Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older
How Memory Shapes our Past

Draaisma applies a blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility and keen observation in exploring the nature of autobiographical memory.

Douwe Draaisma (Author)

9781107646261, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 March 2012

288 pages, 25 b/w illus.
21.5 x 13.8 x 1.5 cm, 0.41 kg

'… one finishes the book with a heightened awareness of the complexity and the fickleness of human memory, and a genuine sense of pleasure at having encountered such a subtle, entertaining, and illuminating guide to the territory.' The Times Literary Supplement

Entertaining and educational, Douwe Draaisma's Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older raises almost as many questions as it answers. Draaisma applies a blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility and keen observation in exploring the nature of autobiographical memory, covering subjects such as déjà-vu, near death experiences and the effect of severe trauma on memory recall, as well as human perceptions of time at different stages in life. A highly accessible and personal read, this book will not fail to touch or provoke thought in its readers.

1. 'Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases'
2. Flashes in the dark: first memories
3. Smell and memory
4. Yesterday's record
5. The inner flashbulb
6. 'Why do we remember forwards and not backwards?'
7. The absolute memories of Funes and Sherashevsky
8. The advantages of a defect: the savant syndrome
9. The memory of a grandmaster: a conversation with Ton Sijbrands
10. Trauma and memory: the Demjanjuk case
11. Richard and Anna Wagner: forty-five years of married life
12. 'In oval mirrors we drive around': on experiencing a sense of déjà vu
13. Reminiscences
14. Why life speeds up as you get older
15. Forgetting
16. 'I saw my life flash before me'
17. From memory – portrait with still life.

Subject Areas: Psychology [JM]