A small-world network hypothesis for memory and dreams

Memories are associated to one another and to the environmental cues that accompanied the events that gave rise to them. Thus, a memory is more likely to be recalled (reconstructed) if it is strongly connected to a particular environment. We propose that memory associations form a small-world network. According to this hypothesis, one memory might lead to the recall of an apparently unrelated memory because they are actually connected by only a few steps. This small-world hypothesis might also be relevant to the peculiar features of dreaming.