Hi, this is another paper I wrote for my AP Lang & Comp class this year. A synthesis essay is an essay that pulls in multiple sources and uses multiple sources in the same paragraph, to discuss the same idea. When writing this type of essay, it is crucial to make connections between the different sources that you are using, whether that be through highlighting their differences, acknowledging their similarities, or just showing how they work together in general. This essay delves into the idea that our imagination can be influenced by our past experiences, but also influence our memories, both of which influence our identity. I had a lot of fun getting to write this paper, so I hope you enjoy!

As an individual in today’s society, it is apparent that the way I’ve lived my life has influenced who I am today. When I was a child, I would often think about how everyone was living their own life, with their own struggles, achievements, and dreams, and I would think to myself, who will they become? Will they, in twenty years time, remember how hard it was when they had no money for lunch, and use this as a motivator to change the system? I remember when I was first diagnosed with Celiacs Disease, it was a frightening experience to be told at the bright age of nine that there were so many foods that could make me sick. No longer was I allowed to eat the cake offered at my friends’ parties, the foods laid out on the dinner table during the holidays. I started to constantly wash my hands, fearing the smallest crumb which would make my intestines sick for six weeks. I was afraid, still am afraid. Having Celiacs has shaped me, and always will, and it is one of the motivators for my career path. If I wasn’t diagnosed, I don’t think I would have decided that I wanted to work in the medical field. This has definitely shaped my identity, and my memories of being afraid have become apparent in my everyday life, where I check everything I eat and constantly monitor the people I am around to make sure nobody accidentally contaminates something I was eating. These memories have made me an overly cautious and very suspicious person. 

Our imagination impacts the way we perceive and interpret our past experiences, and can even skew our memories. For instance, much of how we perceive the world is through “making mental predictions about what you expect to see, based on experience, and then using sensory input to check and adjust your predictions” (Brooks, 2021). This shows that while imagination is thought to be in a separate sphere than memories, they are often, if not always, intertwined. We use our imagination to predict what will happen next, basing this information on our past experiences, and this is only one of these ways imagination and memories are connected.  When you are asked to imagine an image of something, or think of a story on the spot, what you think of is not random, it’s something that you have experienced before, a place you’ve been to, a conversation you’ve had. According to Brooks (2021), “The image you create is coated with personal feelings, memories, and evaluations.” Everything you imagine when asked to picture something is based off of something you have already seen, experienced, and talked about. Your imagination is once again intertwined and influencing your thoughts and memories. 

The role that imagination plays in our memories is important to consider. There are many times in which someone can remember an event incorrectly, or simply create an event that didn’t happen. As Charles Darwin wrote, the imagination “unites former images and ideas, independently of the will, and thus creates brilliant and novel results” (Brooks, 2021). The significance of this is that everything you remember, from losing your first tooth, to high school graduation, will be influenced by your imagination, and this influence will not occur because you want it to, it will just happen. Your identity and sense of self is then modified by these experiences, causing your memories to make you, well, you. 

Your identity is influenced by your memories. Each memory or experience that you have ever had has played a role in shaping who you are today. Our identities are fluid and change as we go through life, “As we grow older and enter adolescence, our sense of self becomes more complex, with memories of experiences, achievements, and relationships contributing to our self-esteem and self-concept” (University for the Creative Arts, 2023). The significance of this is that when we are younger, we are constantly changing who we are, our self-identity. Our memories are drawn upon to shape us, and they change throughout our lives however, there is a point when our identity becomes less fluid. As we age into adulthood “… our sense of identity stabilizes, informed by past experiences, memories, and ongoing personal growth” (University for the Creative Arts, 2023). Every memory of ours comes together to shape our identity during our adult lives, which can often impact what you want to do after high school, such as getting a job immediately, or going to college to pursue other educational endeavors. There is also the instance in your life when you are recalling how happy you were when doing a certain activity such as biking, and you may decide to change your career path, effectively changing your self-identity. 

All memories influence us, but there may be some instances in which our memories, modified by our imagination, create a false sense of self-identity. It is necessary to have true memories especially “… since identity self-constitution requires that a person articulate the true story about herself. Thus, since memories constitute building blocks of our stories, their modification could make our narrative identities false, and consequently make us who we are not”(Zawadzki and Adamczyk, 2021). When our imagination is modifying our past experiences, possibly changing the outcomes, our sense of self-identity will be modified accordingly. For instance, if you believed that you really hated running as a cross country runner, but you only thought this due to one bad experience, you may decide that running isn’t something you want to do anymore. This would make your self-identity, which was previously someone who enjoys running, into someone who believed that running was the bane of their existence. Which wouldn’t exactly be true. Your imagination has modified the memory, and all of your other memories pertaining to running, making each one a bad experience. There is a precarious balance between our imagination and our reality and “If our imagination is vivid enough, we will think…’we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are’” (Dijkstra, 2021). The significance of this is that if we have had our memories modified by our imagination, our perception of the world will now be based off of our affected self-identity, which might be false, causing you to see the world in a manner that is not true to yourself. 

 Our past experiences shape who we are, who we become, and they always will. Growing up, I was always told to think about why someone was acting the way they did, to not assume that their entire life was cupcakes and rainbows because that is what was seen on the outside. We don’t know the internal battles someone could be facing. The saying, “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” has always stuck with me, as a reminder that we won’t know how someone has been shaped by their past experiences unless we inquire, imagine, and make an effort to understand. They could have a false sense of identity, caused by their imagination modifying their memories, making them something they’re not. Our imagination shapes our perceptions of the world off of the experiences that we have had, the memories we have with other individuals in our lives, and our personal evaluation of these experiences. Imagination influences your memories which in turn influence your sense of self-identity.

Here are all the sources I used if you would like to do further reading:

Opinion | How the Brain Shapes Reality and Imagination – The New York Times

The Awesome Importance of Imagination
How memory makes us who we are | University for the Creative Arts

To remember, or not to remember? Potential impact of memory modification on narrative identity, personal agency, mental health, and well‐being – Zawadzki – 2021 – Bioethics – Wiley Online Library
The Fine Line Between Reality and Imaginary – Nautilus