in Hanger lane densely painted through all the 3 floors and rooms with no exception to it’s roof. Somebody gave me a line of ketamine. I stay on the staircase, stuck between floors overcame by feeling of freedom, energy and endless possibilities open. I’m absolutely free, and I connected with everything. Instantly I understand everything, all the mechanics of the Universe, I’m one with it. I can’t keep this feeling inside, so I yell. This cry is very powerful, I feel like it shakes not just me, but all the house and the whole Universe. Fucking great and powerful feeling.

4. A big fluorescent black dog. Me and another guy are stuck in the storm. It’s late December; I traveled through Siberia, Mongolia and China for months. I’m in Tibet and with no money…All I had was pitiful change and 2 one pound coins I found under my bed in a guesthouse. It’s owner is Nepalese. Once in a while he ventures back home, from Lhasa all the way down to the Nepalese border. He finds some foreigners, charges them 200 usd for a 6 day trip with detours to cities, temples and Everest base camp on the way. I don’t have money, but he loves chess. So I play with him every evening and stay in his guesthouse as his guest, free of charge. I need to go to Nepal and India, as I have visas and my ticket back home from Delhi in 2 months, and I can’t and don’t want to go back to China. He usually takes 4 people in his old Landcruiser, so I join them as the 5th, bonus one :). One of my fellow travellers is a keen Italian mountaineer, another one is a freelance photographer from the New Zealand, there are aslo a girl from Israel and a Japanese guy who doesn’t speak any English. That Italian’s  guy dream is to climb Everest. He has full set of maps, GPS and proper clothes. He tells us we can try to hike a bit, maybe up to 6500 m in accordance with his maps, if we’ll sneak out of our room at the monastery (as there no other houses around) by the base camp (which is a bare ground, cleaned from stones and rocks a few km away). It will take us probably 7 hours to go there and come back. Israeli girl decides to stay; 4 of us set off in early morning for the hike without telling anybody about it. There is nobody around. Dead season we’ve been told, you can climb only for short few weeks in May. We walk. The scenery is breathtaking. The air is fresh. On the way we pass by a cave where Milarepa meditated, and some strangely shaped rocks, looking artificial in a distance (abandon houses of spirits, as local monk told us evening before). Poor Italian becomes sick on the way: he just came to Tibet a week ago and didn’t accustomized himself to mountains yet, he decides to return. The guy from New Zealand is really fit, walks (or to be correct, jumps from a rock to another rock as there’s no path or road) is way ahead of us. Me and that Japanese guy are fairly exhausted and can’t catch up. I leave behind my rucksack and water. It froze in plastic bottles anyway, and became one big enclosed icicle. I can’t even open the lid to lick it. I take one and put it on my body to melt. It’s hard to walk. We need rest every few minutes. The base camp is way behind, and we can see Everest blown up, impressive and beautiful. It’s pinnacle is free of snow because of the winds there. It doesn’t look like the highest mountain though…I stop again to have a break and soak in the view. Japanese guy is also drained, though tries to don’t show it. The photographer can’t wait. We should head back in an hour or so, as we have to leave.  He has to take the best shots, so he leaves us there telling he’ll be back in an hour. So we sit and wait. We waited long time. I didn’t have the watch, but it felt like long hours. We are thirsty and freezing, as we don’t have proper clothes, not even gloves. The weather gets really bad. We decide to go back for help. We were on our way just for few minutes when storm starts. Sand, little pieces of ice and dust blown upon us. Itwas so strong we could hardly stay. Whatever you try to say was lost in the wind however loud you tried to cry. We lost the sense of direction; we couldn’t expose ourselves to such a strong storm, we couldn’t walk. All we could do is to tuck between two huge rocks and sit close to each other, back to back.  Time passed, I lost it’s count. I was in pain, as my legs, arms and face was froze. My breath instantly transformed into ice settling onto my beard: I didn’t shave since I set off 4 months ago. I knew we’ll freeze to death. I was born in Siberia, and could grasp the picture: finally pain goes away, you feel warmth, and you fell asleep…forever. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t care. All I wanted is this warmth would  come soon. Time to time we shaked each other. So one of those times when that Japanese guy, Mitsu, shook me, I opened my eyes. The storm was still on. But in front of me there sat a massive black fluorescent dog. It looked like it shined, changing all the spectrum of colors from green to purple. As I looked at it, the dog moved. It made a few steps away. It looked like it didn’t care a bit about the storm and wasn’t affected by it in any way. It turned it’s head to me, like asking: are you coming? And slowly started to move away. Somehow I started feel different. I knew we’ll be fine, it was a gut feeling. This dog gave me hope; all what we had to do is just follow it. So we stood up. The storm was on, but it didn’t matter much. All we had to do is just follow the dog few metres away, concentrate on it and walk,walk,walk. Sometimes the dog was going fast, sometimes waited for us a bit. It was a very long way, on a tough terrain and I don’t remember much of it. It’s like somebody pulled the plug and my brain switched off. I was like falling asleep and waking up finding myself walking, like a zombie. Mitzu walking by me and that dog racing ahead.

To cut it short, we were saved. We were picked up by our Landcruiser on the halfway between base camp and the monastery. The guy from NZ was already on the back seat, barely conscious. His skin was covered by big red spots everywhere, so he reminded me a giraffe. I asked Mitzu later about a dog. After a week spent together he started to catch up some English. What dog?, asked he. I still don’t know if he saw the dog, or just didn’t know what word DOG means in Japanese. Actually it’s funny, while typing this I recognized that dog will be god backwards. And that’s it for now.

Boris Kislitsin

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