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Can a picture evoke PL memories?

Obie

Obie

Senior Registered
I was looking at an old school house in the middle of the country side at work. For some reason it evoked feelings of happiness like I had been a small child in a PL who went to school there. It just made me so happy, and so at peace just looking at that picture. It felt like it was a simple country life but I was loved and that sometime while there I had met someone who I fell in love with as I grew older (maybe jr. high age). I know I left them behind as I perhaps moved to a bigger city but I feel like it was an amicable parting. I feel it was my New Orleans life but that I started out in humble beginnings.

For some reason every time I think of old time country school houses on a warm sunny day I feel so happy and so nostalgic. This time at work when I looked at that picture I just wanted to jump into that time. I just longed to be there in that happier time.

Have you all looked at a picture - has it ever evoked good or bad feelings in you?
 
Hi Obie! Really cool thread idea :) .


I think definitely a photograph/image/illustration can evoke memories or flashes/sounds, etc... In my thread in the Past Life Memories section, I described how I was looking at a photograph of one of the rooms of le petit trianon and suddenly heard the distinct and audible sound of a harp or harpischord. It was so beautiful yet it made me sad and I shut the book. It evoked happier feelings for me but a deep sense of longing and home sickness.
 
Yes, a picture evoke PL memories


I have had this happen a few times. I saw an amazing photo taken during the American Civil War. It was of a group of Union soldiers standing on a wooden train station platform in the rain. The soldiers were wearing oiled overcoats and kepis and looked miserable. You could see the standing water and mud around the platform. While staring at the image I started to hear their voices and sense the dampness of the air. The longer I stared, the more I was drawn in. It started to bring forth memories of when I was in the Union Army, doing exactly what they were doing. Being horribly bored, waiting to be transported somewhere. After a while I could feel the cold, smell the oil from the overcoats and the wood of the platform. I remember such long trips from the North to the Southern theater of war. A number of photos of various wars have done this to me. Sometimes photos can trigger instant PL memories, which include many of the other senses, especially smell.
 
Yes, a picture can evoke PL memories


I have had this happen a few times. I saw an amazing photo taken during the American Civil War. It was of a group of Union soldiers standing on a wooden train station platform in the rain. The soldiers were wearing oiled overcoats and kepis and looked miserable. You could see the standing water and mud around the platform. While staring at the image I started to hear their voices and sense the dampness of the air. The longer I stared, the more I was drawn in. It started to bring forth memories of when I was in the Union Army, doing exactly what they were doing. Being horribly bored, waiting to be transported somewhere. After a while I could feel the cold, smell the oil from the overcoats and the wood of the platform. I remember such long trips from the North to the Southern theater of war. A number of photos of various wars have done this to me. Sometimes photos can trigger instant PL memories, which include many of the other senses, especially smell.
 
insearchof_1785 said:
Hi Obie! Really cool thread idea :) .
I think definitely a photograph/image/illustration can evoke memories or flashes/sounds, etc... In my thread in the Past Life Memories section, I described how I was looking at a photograph of one of the rooms of le petit trianon and suddenly heard the distinct and audible sound of a harp or harpischord. It was so beautiful yet it made me sad and I shut the book. It evoked happier feelings for me but a deep sense of longing and home sickness.
Click to expand...
I feel the same way when I come across something that makes me nostalgic . It's a sense of sadness because I'm no longer there.
 
Exactly Obie! Exactly. The sense of nostalgia is so overwhelming sometimes. Yesterday I was looking through not that book I have on le petit trianon but a website with photographs of Trianon and I heard it again, a harp or harpischord playing audibly. And I just listened intently and smiled and then I smelled the distinct scent of oranges. Everytime I smell oranges, I think automatically of that life. They perfumed the gardens and were always around me. Maman loved them so much. Ahh...
 
Interesting thought. I would say so yes. I had a reoccurring dream of a ww2 beach landing from age 3/4-19. When I've seen archive footage of soldiers in ww2 I feel a strange feeling, hard to describe really, but almost like " I get it " a bonded feeling to them and there situation as if I just "know". The dream also contained the plant baby's breath. I recall once when I was about 12 I encountered it and I got a very very powerful flash back, which left me a bit taken back. Only happened once though.


Also as obie says the feeling of nostalgia. It is strong when ever I hear 40's music, namely american jazz. There's a really strong feeling like I belong to that era, kind of like homesickness despite being born in the 80s. I'm drawn to it like a magnet. I've never obsessed or forced it, just the way it's always felt.


So I think anything related could potentially bring something to the surface.
 
I do believe so too, I had pictures envoke memories several times for me personally and made me remember things that I been hidining in my mind over the years. Sometimes even music does that too me. But I think how people sees it and what they can accept to take in.
 
One picture on ebay set all in motion for me


then it came all pouring out my life in the 20's


and many others..


Yes a picture is worth a thousand words


And many memories .


When it happens , your life as you know it is changed for


ever.cover face
 
I've had this happen to a few times recently when looking at images on google of the Mayan civilization. I was looking at a drawing of a mayan warrior and i definitely felt something like a feeling of familiarity with what they were wearing. The same thing happened when looking at a picture of a Sumerian pyramid.
 
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