What does this all mean?: The idea is LTP is occurring all the time during wakefulness. All of this information flow and storage will eventually become too much, and that is why we sleep. The point of sleep is to downgrade and eliminate some of the synaptic potentials that are not necessary from throughout our day. What one was wearing on the third Tuesday last February is irrelevant, but knowing one's middle name isn't. Extensive LTP has been put in place to remember one's middle name, and therefore that synaptic pathway would not be so easily forgotten, whereas what one was wearing on that one particular day received so little potentiation it can be forgotten in a day or two. A lot of potentiation on a certain topic would help facilitate that memory, making it "more important" in the 'eyes of the cortex' so it is not forgotten.