Autobiographical Memory

"When you summon up an autobiographical memory, you engage in a kind of mental time travel. You identify your current 'remembering self' with your past 'experiencing self'—like the self that was feeling apprehensive on the first day of school. These two selves are connected, not just through a continuously existing physical body but also through a somewhat discontinuous (because interrupted by dreamless sleep) stream of consciousness. The faculty of autobiographical memory allows us to understand ourselves as beings whose existence extends over time."

- Jim Holt (1954 - )

In This Is All: Memory, meaning, and the self