Fringe dwelling in autobiographical memory – Writers’ perspectives

This essay includes collated contributions from practising writers, participants in a Creative Writing|Neuroimaging Exploratory Study, Ideasthetic Imagining – Mapping the Brain’s Microstates Using Magnetoencephalography (MEG), conducted at Swinburne University (2023, Melbourne, Australia). The study investigates neural activity in participants’ brains while undertaking a creative writing workshop. Participants write imaginatively from short and long-term memory. The research team utilises MEG neuroimaging technology to determine where and how the brain is processing information at distinct stages of the workshop. The creative writing workshop at the heart of the study involves imaginative approaches to life writing, transforming unresolved memories through creative practice. As participants engage in the workshop, the research team measures activity in target regions of the brain. The researchers then analyse the interaction between distinct regions of the brain at various stages. The following essay gathers the voices of the experimental group (practising writers), asking them to reflect upon their experience of writing a long-term memory, as they experienced it at the time and, subsequently, from a perspective other than their own. In this exercise, particular regions of the brain are activated (to a far greater extent) in the experimental group (practising writers) as opposed to the control group (non- writers).