The simple fact that listening to music often triggers a memory, usually of a scene in a movie. What are the triggers that activate memory to remind the reader of a scene, possibly from life itself? Is it possible to craft a scene in a novel in such a fashion that it triggers memory in the reader? The truth is yesno. Why the vacillation? There is no simple answer like the one where a piece of music triggers a memory from a scene in a movie. This triggering effect can be done. Accomplishing this, however, becomes problematic because the visions that build through the construction of a scene in a novel compete in the mind for space to remember. Thus, unlike the simple music trigger that activates the memory, it is memory attempting to activate memory. The strange fact is that the more similar the scene in the book is to the memory the less likely will be the triggering effect. Uncanny comes into play here. The strange, eerie resemblance where the memory is similar but unsettlingly different acts as the catalyst to trigger the memory. Should the scene in the novel be too similar to the memory, then no activation can occur. The mind must become unsettled before the triggering effect can occur.

This competition for memory space in its dissimilar nature causes a dissonance that cannot be ignored. It calls out across the plane of the mind as a seeking for stability when the uncanny dissonance occurs. The placid mind cannot break the surface tension of the liquid pool of memory. Disturbance does occur. This is true. The ripples and waves slowly settle down until equilibrium returns the viscus liquid of memory back into stillness.

Dissonance—Resonance—The Uncanny—The Murmur triggers the recall activation sending the mind searching and hopeless for stability. Only when the memory of similar surfaces will balance return.

Turning to forgetting as caused by old age, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s we see in these people afflicted with these symptoms and diseases this need to remember. They cannot. The trigger has evaporated like ice in the sun, leaving no way to recall to trigger. The strange thing is that if a person is emotionally shocked, the often remember. “Yeah, I remember you. You are my son.” The attempt to force recognition and memory does not work cannot work.

The same holds true for the trigger in the novel. The vision of the similar comes into focus when the mind is destabilized. This has a much higher potentiality to effect the re/membering when the scene is scripted in such a manner that it becomes uncanny.