Anamnesis, a remembrance of something learned yet forgotten. The acquisition of knowledge that is already possessed, one who is aware of their wounds, experiences, and identities. Anamnesis, a word so scientific and metaphorical. A feeling so distant yet one that practically dwells with us. A feeling that quietly screams, that softly whispers to us of our past wounds that have grown us into greater humans acting as the reward a child awaits when it keeps its broken milk tooth under a pillow, waiting for tooth fairy to reward it, instead it is gifted, with a beautiful set of permanent teeth, way stronger than the ones it had before.
Anamnesis, something that the Oxford dictionary defines as “recollection, especially of a supposed previous existence.” Anamnesis- “the recollection of something so sacred as my past self. Someone so strong to go through everything they went through and yet dares to be me.”
Whenever we find ourselves stuck in the past, isn’t it a beautiful thing how the past envelops us and nurtures us like a plant growing? Similar to phytohormones- plant growth regulators, Anamnesis is aware of our story. It knows where we fell, where we got up. It is aware of the strength it took, the tears it shed. Everything I am today, I am a product of everything that broke me and almost broke me.
Plato, the 4th-century Greek philosopher, interestingly describes Anamnesis as the interestingly process of recalling. He talks about how the soul is an immortal being, and she has lived many lives. He says that when we learn something in our lives, instead of the soul acquiring new knowledge, it is actually recalling knowledge it already possesses. Having read what Plato had to say about this feeling, we can all agree that we all have the answers. We are all very, very aware of our being and have an innate amount of knowledge embedded within us. It’s just the feeling where it all surfaces. In this context, I like to think of Anamnesis as a feeling that brings everything to consciousness. A feeling that brings awareness of already acquired knowledge. A feeling, where you can feel the heavy drop in your chest, not because the situation in hand is uncomfortable, but because- “I have dealt with it and as broken as it left me, I will breathe and rise back up again”.
Scientifically, anamnesis is the process in psychology where the patient’s history is detected and taken into account before performing any kind of diagnosis. I like to symbolically see it as a reminder of how much our experiences have grown us. A very essential reminder that even though everything felt heavy at one point, we found our way out. We dealt with it. A beautiful reminder that even though life was never easy on any of us, we still found a way to sit still with it. Towards the end, we found something bittersweet to be happy about, to be proud about.
Other times, it leads to a feeling of being stuck. Stuck because we don’t have any control over some situations. Situations that we see, that wound us emotionally, ones that are hard to stand, they exist. They are sometimes quite a reminder of our helplessness. In some situations, we can simply sit back and watch, never do anything about it. Anamnesis, a feeling that once reminded me how far I have come, starts reminding us of how we are simply humans with absolutely nothing in our hands.
Yet, in context to the above paragraph, some existentialist thinkers like Jean Paul Sartre suggest how even in our deepest, darkest moments, humans are privileged with the freedom to choose their responses. What he said really brings light to to the entire perspective he says that Anamnesis, in this light, does not merely trap us in the past or our wounds, instead it offers raw material for self-creation, leading to the beginnings of authentic living. We become artisans of our own meaning, drawing from memory and experiences to shape our future.
Anamnesis to me brings out hope, brings out an optimistic feeling. Hope because even when everything felt as though our world was tearing apart, we are still standing, breathing, and content with our lives. Optimistic because it allows one to see future possibilities, even when giving up was easy, we didn’t. It is proof, a document of our strength. Our lives that are still breathing. irrespective of everything that felt as though it was straggling it. Friedrich Nietzsche suggests the idea of “eternal recurrence,” which basically asks us to imagine living our lives over and over and embracing and inhaling every moment fully aware of how our souls chose this reality for us. Anamnesis, then, becomes a call for affirmations- a chance to reclaim our narrative, to look upon even the most painful memories as essential brushstrokes in the painting of each one of our unique existences.
Anamnesis is the wisdom to accept every moment, experience, and situation as our own, to see everything as a conscious choice ce of of our our existence. exister Something we have all heard, but that gives me an innate sense of strength, is the idea that God always leads you to situations according to the strength within you. The thought really tells us that nothing in our lives is random: it it is is specifically chosen by god. Anamnesis here represents that great strength within us, one that God sees within us. A representation of how far we can grow and travel, provided we really search deep enough within ourselves. To me, Anamnesis is quite the depiction of our strength. The depiction of how all the answers of the universe are withir ourselves, if we search deep enough. Only if we look ourselves in the eye and tell our souls that everything that happened happened for a reason, mostly because our souls consciously chose that reality for us. History repeats itself; our souls, caught up in the never-ending cycle of life and death, would always choose familiar realities for themselves. It is always about trusting, believing in that greater good.