How to Travel in your Mind 

People are so absorbed in recording the experience that they aren't really present to enjoy the moment

This show is always so beautifully animated.

nostalgia. the thing that keeps me awake at night

There is a downside of this. The time you dedicate to dwelling on the past is time in which you miss out on the present. Nostalgia with the price of not living in the moment.

I live in the past just as much as I live in the present. There is so much to learn, feel, and even experience. By reexamining memories you have, you may discover something you weren't cognizant of before. In fact, it's even better if you write about it.

The problem with this is sometimes you can't just simply control your mind to think only of the good memories, when left alone your mind usually tend to relive the worst kind of memories.

I have no memory in my life, nor any experience in my life, that can surpass my imagination. Life isn't interesting to me... My own inner concepts, let alone, the realms of others, are the only things that feel vivid and full of life for me. I never had a need to go out and experience something, for, my entertainment was, by default, from within. I need very little by this... But, it also drains me of motivation to actually do anything... Because, whatever I'll come up on the inside, will be far more profound than anything I'll ever encounter from without... And I've placed this under examination and test, and indeed... I prefer my own dreams over this world. Whatever I feel here, seems to always pale next to what I can get from the inside. So, I have no need to reevaluate my own memories... I can invent new ones without even moving.

"I need to go to my mind palace."

Thank you for standing up for our memories because all too often, "living in the past" has a very negative connotation.

1. " We are what we remember" says Eric Kandel. But Gabriel Garcia Marquez says it even better: " Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember it in order to tell it". ( At the beginning of his autobiography " Living to Tell The Tale" ) And I think how we remember it and how we tell it, has a lot to do with our capacity to express ourselves. Wittgenstein says: " All I know is what I have words for". So, on occasions where we can't quite find the words to describe what is happening to us or how we feel, we miss something about those moments... But here is hope: if we keep educating ourselves and re-visit those remembrances from time to time, we can find new meanings in them, and we can understand them better. We can learn new things from the very same past! Then what Kierkegaard said really makes sense: "Life can only be understood backwards , but it must be lived forwards" 2. This reminds me of Michael Jordan! On an interview I have heard that he sees "patterns" when he plays. So he sees where every player stands in that moment and where the balls is, and he intuitively recognises a pattern he knows and reacts accordingly to get the ball! I thought this was so fascinating and may be we could have this as a metaphor when we look back at our lives. So going back to old memories would not only honour those memories , but it could also make us " recognise" a patterns among those memories. ( This tends to happen a lot around relationships) So in this case, our past would help us to gain a little more control over our future. 3. There is a very scary poem by Charles Baudelaire, called "The Clock". But I like it! That's where he says: "Minutes, blithesome mortal, are bits of ore That you must not release without extracting the gold!" So if we could not extract the gold in that moment for some reason, we can still go back and try again! 4. Here is a great line to remember, both for our past and future experiences. Rainer Maria Rilke says: " ...For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences". So our goal should be to become wiser, more sensitive and more profound , so that everything we experience can also become more meaningful. 5. There is an incredible, unforgettable " Radiolab podcast" on this issue. The episode is called " Memory and Forgetting". 6. Now this may sound a bit too technical , but I have been reading this book by Christiane Stenger , who was a former " World Memory Champion". These people are called" Memory Athletes". I am not very interested in memorising numbers and cards etc., but what they are able to do is really fascinating and they say that everybody can learn it. So it would be great if could make some more " space" in our minds, for our memories, using some of those techniques. She recommends the following websites, where you can find exercises to train this capacity: Neuronation Memorado Mybraintraining 7. On a podcast by Paul Holdengräber, Elisabeth Gilbert said something very inspiring: so she has this huge jar and everyday she writes on a paper "the most beautiful moment of the day" and she throws the paper in the jar. It is a great idea to save at least "one valuable moment" from that "one day of life" which is quite something! 8. And we must look back at our lives definitely with CURIOSITY! I have found the following lines in a book I liked a lot. " Re-igniting your innate human curiosity is a wonderful way of dealing skilfully with the frantic world in which we so often live. You'll soon discover that although you feel time-poor, you are actually MOMENT-RICH. " ( From " Mindfulness" by Mark Williams) 9. Friends who speak Spanish, you should listen to that wonderful song " Volver a los diecisiete " by Violetta Parra! There is an amazing version with Chico, Cateano, Gal Costa and Mercedes Sosa. That's the song that says: " ...y hasta la dura cadena con que nos ata el destino es como un dia bendecido que alumbra mi alma serena"...

school of life is the best

A parallel: rereading good books.

This channel is therapy to me. Thank you for your work.

I very much appreciated Alain's voiceover WITHOUT the overwhelming background music/effects that interfere in other TSOL videos. Simple, beautiful, effective. Thank you!

I don't want to to get stuck in the past

I recently took out old and new pictures of people, events, etc., of my life and have tacked them to one whole wall in my room. So many memories have come back, good and not so good but were part of my life. I am 78 now and so glad I have done this and will continue to entertain myself with the stories and people of all these years. It's great! Carol

this guy's voice is amazing.

I've rewatched an old film series I really liked when i was young. And the feelings were the same as when i was a kid. such a fun experience

Can you do a video about morality and whether an objective moral standard it necessary or even possible?

absolutely and amen!! thank you for sharing.

As I have gotten older, I find doing this to be a great pleasure. Whether in the middle of the day at work or at night just before falling asleep, I may travel back to a vacation I went on or just travel back to a pleasurable conversation I had with someone. If I am not able to travel as much in the future, I still have my beautiful thoughts.

Most often, I don't want to experience my memories again, because I regret something I did or didn't do. That's why my camera of my mind, which you explains the video, is so wonderful. I can edit my memories, and then revisit them, where I imagine the perfect outcome. Thank you for this video :)

Absolutely. Memories are one of the most important things for me

This touched me, I had tears in mu eyes, how beautiful ❤🌻

from 2017 to today amazing help, grace and growth!!

Actually, we do think about nice memories quite frequently - it's called nostalgia and our memories seem to have some sort of defence mechanism because the past always seems so much more beautiful than the present. It's as though bad memories of the past get filtered out or repressed and that is probably why the past seems so wonderful to most people.

I love this concept. I also actually find that, especially with trips, when I go back to my journal entries, my memories are actually better than the experience at the time. After six months or so I tend to forget about the arguments over getting lost, or the crappy meals, or the jet lag, and am left with only the good parts.

I have found this to be the most helpful and enlightening channel on RU-vid.. Thank you.

I do this all the time, thank you so much for posting

WOW. I just noticed you're reaching 2 million subscribers now. I wasn't paying attention to your subscriber count very much recently. GOOD JOB SCHOOL OF LIFE! I remember subsribing to you like 2 years ago and I don't think you had more than 200k subscribers back then. (BTW, this is not me trying to brag that I was an early subscriber or anything. I just seriously wanted to congratulate you on your success. You're doing a really good work and I'm so glad more and more people are finding you.) Have a nice day. :-)

I love the idea and practice it sometimes.

Well said. And helpful.

always soothing.

Love it.

this message is gold, and used to be self-evident

Your voice is so soothing.

I see virtual reality more as the ultimate creativity outlet, personally. We're able to engineer worlds and experience them.

Who makes these videos school of Life? are you a community

i love this. i really honestly do think this channel has helped me understand many more things! just came here to say thank you

this video made me happy

I like this one.

Lovely video, this very morning I was talking with a very dear person about looking back with pleasure, now that we are older, and this video is exactly what I was trying to express, once the dictates of youthful 'doing' have been obeyed, how lovely to look back with ease and pleasure...

The animation for this was beautiful, well done

Love your videos.

I NEEDED THIS SO MUCH

this video is beautiful

My past is very dark and painful but there are happy bits which are worth revisiting.

Happy Journey

YAAAS! love the school of life!!!

Brilliant, school of life, you never fail to amaze me

beautifully written

Much needed watch after Apple deleted all data off my phone (photos in particular) of my trip to Canada and Christmas with my Grandparents recently.

I concur.

another great video!

I'm almost obsessed with memory and remembering the past. I think it started when I began feeling depressed. I need to live in the moment and get out of this funk that makes me feel like I've already lived all of my best memories.

thanks....you gave me an amazing tip :)

absolutely stunning animation. great job! and great video!

in my childhood I was shamed for doing exactly this sort of thing. thank you for yet another vestige of my human experience that I don't have to be ashamed of

This video was very cute bite size information that can effect the average happiness we have a day. Thanks creators!

I really enjoy this channel and this voice with british accent make me feel really calm! :D

I sometimes recall my past memories in my dream when i'm asleep then i wake up in a good mood.

is this why we find it to much pleasure to say ' thanks for the memory' ?

I still write diaries and print out yearly photos to put into a photo album. Always nice to stumble upon physical memories time and time again. Digital memories can get lost in cyber space, and the novelty isn't there anymore at this age.

This is one of the most thought-provoking SOL videos yet. And very Proustian... I keep finding that the SOL puts into words things I have thought before but only fleetingly. I've wondered a handful of times about just how much satisfaction later in life one could derive from merely remembering childhood. In light of this video, Epicurus' strange-sounding point about about the good Epicurean being sustained by reflecting upon pleasant times makes much more sense.

It's why I don't have heaps of photo albums. It's all in my head!!!

I travel in my mind every day to unwind before sleep. I enjoy charming places and pleasant people and test ideas in thought experiments. It's entertainment, relaxation and problem solving. It's a shame that people are conditioned not to do this or - SHOCK - talk about their mind travels. I have autism and this kind of vivid, memory-based imagination helps me enrich my life in many ways. But I am not allowed to talk about it in case ignorant people mistake it for psychosis.

I can't believe how many of the videos you make have touched on things I've thought to myself. On any given night while I'm lying in bed my mind will drift to past experiences. I remember thinking on one such occasion, 'My soul is not here; it's amid the streets of Melbourne city.' It might seem sad to 'live in the past' (something our culture never ceases to remind us of), but the time and the money we might save by becoming a little more inward is given less attention. Over the past couple of years I've had to come to terms with my profoundly limiting circumstances, the fact that I might never travel over seas and that even relationships prove difficult for me. As such, however, I've been been able to cultivate a rich inner world and literally 'sqeeze' everything from my past and imagination, as you put it. It has no harm on anybody else, and it helps me come to terms with my circumstances; it's open only to the charge of 'living in the past,' to which I say, 'so what?'

awesome

wow.

Those moving, wobbly, geometric shapes are very similar to the things I see when I close my eyes at night. Very interesting. ☺

Lovely. Try with Piracetam, it works!

I agree that every memory is alive in our brain and ready to be accessed at any time. But we can't really remember every little detail. That's why we take photos on trips, so we can remember what happened while visualising them. Sometimes you look at old photos and say "Oh! I remember what I did here". So I think photos are a great way of remembering things.

Best video SoL has posted in a while!

I disagree about not needing a camera. The reason I take pictures on vacation is to show others who I know will take pleasure from seeing my happiness. My mother and grandmother love seeing pictures of me so that is why I take them. When they are happy, that makes me happy as well. Overall great video though!

Whenever I’m at the end of my trip, I don’t go home thinking “Aww~ I’m sad it’s over :( “ …but rather “Yay! Another great memory created :) “ …I think that even if I become paralyzed tomorrow, at least I have those good memories to look back on to keep me happy :D -assuming I don’t get sick in the brain :(

I go on memory journeys all the time, and I can tell you, it makes you happier, a lot! But sometimes it is strange because very normal or very small things let you remind of something, and than you start to smile. Like yesterday I was in the cinema and someone sneezed, and I instantly went back in time to last summer. The only disadvantage is that this video wans't useful for me and I missed a small part of that movie :)

I have always had the ability to travel in my mind. I've also practiced thought experiment since I was a 6 or 7. Now I use Google Street View to truly travel and see other countries from a different perspective.

Making peace with our memories, self forgiveness, being less negative of disappointments would go far in the enjoyment of memories. We would be more inclined to enter this realm.

What pulls me back from trying this is that bad memories usually override good ones :/ that is if I try to think of my past, the memories I'd rather not think about will be the ones which resurface in my mind.

I love these videos

i am sharing this video with my wife!

I would love to just, upload my consciousness to a virtual network, filled with rooms of my happy childhood memories, everyone I love by my side and just get lost forever. I'd live like that if I could lucid dream.

Good one TSoL, as always! Now I don't have to think about bringing a gadget or not on trips anymore..

I like this video. This sets us apart from other animals :)

but doesnt revisiting extremely pleasant memories cause depression a lot of times? i know its a foolish cause of depression but it still is. atleast for me

niceeee

Excellent video. I thoroughly enjoy rooting through the treasure trove of old memory files, particularly from childhood. Ingesting cannabis can help, but no need if that's not your bag. I often think of life as using the body to fill the mind with sensations and experience, that we can reflect on when our bodies start to give in. Imagine if you were falsely imprisoned tomorrow, in a cell with no windows. What would sustain you, other than pleasant memories of better times? We definitely could stand to learn how to better unlock memories, as it is a skill to acquire and build on. Triggers can help, particularly nostalgic scents and music, or objects we associate with a period of time. I make a note during the year of songs i've discovered and can't get out of my head, then make a compilation album at the year's end. Listening back, i don't just hear the songs, but unlock the experiences of that year, along with remembering how i felt during that period.

Great video but VR is not so much about experience old memories but to experience things we don't, like jumping on a volcano, walk on the moon or if you dont have legs, to walk. We dont need to dismiss new things to appreciate old things and the things we have.

A few photos help though. Late husband hated taking photos on holiday. Big mistake because now I have memories yes but a few photos would mean a lot too.

I would love to follow this advice but I have forgotten so much of my experiences :(

niceeeeee

Some times when I close my eyes I teleport to the past before everything happened every bad thing and look and start to cry

i can with gaurantee say that this video like all other videos of this channel will attract with its topic but will talk about why memories are important rather than telling actually how to make those memories

I love your channel and omg I wish I had your voice :')

We mostly experience the past - all data takes time to be processed and then there's the time for the stimulus to reach us as sound and light waves -but we can occasionally have premonitions - access to the future.

We have to travel in order to have these kinds of memories to access. So many people do not travel or take a holiday at all-especially in the U.S. Often due to financial issues.

I guess the image of the man who travels by train is taken from the book 'the art of travel' :)

The pleasure to recall the greatest of times, with the painful reality they are unreachable, such is nostalgia. My life is filled with rumination, on desiring so much that now far gone I feel close to tears writing this... When the fantastic is again happening I am not blind to it, I live relishing every moment of these various periods in life. But things change, and as for me, often for the worst, rare can there be inbetweens... Though I may have missed it, would you consider doing a video on suicide?

:-) as always you blow our minds

Do a video on Williams Somerset Maugham.