system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is it that many of our memories can only be accessed in our brains after we are reminded of them?
gpt
The memory you are talking about is associative, meaning things and events are linked together so when you are reminded of something it activates all the things associated to that memory giving you more detail about the memory itself.

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Edit: maybe you're wondering why we can't just access our memories at will? Well it's because those memories might only be weakly associated to things in your day to day, you don't want to remember everything all the time, so it requires a certain activation of pathways to trigger that memory. This is why sometimes retracing your steps, either physically or mentally, helps if you have misplaced something.