i can only tell you that until you started asking question i thought i knew what i was talking about. but going back to me calss material, andthe doc made me understand that you are not alone.
i can only tell you that, and at first i did not whant to put this in writing (for this is just a guess, i can not prov it in the documentation), if you look at the process of sql/plsql statment goes through, from before parsing, v$sqltext_with_newlines, to parsed statment in v$sql, to something ready to be used in v$sqlarea, to something in the sga that is actualy processed by with data feched from the disk (v$sqltext). i do not what to get more into the part of the memory process, but i think that every table is a picture in a different stage of the memory management in the execution process.

hope this help