Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Essay

The mind is made in such a way that it can retain and also lose the memories the one experiences. This means that memory erasure is something that can be done both medically and naturally by going through some life-changing events. The psychological experiences that one goes through determining the outcome of whatever will be set in the mind. The mind, therefore, stores the information either for a short while or for long. It all depends on whether one wants to be the main subject. The significant events that take place in one's life lead to either happiness or sadness. It is psychological that one is likely to erase all the events that led to sorrow to remain with those that led to complete happiness. In general, one determines what to retain and what to release. In this case, the evaluation of the mind and the way it stores information will be conducted focusing on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" which is a movie that revolves around two major characters known as Joel and Clement.

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The film was made in such a way that it made use of psychologically thrilling scenes to make sure that the message was received by anyone who is interested. The nature of memory is given an exploration by using romantic love among the characters who play a significant role in making a flow of the plot. Joel Barish is one of the characters in the film, and he seems to be shy and soft-spoken. Joel was in a relationship with Clementine Krucyzynski. The two of them began getting severe withier relationship on a Long Island Rail Road train as they were heading to Rockville Centre from Montauk (Gondry, 2004). The two of them developed a need to travel to Montauk regardless of the fact that they were beginning to get drawn to each other and that they had personalities that were contrasting. The two of them did not realize that they were former lovers and that they had spent over two years in the same relationship.

Clement engaged in a fight and ordered some people from New York City firm Lacuna Inc. to help here in erasing all the memories that she had concerning her relationship with Joel. Joel discovered that Clementine was undergoing a procedure to erase her memories, and the also opted to experience the same, but he did it by himself (Gondry, 2004). The process of erasing the memories was supposed to take place while he was in his sleep. Most the events were taking place in Joel's minds. While undergoing the erasure process, he had a vision of the kind of happiness that he had with Clementine and decided to retain some of them in the process. This was not possible as the only memory that remained was the time when they first met in Montauk and Clementine told him, "Meet me in Montauk."

The movie provided a depiction of the events that take place during memory erasure, and this can be looked at from the perspective of retrieval cues. The role played by retrieval cueing is that it enables people to be able to go through some previous events and making choices on whether to keep or erase them. All the events are placed in an aligned manner so that one can be able to analyze them. Looking at the events that were taking place in Joel's mind, it is evident that he was about to choose some of the things that he liked to retain (Gondry, 2004). At that time, everything was reversely taking place, and therefore the retrieval curing process was underway. There are some instances when the process does not take place. Therefore, all the events that were supposed to be retained are all erased. In that case, one ends up getting back to scratch not being able to able to remember a thing.

Some memories are stored in mind but, they all depend on the proximities that they had as the time when they were taking place (Mcdowall, 1979). For this to be understood it would be a good idea to look at some of the types of memory. They include sensory memory, short-term (working memory) and long-term memory. The three of them have roles that they play as one needs to be able to remember events and erase some completely. The memories are stored in the sensory section are the ones that come out of senses, and they last for a short while since they are replaced by new data. In this case, both Clement and Joel had not stored their relationship detail in the sensory memory because they had to undergo the erasure process to eliminate them.

There also the short term or the working memory which stores all the information that needs to be retained for only a short time (Mcdowall, 1979). Information that is stored in the short-term memory can be easily manipulated to fit whatever one wants to keep at that time. Joel and Clement were in love, but they misremembered some of the some of the good times that they had as many of them did not last. Lastly, there is the long-term memory which was used by both Joel and Clement. This is the memory that one needs to store for a long time or even for the entire lifespan. The information stored in this section can only be erased when one chooses to undergo the erasure process. Joel and Clement were genuinely in love, and they still wanted to do away with the long-term memories that they had (Gondry, 2004). Even though they went through the process, some details remained, and that was the reason they were familiar with each other.

The issue of memory mapping was also imminent in the film, especially when looked from the perspective of Joel. Joel wanted to at least remain with some information regarding the kind of love that they had with Clementine as he was going through the erasure process. This means that he wanted a map of the details of the events that took place when they were together even though he tried to forget everything. Joel was able to control his memories because he could choose either to wake up or to continue sleeping. Waking up could have left him with some things to remember in the relationship while sleeping could have erased everything.

The entire event was taking place in Joel's mind, and when they came back to the present, they were not able to remember anything. Both Joel and Clement could not figure out the fact that they had been dating. They could not even remember going through the erasure process since all the memories had been erased. Joel pleaded with Clementine so that they could start again regardless of the fact that things could repeat themselves. Therefore, the human learning and memory processes are based on experiences and whatever one chooses to keep and erase completely.

References

Gondry, M. (2004). "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Anonymous Content.

Mcdowall, J. (1979). "Effects of encoding instructions and retrieval cuing on recall in Korsakoff patients." Memory and cognition.