FORGETFULNESS

There are different kinds of fortgetfulness. To forget things easily and not to be able to recall instances and contents conversations can be a sign of senility or of absentmindedness caused by emotional/mental stress, anxiety, distraction or confusion. Or it can be a sign of fear, if the person in question is suffering from a trauma of some sort and this traumatic and deeply unconscious fear is putting up barriers in the mind and blanking out parts of memory. And the fourth reason for forgetfulness of things that have taken place in the recent past can be a complete absorption in the here-now, when your consciousness is wholly at one with the current moment of life and thus no longer busies itself with thoughts of the past or future. How to know which kind of forgetfulness you are being confronted with either in yourself or another person? The first kind is obviously an epiphenomenon of old age. ( Although I do not believe the increasing tendency to forget things in elderly people to be a sign of the ageing brain but rather a kind of self-protection erected by the Ego trying to protect itself from unresolved personal fears and emotional pain.) The second and third kind of forgetfulness I have mentioned above cannot always be told apart easily. Whereas the last one can be cleary distinguished from the other three because such an individual, although not able to recall what he/she has been doing in the morning, the day before, last week, is in a position to clearly recall practical fact and information and personal data that has been mentioned/exchanged. All personal experiences are leaving behind an imprint in the Self. If you are consciously aware of your self at all times, you are able tor later recall any part of it at will. Whereas if you are largely unconscious of yourself snippets memories are generally surfacing in your consciousness up at radom and are thus not seldom causing emotional/mental confusion. So in someone who is concious of his/her self upon all levels of being, emotions, sensations, thoughts and words are being clearly registered and remembered at later time if necessary. Although such a personal might not necessarily remember the external circumstances in which the experiences, words, thoughts have been recorded, the  memory of their contents/essence is perfectly clear.
Whereas the other three kinds of forgetfulness are being caused by unclarity and personal unconsciousness. Accordingly the memory of personal experiences is unreliable because the conscious part of mind of such a person is unable to select and record practical data, exact word or thoughts that have passed by it. And the memory of past emotions, sensations are not clear either because they are over-shadowed by a series of similar experiences lying further back in life.