TASK DEFINITION: Read the given story and classify it as 'imagined', 'recalled', or 'retold'. If a story is imagined, the person who wrote the story is making it up, pretending they experienced it. If a story is recalled, the person who wrote the story really experienced it and is recalling it from memory. If a story is retold, it is a real memory like the 'recalled' stories, but written down much later after previously writing a 'recalled' story about the same events. So, recalled stories and retold stories will be fairly similar, in that they both were real experiences for the writer. Imagined stories have a more linear flow and contain more commonsense knowledge, whereas recalled stories are less connected and contain more specific concrete events. Additionally, higher levels of self reference are found in imagined stories. Between recalled and retold stories, retold stories flow significantly more linearly than recalled stories, and retold stories are significantly higher in scores for cognitive processes and positive tone.
PROBLEM: With our upcoming wedding next year we decided to look for a home to call our own. About a month after getting engaged we decided to hire a realtor to look for a home in our area. We looked at many different houses and even put bids on a few, but kept getting rejected. It seemed like every house we were interested in had many people bidding on it. Our realtor was great and kept finding homes for us to see. My fiance and I also kept our eye out for new homes on the market. Our parents even got involved in our search. We looked at homes that were in need of some renovations too. My fiance is great at renovating and I have an eye out for decorating. The market was low with the amount of houses to sell and there were more people wanting to buy then houses out there. A new home came on the market and our realtor contacted us. We went to see it that evening. There were 2 other people interested in the home too. It would be the perfect house for us and only 5 minutes from our parents. We decided to bid higher than the asking price and also write a letter about how much we loved the house. Three days later we found out that we had gotten the house. It has been 2 months since we found our dream home and could not be happier.

SOLUTION: imagined

PROBLEM: Last month I dropped off my oldest child at a university that is 7 hours away from my house. The whole family came along for the drop-off. We had a great time driving to the university. We talked about so many issues, such as how to take a show in a shared bathroom to how to get the most out of going to college. Once we got to the campus, we participated in all the activity on campus. We met the roommate. We explored the whole campus and met so many interesting people. The best part of the day was when my child told us how grateful she is to us for being so supportive of her with her life choices. It was such a bitter-sweet moment. I would never forget this day. I know that I will miss my child a lot. I got a great satisfaction knowing my child made the right choice for college. I think my husband and I did a good job raising her. I will always be grateful to have a wonderful child like her. I would not even take anything for granted.

SOLUTION: recalled

PROBLEM: A couple of months ago, I participated in a session with a medium that allowed me to communicate with a dear friend that I had lost. At the start of the session, I admit I was skeptical. The only reason I was doing it is because it was gifted to me; it wasn't something I would have sought out myself. While I've always been a person who believe in spirits and energy living beyond death, someone actually communicating in real time with someone I'd lost was not something I fully believed in. I have to admit that going into the session, my expectations were fairly low. However, it didn't take more than 10 minutes for my entire outlook to change. After telling the medium who it was I wanted to speak to, they kicked off the process to communicate with them. Without going into too much detail, I can say that within the first few minutes of the conversation, I was sure I was speaking to my friend. One thing that the medium said caused me to burst into tearsmy friend knew of the symbol we had created for her after her death. I was also finally given some sort of confirmation that my friend was happier where she was. She said that I didn't need to worry about her, and I was told that she spends time with me sometimes. It's been 3 years since she died, but nothing gave me more relief than this session did. It doesn't make the pain of the death go away, but it absolutely helped with the healing process. I regret now that I waited for so long to take the session out of fear of what I'd hear, because after the fact, I feel that it was the best decision I could have made. I'm so grateful that I even had the opportunity to something like that. I got a sense of closure that many aren't lucky enough to have, and it made a profound difference on my general outlook.

SOLUTION:
retold