The Art of Forgetting

So, I recollect from me sleeping one night a couple months, I had a couple of dreams. To be honest, I really don't remember too much from them at all, except one happened to be very, how can I say, vivid? Yeah, vivid. I remember it all too much really. It had started with me in bed, and then she came in. All I could see was her figure in the shadows and a little of her face, but I already knew who she was. She came to the edge of the bed, put her knees forward, crawled over towards me, and kissedme . She started speaking soft, climbed on top, and you can use your imagination after that.

So, needless to say, I was pissed. When i woke up from the dream(nightmare), I was angry that something like that would be so easy to remember. I was perturbed that my ex just lallygagged her way into my sacred slumber and seduced me in my sleep. Maybe at the time of the dream the escapade seemed desirable, but it wasn't. Don't get me entirely wrong, it's not like I hate my ex or anything, I just hate what we were, which was we. I don't want to love her again, or at least in the near future. Even if the dream happened months, almost a year ago, I'm still pissed it happened simply because I have my own new love now, which means the world to me, who I love dearly, so its baffling as to why her predecessor can come around randomly in my head. Those memories just don't seem to fade.

But why? I want them to be gone...and they just won't leave like Uncle Raheem sleeping on your couch. I don't love her anymore, fact, but I still think on her for no apparent reason, fact. So It got me the thinking. People forget shit all the time, fact, so why can you not forget on command? Can forgetting be a skill, a process, an event by purposeful demand? I mean, you can train yourself to remember something, whether it be a song, a script, test questions, study materials, your grocery list, whatever, the number of things can go on and on. But how come you can't teach yourself to forget?

I mean, technically speaking I'm not too sure how that would even work. The more you thought about forgetting something, the more you would remind yourself exactly of the thing you want to leave behind. But the act of forgetting is something that happens to every human on earth, so the thought of it isn't some type of anomaly that only happens to a lucky few. So, if forgetting happens to everyone, fact, how come no one has honed down the process to an exercise?