“What we call reality is a certain relationship between these sensations and the memories which surround us at the same time.”Marcel Proust · În căutarea timpului pierdut · 1913 · Volumul VI, „Timpul regăsit”, partea „La Guermantes
Reality is not the sensation, but the bridge between sensation and the memories it awakens.
Proust redefines reality as a relation, not a substance. A present sensation becomes real only when its resonance with simultaneously evoked memories fixes it. The mechanism is temporal resonance: present and past illuminate each other. A new landscape is not real to you until it recalls something lived, and a memory comes alive only when a present scene awakens it; reality is precisely that bridge.
Why it matters It explains why the same places or songs mean different things to each person, depending on their past.