When recollections pop out of nowhere consistently and unexpectedly remind you of a person and a place and undefined moments, you know you feel the pull of time passed.
Where is my mind?
It is said that our unconscious is the biggest bank of data in the human brain. Working memory, short-term memory, long-term recalls could not even beat its capacity, no matter how aggregated. It's like you have been somewhere and done something that did not really "matter" at the time it was done, and suddenly your mind reminds you that this fact/experience is there, willing to come out and show you a different take on reality.
Reality kick
How many times do we travel and wander around tasting, touching, feeling things without being aware of these? For example, on the road during a road trip, do we pay attention to all that is visible or we just want a sense of the place? The food that we sample at our new destination, how come it always seem to taste "better" than what we usually have? It can be the same spices, the same recipe, the same chain of restaurant, but why the different taste?
Marcel Proust is most famously described the reality of lingering in a 3-pages long description of his "Madeleine". Throughout the journey of our lives, the places we see and we've been to, people's voices, characters, deeds... all are passively encapsulated in our beings. Every moment is carved into our bodies, every emotion glued into our minds. We then live life fighting to stay "present" and awake, striving to keep up with the happenings of the world and struggling to remain in tune with our inner rythm. But the lingering is there, and it only takes an unplanned break in the space/time of our existence to trigger the recollection of our life story.
I believe that the human brain is the most powerful creator of algorithms, computing all facts into alternate scenarii and realities. The chemical processes at stakes could not even be reproduced in lab, and, despite the legend of Dr Frankenstein's creature, it is highly likely they never will be.
