Recalling the ins and outs of our memory

In the Harry Potter films, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore shows the young wizard memories that he keeps in glass vessels. The franchise portrays memories as things that possess a physical structure that can be moved around. Although they appear to look like wispy bits of fluff, they are given form and structure. Is this in anyway similar to real life? To answer these questions, I spoke to Lila Davachi, who runs the Memory Lab at New York University.