I may or may not have had large amounts of psychedelics in my system while in an isolation tank (thanks Joe Rogan!) while I came up with this, so bear with me.
Modern medical science states that memories are stored in the brain, specifically in the neurons, that fire together from the areas that were engaged when the memory was experienced. Due to this process, memories aren't stored like library books, rather bits and pieces are all over like a fragmented hard drive. The brain has 86 billion neurons. However, neurons aren't limited to the brain. The heart has 40,000 neurons, so sometimes you can follow its advice. As for your stomach, it has 100 million neurons, so I guess you can trust your gut sometimes, too.
Let's take a look at something I am passionate about – the gym. Among bodybuilders, power lifters, and anyone who frequents the gym and picks up masses against the force of gravity, you'll hear people talk of taking some time off, but that the muscle memory will kick in when they resume the activity. This muscle memory referenced here is that the muscles will remember the actions they performed so many times before, thus growing faster than someone who hasn't lifted to that level previously. From personal experience, this seems to be true.
What if memories are actually stored outside of the brain, in the cells, and the brains just acts as an assembly point for all the various bits of data? This would explain why you can almost remember a name, but not quite get it, or why a name will appear but you can't attach a face to it.
Let me go a little more metaphysical, cause that's fun shit. What if memories are actually stored in the atoms? We don't really know everything that's going on at the atomic level. Imagine that memories are kept there, and that atoms have traversed time and various people, leaving their mark on the next person. This would explain premonition, déjà vu, and numerous other phenomena. Even if there is only partial data left at the atomic level, it allows for small bits to flow from one individual to the next, or to carry on between civilizations, or to be pieced together with other incomplete bits to form new ideas or even to re-establish one concepts thought lost to the sands of time. The atom itself gains more information as it goes on, through all its forms, and passes those along as best it can when it reassembles with other atoms into whatever form. In a conscious form, sometimes those atoms will hit neurons and create a signal that is interpreted as a memory, vision or other.
I don't know, I could be way off on my own visual interpretations of what I saw, combined with being way off on my own interpretations of the crappy notes I left for myself, but whatever, I'm going with it.
