How do you remember memories?

This week I've been writing a chapter where one of my main characters, Liam, remembers the moment he's given some devastating news.

It made me think about how we remember memories...

Are they visual or verbal?

Do we remember whole sentences of what was said, or odd words?

Do we remember everything that happened as a string of pictures, like a full length film playing out in our head? Or just quick impressions, like snapshots in our minds?

And what about feelings - can we recall the same feeling we had at the time?

I'm a very visual person - so for me, I get very strong visual images in my head as memories.

Smells too, trigger memories for me. But it's a well-known fact that smells have a strong correlation with memories.

But what about words and pictures?

If you had to recall a significant memory in your life - how would you remember it?

I have a massive fear of heights because of falling through some bannisters when I was about four years old. According to my brother it was pretty horrific and I could have died. So now, when I have to try and step off the edge of something - no matter how low it is to the ground (even six feet will do it for me!) - more often than not, I freeze.

But it was only in recent years that I could actually recall anything about my fall.

I had had some hypnotherapy because I couldn't sleep at night and knew there was a reason for it, I just didn't know what it was.

A couple of months before, I'd taken the bar off my daughter's cot bed, so that she could get out of bed by herself. At the same time, we'd removed the stair gate at the top of the stairs. That was when my daughter started climbing out of her bed at night, waking up and wandering around the house.

And that was when my insomnia started.

After a few weeks of just going with whatever thought or image came up during my hypnotherapy session, it was around the fourth session that I suddenly recalled my fall - for the first time in my life.

I remembered being on the landing, playing by the railings, and falling through - but I only remembered the split second going through the bars, and then that was it. Nothing after that.

But - I had a snapshot of the gallery landing.

An overview of the room.

A snapshot of the wooden stairs, with gaps between them (which is fairly unusual). And the multicoloured rug in the middle of the room. And randomly, a small table with a telephone and plant on.

So everything was a snapshot of different images, strung together to recall the event.

I don't remember the fall, or anything else after it. Just the way the room looked before I fell.

Anyway, it turned out my subconscious was worrying about my daughter falling down the stairs at night - triggered by the buried memories of my own fall around the same age.

The hypnotherapist recommended I put the stair gate back on for a while - and guess what? I started sleeping again!

One other significant memory I have is of someone saying something pretty devastating to me when I was younger.

I'm a really positive person, so I try not to dwell on stuff, but when I remember that moment, I remember exactly where I was stood. And where the other person was stood. And weirdly - the colour of the carpet (which is so vivid in my mind), and the feeling I felt at the time. So, mostly pictures and snapshots - along with a strong sense of the feeling I felt at the time.

I'm sure it depends on the individual as to how they remember things.

If they are someone visual like me, then they'll probably be the same, and remember memories as a snapshot of images in their head. And if they are emotional like me, they'll remember the feeling too. But if they are more logical and practical, relying on words, maybe they'll remember the words more.

So with Liam's scene I really just wrote it how I thought I would remember it.

With gaps in time - time jumps, if you like, where trauma cuts out certain memories too painful to recall.

Pictures and images. Like a video, frozen at a specific scene.

The expression on a person's face.

Where he would have been sitting. How he would have felt at that time...

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Memories are amazing things. Allowing us to remember the happier times and forget the sadder ones.

But how you remember them must all be connected to the type of person you are.

So, what about you - how do you remember memories?

And if you were asked to describe them, how would you do it?

Visually, verbally, with smells, or with emotions? Or with some, or all of the above?