— A reflection on dreams, memory, and persistent internal worlds
We usually think of memory as something flat.
Like a scrapbook of past events — blurry snapshots, half-formed emotions, out-of-order dialogues.
But what if memory wasn’t flat at all?
What if, instead of scattered images, the mind could build full 3D environments — coherent, spatial, with depth, persistence, and internal logic?
And what if those environments didn’t vanish when we woke up… but waited?
🧠 A Different Kind of Memory
There are some fascinating insights from neuroscience that make this idea more than poetic speculation.
For example, place cells in the hippocampus fire when you occupy (or imagine) a specific location. This was first proposed by O’Keefe and Dostrovsky in 1971, who described the hippocampus as functioning like a spatial map.
Later, researchers in Norway discovered grid cells in the entorhinal cortex — neurons that create a geometric mesh over imagined or real space, allowing the brain to track position like a built-in GPS (Hafting et al., Nature, 2005).
In humans, these systems support not only spatial navigation but mental construction of scenes. Hassabis and Maguire (2007) suggested that episodic memory itself depends on the ability to rebuild coherent scenes in the mind.
Other areas, such as the retrosplenial cortex, help stabilize landmarks and transitions between internal and external viewpoints (Vann et al., 2009). And the posterior medial cortex appears specialized in constructing and holding spatial scenes, even without sensory input — a process studied in depth by Dalton, Zeidman and Maguire (2022).
And during rest or sleep, the hippocampus can replay or simulate navigation sequences using replay and preplay mechanisms (Foster & Wilson, 2006), reinforcing or even anticipating spatial experiences.
So maybe — just maybe — the brain doesn’t just remember events.
Maybe it remembers spaces.
🌀 A Personal Glitch in the Matrix
Here’s why I ask.
Years ago, I dreamed of a specific interior space. It wasn’t symbolic or dreamlike — it felt structured. Designed. It had a spatial logic, as if it had been built.
I didn’t think much of it at the time.
But years later, I dreamed of that same place again. And it wasn’t just familiar — it was identical.
Same layout. Same lighting. Same object placement.
There was a window that had broken in the first dream, and in the second, it was still broken.
Even stranger: I moved a piece of furniture — not looking for anything in particular — and behind it, I found a sheet of paper.
Only then did I remember: in a dream years ago, that exact paper had fallen behind the same furniture.
But I hadn’t gone looking for it.
I didn’t remember it beforehand.
It was finding it again that triggered the memory.
And in that moment, it didn’t feel like recalling a past dream.
It felt like I had stepped into a persistent internal model.
Not something I was reconstructing — something I was accessing.
A space with state. Like a paused level. Still loaded. Waiting.
🌌 What Kind of Space Was That?
Maybe it was just a vivid dream with unusually consistent details.
Or maybe — and this is the edge I’m interested in — it was something else:
A stored internal environment, with memory not just of experience, but of spatial structure, object placement, and emotional tone.
In cognitive science, these are sometimes called mental models — dynamic simulations that preserve relationships between objects and locations. Hassabis & Maguire proposed that the ability to mentally construct scenes underpins not just memory but imagination and future planning.
In lucid dreaming circles, people often report revisiting the same dream «worlds» again and again, with a consistent layout — sometimes years apart.
Jung might have described these as archetypal spaces — inner structures shaped by the psyche itself.
I don’t know exactly what they are.
But I know what it felt like:
It felt like returning.
🧭 What If It’s Real?
If this capacity exists —
even occasionally, or only in altered states —
then memory might not just be about time.
It might also be about place.
Maybe some parts of us don’t just live in moments.
They live in rooms.
Rooms with broken windows and forgotten papers.
Rooms we can walk through, leave things in, and find them again much later —
not because we remembered them, but because they never left.
🛠 How Might You Explore It?
If you’ve experienced something like this —
a dream or memory space that returned, with continuity —
you might try:
- Drawing a map of it.
- Naming its parts.
- Leaving an object in the dream — and checking, much later, if it’s still there.
- Asking: Why this place?
What part of me lives here?
Is it waiting for something?
Maybe you’re not just dreaming.
Maybe you’re inhabiting.
📚 References
- O’Keefe, J., & Dostrovsky, J. (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map. Brain Research, 34(1), 171–175.
- Hafting, T., Fyhn, M., Molden, S., Moser, M.-B., & Moser, E. I. (2005). Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature, 436(7052), 801–806.
- Foster, D. J., & Wilson, M. A. (2006). Reverse replay of behavioural sequences in hippocampal place cells during the awake state. Nature, 440(7084), 680–683.
- Vann, S. D., Aggleton, J. P., & Maguire, E. A. (2009). What does the retrosplenial cortex do? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(11), 792–802.
- Hassabis, D., & Maguire, E. A. (2007). Deconstructing episodic memory with construction. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(7), 299–306.
- Dalton, M. A., Zeidman, P., & Maguire, E. A. (2022). Posterior medial cortex: Scene construction and the role of memory in imagining the future. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(1), 59–73.
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