Nostalgia is not a past recollection.

Nostalgia is a particular view of the past so that it’s skewed in one way. It’s not an accurate picture of the past. However, we’re not just talking about the 1950’s or your childhood. We’re talking about the things that happened last year, last month, last week, yesterday, and an hour ago.

Everything you remember is remembered in a way that you want to remember it. This is why people can two very different recollections of an event, if outright denial or gaslighting is not a factor. Yet, neither memory will be a true and accurate recording of the past.

Your Memories Deceive You.

There, I said it. When my clients tell me about things that happened in the past, I don’t listen to their words. I see the picture in their minds. I see their point of view, and I see how the event would seem to someone with that point of view. For example, I can see a client at three years old terrified to sit on Santa’s lap, and I can see that she is terrified because he’s a strange man who seems impatient and wants to go home. I can see that her mother is tired and losing patience, and that she’s growing embarrassed. This was like stepping into an abyss for the child.

However, from an adult’s point of view, this was not nearly the tragedy it was to the child. Yet, the child still sees it this event as the most dangerous thing she has encountered, though realistically, it is not.

For that same client, I can see an event where she meets a kindly old neighbor who shows a little too much interest in her, so her mother makes her stay away from him. The little girl doesn’t see what’s wrong; she doesn’t suspect a pedophile. That client doesn’t understand why her mother wouldn’t let her befriend this kind neighbor.

This nostalgia is not intentional, but it is unreliable.

We are not video recorders or record-keepers. We’re people who must negotiate with and contend with the world around us. We have a worldview that we have constructed, and we don’t want it challenged or destroyed. The things we experience have to fit in that worldview, or else they don’t fit at all.

That’s why we remember things not as they actually happened, but as we reconstructed them in our minds to make them fit our worldview.

So, what does this mean?

It means that a psychic reading can surprise you because the psychic is seeing your memory, your nostalgia and your construct, but is trying to find an objective way to frame it. This is why sometimes I’ll tell people what I see and they’ll refuse to believe it until much later. Then, they say “you know Cedric, I never saw it that way, but now, it all makes sense.”

If you’re uncertain about a time in your past, consult a psychic to help you see through your own nostalgia and find the truth.