1st POV or 3rd POV

There's been a recent recall: they're your memories. Don't you remember? How?

I fall into the rabbit hole of knowledge and wonder. I wonder and wonder and wonder and it’s scary to realize how much I actually don’t know. One concept I never really thought much about recently is how you can recall memories from either a 1st person perspective or 3rd person perspective.

And you often see this in movies, right? When someone dies and their memories play back like a scene where they’re watching themselves in action. But that’s weird, isn’t it? How can you see yourself in motion if you don’t actually have the mental capability to know what your entire body looks like in real time? Well, you do… and the explanation is even weirder than the question itself. The ultimate answer? It depends—on how you, the individual, visualize your past experiences. Let me break it down.

1st-Person vs. 3rd-Person Memories

If you recall a memory from a 1st-person perspective, you visualize the event as if you are re-experiencing it through your own eyes

You see what you originally saw from the same angles and viewpoints. These memories tend to feel more vivid and emotionally charged because you are essentially reliving the moment (and are more susceptible to emotional biases). At times, details like your 5 senses can be more pronounced.

BUT let’s say you don’t remember events that way. What if you see yourself in the memory as if you’re an observer watching a scene unfold? That means you are recalling the memory from a 3rd-person perspective! Trippy, right? But not uncommon!

You see yourself and your surroundings from an external viewpoint; so you can see your own face, body language, and interactions with others. However, the memory might feel more detached (with less emotional intensity).

There are a lot of factors that influence your perspective of memories: emotional intensity, time, and trauma and coping. 1st Pov (usually): stronger emotions and more recent events. 3rd Pov (usually): neutral or less intense emotion, older events, or traumatic events (as a coping mechanism to distance themselves).

So, my next question is,

How can the brain show you what you’ve never seen?

I’ve had 3rd-person memories myself, and I still can’t fully wrap my head around how! Here’s where things get weird. If we’ve only ever seen ourselves through mirrors and photos, how does the brain construct a 3rd-person perspective of us in memories? The ability can be explained by several processes and mechanisms:

1. Mental Imagery and Reconstruction: Even if you have never seen yourself from an external viewpoint, you can imagine it by piecing together various inputs (reflections, photographs, or videos of yourself). And with memory integration, the brain can reconstruct a scene (your surroundings).

2. Use of External References: The references you’ve obtained from mirrors, photos, videos, help your brain build a mental model of what you look like from the outside. Social interactions and observations can also contribute to forming a 3rd-person perspective.

3. Episodic Memory and Scene Construction: This memory involves recalling specific events (context and surroundings) for constructing scenes and visually seeing the event.

4. Embodied Cognition: Simulation Theory suggests that the brain can simulate actions and perspectives, allowing you to imagine how an event would look from an outside perspective. And body schema (representation of your body’s position and movements) helps visualize yourself.

5. Adaptive Function: Recalling traumatic memories from a 3rd-person perspective can serve as a coping mechanism (providing emotional distance and reducing impact)

In simple terms, what seems impossible is possible—all thanks to your brain’s delusional superpowers. The brains capacity to construct reality and depict memories from a 3rd-person perspective involves a combination mental imagery, external references, episodic memory, and adaptive functions, all so we can evaluate our actions and experiences from an outside point of view.

And at the end of the day, as complex as we are, we become one step closer to understanding how our own minds work. Isn’t that funny? Brains trying to figure out how their own brain works. Anyhow, I hope this gave you a little insight as to why you have memories that are either in 1st-person perspective, 3rd-person perspective, or both! You’re not alone… *cue scientific wonder music*

Happy Remembering!!