I had a striking dream this morning. In the dream I went into a cafe, On the other side of a table with several people was a pretty young woman, who said, "Mark, this is Meredith MacCrae."
Lying in bed after awaking, I struggled to remember who was Meredith MacCrae. Was it someone I had worked with, I wondered? Quickly I recalled that Meredith MacCrae was an actress who had been in the 1960's TV show "Petticoat Junction." An internet search confirmed my recollection. Meredith had died in the year 2000. I had not seen the TV show "Petticoat Junction" in more than 50 years.
I have recently been watching a series of youtube.com videos about the least popular TV shows of particular years such as 1966 or 1973, shows that were quickly cancelled. Watching this series has confirmed that humans have an incredible ability to remember useless and trivial things they learned more than 50 years ago.
There was a mention of the 1974 TV show "Get Christie Love," which was cancelled after a single year. Without seeing any face, I recalled that the star was Teresa Graves. Graves basically had no presence in TV or movies after 1975, and in 1983 retired from show business. At the time I recalled her name (November 2025), I had not watched this 1974-1975 show or read or heard any mention of this show or Graves in the past 50 years, nor had I ever thought about the show or Graves in the past 50 years.
In a similar vein, this year I was watching a video on the most unpopular TV shows of 1973-1974. As soon as they mentioned the show The New Perry Mason, I remembered the star of the show was Monte Markham. The show ran for only 15 episodes, and was never run in repeats after 1974, with there being virtually no mentions of it in the press since about that year. When the video mentioned the TV show Adam's Rib without showing any of its actors, I remembered that it starred Blythe Danner and a tall blonde person named Ken, who played Thomas Jefferson in the movie 1776. I remembered both of their faces well. I was right about all of those details. The male actor's name was Ken Howard. The TV show Adam's Rib ran for only 13 episodes, and never ran in repeats after 1974. When the same video mentioned the TV show Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice, I remembered that one of the stars was a short red-haired actress with the last name of Gillette. I was correct. The show ran for only 12 episodes in 1973, and never was seen after then. Upon hearing the name of the 1966 TV show "Captain Nice" (canceled after a single season), without any image shown, I recalled its star was William Daniels. Upon seeing an unlabeled photo of Judy Carne (an actress I have not seen on TV or heard mentioned in about 60 years), I instantly identified her as Judy Carne.
Similarly, while watching this year one of these videos I saw a screen merely listing a title of It's About Time, a series that ran from 1966 to 1967, and was never syndicated after then. I correctly remembered that the show was about astronauts who traveled back in time into the Stone Age. I also remembered the melody and most of the lyrics of the beginning of the show's theme song, remembering that it went like this: "It's about time, it's about space, __ __ __ __ __ __ __ place." I had an equally good recollection of melody and lyrics of the theme song of the 1965 TV series Hank, cancelled after a single season.
People can remember the most useless pieces of trivial information they learned more than 50 years ago, memories that were never reactivated. There is no credible neuroscience explanation or evolutionary explanation for why humans would have such an ability. Neuroscientists are utterly unable to give any credible explanation for any of the main capabilities of human memory. When neuroscientists attempt to give such an explanation, they merely engage in vacuous jargon-decorated hand-waving. Nothing in a brain bears the slightest resemblance to a component for storing or retrieving memories. Microscopic examination of brain tissue of living and dead people has failed to produce any trace whatsoever of anything any human learned -- not even a single word or letter or number has ever been found through such microscopic examination. The proteins that make up brain synapses (the reputed storage place of memories) have a lifetime of only two weeks or less. But many people can instantly recall the most useless and trivial things they learned more than 50 years ago. The phenomenon of instant recall is beyond any neural explanation. Our brains have none of the things humans put in things they make to allow instant retrieval (things such as sorting, addressing and indexing). The failure of brains to explain human minds and their capabilities is discussed at the greatest length in many posts of my blog site here.
The ability of some humans to instantly recall some of the most useless pieces of information they learned 50 years ago is one of countless reasons for thinking that human minds and human memory are soul realities, not brain realities. And when I get the type of dream I had today (along with endless similar dreams), I suspect such a soul survives death.
