The neural basis of vivid memory is patterned on perception.

When we have a rich and vivid memory for a past experience, it often feels like we are transported back in time to witness once again this event. Indeed, a perfect memory would exactly mimic the experiential quality of direct sensory perception. We used fMRI and multivoxel pattern analysis to map and quantify the similarity between patterns of activation evoked by direct perception of a diverse set of short video clips and the vivid remembering, with closed eyes, of these clips.