reminiscence

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of recollecting past experiences or events.
2. n. An experience or event recollected: "Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety” ( Charlotte Brontë).
3. n. A narration of past experiences. Often used in the plural.
4. n. An event that brings to mind a similar, former event.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act or power of recollecting; recollection; the voluntary exertion of the reproductive faculty of the understanding; the recalling of the past to mind.
2. n. That which is recollected or recalled to mind; a relation of what is recollected; a narration of past incidents, events, and characteristics within one's personal knowledge; as, the reminiscences of a quinquagenarian.
3. n. In music, a composition which is not intended to be original in its fundamental idea, but only in its manner of treatment. Synonyms Recollection, Remembrance, etc. See memory.
4. n. In biology, the retention by a modern organism, during its development, of traces of the effect of past ancestral history.

Wiktionary

1. n. An act of remembering long-past experiences, often fondly.
2. n. A mental image thus remembered.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or power of recalling past experience; the state of being reminiscent; remembrance; memory.
2. n. That which is remembered, or recalled to mind; a statement or narration of remembered experience; a recollection.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a mental impression retained and recalled from the past
2. n. the process of remembering (especially the process of recovering information by mental effort)