Emotion Memory Part 1: Exploration

[This article is part of a series about how to craft an intentional life using ideas and tools from Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system for working on our inner motive forces. Previous article: Emotion]

The previous article was about emotions as one of Stanislavski’s inner motive forces that drive us to action. Here, I describe emotion memory and related sense memory. 

When we remember events and people that meant a lot to us, we feel an echo of the emotions that we felt about them. This is emotion memory, also called affective memory. As Stanislavski put it:

“Just as your visual memory can reconstruct an inner image of some forgotten thing, place or person, your emotion memory can bring back feelings you have already experienced. They may seem to be beyond recall, when suddenly a suggestion, a thought, a familiar object will bring them back in full force. Sometimes the emotions are as strong as ever, sometimes weaker, sometimes the same strong feelings will come back but in a somewhat different guise.” (Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares)

Stanislavski did not create the concept. He was influenced by French psychologist Théodule-Armand Ribot, who studied memory loss and ways to mitigate it. Stanislavski recognised that having a powerful emotion memory would assist actors in portraying characters with a sense of truth. For our purposes, being able to access emotion memories or trigger them consciously will help us to understand our emotions. We will be able to foster positive emotions that trigger effective action by working with our memories.

Stanislavski’s system emphasised the connection between body and mind. Every action has a psychological component and our thoughts and feelings have physical consequences. Hence, our senses as our body’s connections to the world - what we take in and give out - are crucial and powerful triggers to use when working with emotions. This brings us to sense memory. It is the memory of what we experienced through one or more of the five senses on a previous occasion. Sense memory is intertwined with emotion memory. We experience it when we see, hear, touch, taste or smell something that evokes a memory or a feeling. 

For example, I loved dancing to No.1 Crush by Garbage. My boyfriend at the time left me on the dance floor to flirt with another girl. We broke up soon afterwards. Now, whenever I hear that song, I feel a little sad and the memory of betrayal. Another, much less specific experience comes when I smell spices like cinnamon or cloves: they make me think of festive times and family. These are warm and fuzzy feelings, but not associated with any particular event - more the build-up of events year on year.

Emotion and sense memories may be specific or an aggregate of many similar experiences, that create a powerful meta-memory - these form our cultural sense of self and belonging. As Stanislavski states: 

“Out of these impressions one large, condensed, deeper and broader sensation memory of related experience is formed. It is a kind of synthesis of memory on a large scale. It is purer, more condensed, compact, substantial and sharper than the actual happenings.” (Ibid)

We can learn to influence our specific and aggregate memories, and therefore our sense of personal history and cultural connection. First, I want to focus on exploring the connection between emotions, senses and memories. The next couple of exercises work on getting to know how one’s memories and senses interact.  

Independent exercise: Adding sense to memory

This exercise is about becoming aware of the sensory components of memory, and how they influence our everyday experiences. The accuracy of the memory is not important here. 

1. Do this when you are relaxed and in a creative, curious state of mind.

2. Think of a memory. It can be pleasant or unpleasant, recent or long ago. Spend some time thinking through the details of the memory. What happened, who was involved, where and when it happened, how it happened. What led to it and what happened afterwards.

1. If you can’t think of a memory offhand, look through familiar objects or items of clothing. Some of these will have memories attached to them. Use the first memory that springs into your mind.

3. Note any associated feelings that emerge as you think of the memory. Are they simple or complicated? How strong are they? What does the memory mean to you? 

4. Sight - Visualise the memory. Think of it like a movie that you are watching. See it from your perspective - a first-person view. Then try to see yourself in it, as if you are watching it from outside. What were you wearing? Note the colours, the spaces, and the textures. 

5. Hearing - What did you hear in the memory? What was said, by whom, what was their voice like? What were the environmental sounds? Do you remember what you were thinking, i.e. what you were saying in your head?

6. Smell - What smells were present in the memory? If you don’t remember noticing anything, what smells would likely have been there? E.g., fresh wood, smoke, salty sea, cut grass, sweat, perfume.

7. Touch - What did you touch in the memory? If you sat, what were you sitting on? Was it soft or hard? Did you use your hands? What would that have felt like? Were you using your body? What did that feel like? Were you out of breath, were you quiet? Was it hot or cold?

8. Taste - Did you eat or drink anything in the memory? If so, try to feel what the taste would have been, and the texture in your mouth. Did you taste anything from the environment, e.g. salt in the air, grit from blown sand, cold freshness from a mountain top, or fumes from a car?

9. Note any changes in your feelings as you work through the senses in your memory. 

10. Think about the memory again as a whole. Has it changed for you? Have your feelings about it changed?

Group exercise: Senses and emotions

This exercise is taken from The Complete Stanislavski Toolkit by Bella Merlin. It requires at least one other person to be involved, but you might want to try it in a group and discuss the experience together. The exercise is about stimulating each of the senses, and noting the emotions and memories that emerge. 

One person will be the facilitator. The other(s) are the participants. Participants are blindfolded and exposed to different sensory experiences. This exercise is very similar to a game my mother often created for my birthday parties, where we would be blindfolded and have to guess the smells or tastes. I loved that game. In this case, the idea is not to try and guess what you are experiencing intellectually, but to focus on the emotions and imagery of each sensory experience. In fact, participants should focus on NOT identifying the sensory objects, at least until after they have fully experienced them emotionally.

This is an exercise in trust, as the participants must put themselves in the hands of the facilitator. The facilitator will need to do some preparation before the experience, to collect the sensory objects.

1. Participants sit comfortably and wear a blindfold. For each sense below, the exercise can be performed once, or repeated a few times with different options.

2. Touch

1. The facilitator places an object in front of each participant. This can be anything, e.g. a wooden ornament, textured clothing, a soft toy, or a candle.

2. The participant picks up the object and handles it, feeling its shape, texture, size, weight, etc.

3. Each participant describes what sensations they feel, and the thoughts, images, emotions and memories that are evoked.

3. Smell

1. The facilitator places a container with a smell in front of each participant and helps the participant to handle it correctly. Soaking cotton wool in a substance is a good way to produce a smell cleanly. Make sure that the container is not opened until the participant is ready for the smell. Examples of smells include turpentine, lemon juice, chocolate, coffee, fresh-cut grass, melted wax, and stale beer.

2. The participant smells the container deeply. The facilitator should warn the participant if a deep sniff is not a good idea?

3. Each participant describes what the smell means to them, what it makes them think of, and any thoughts, images, memories or feelings that it evokes.

4. Taste

1. The facilitator helps each participant to taste a substance. Examples include fresh bread, fruit juice, cheese, chocolate, and a pickle.

2. The participant should keep the substance in their mouth, move it around, and note its mouth-feel, texture and flavour profile.

3. Each participant describes what the taste means to them, what it makes them think of, and any thoughts, images, memories or feelings that it evokes.

5. Sound

1. The facilitator plays a sound for the participant(s). This can be a piece of music, a sound clip or something the facilitator generates personally. For example, a pop song, a classical piece, crickets chirping, rain falling, traffic.

2. Each participant listens. If they want to move around, they should do so with some care as they are still blindfolded. The facilitator must help them not to damage themselves or anything/anybody else.

3.  Each participant describes what the sound means to them, what it makes them think of, and any thoughts, images, memories or feelings that it evokes.

6. Sight

1. The facilitator places an image in front of each participant. This should be the same image for multiple participants. This can be anything visual, e.g. a personal photograph or artwork, a stock image of a scene like a beach or a sunset or a natural disaster, or a still from a movie. 

2. Each participant removes the blindfold and spends some time examining the image.

3. Each participant describes what the image means to them, what it makes them think of, and any thoughts, other images, memories or feelings that it evokes.

What is the point?

These exercises help us to develop the habit of paying attention to our senses and memories, and how those make us feel. If we become more aware of what affects us emotionally, and the emotional and physical impact of our memories, then we gain more control over how we react to the world. 

In the next chapter, Emotion Memory Part 2: Shaping, I discuss how we can curate our own emotional and physical spaces to elicit the emotions that we want to have.