Reply To: My memory is driving me crasy .

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Memory is a funny thing. If yours is anything like mine, it is even “funnier”.  I can recall the tiniest of details from events that happened 40 years ago, but couldn’t tell you what my own office phone number is or what I had for breakfast yesterday, or the color of shirt I wore to work.

Have you ever smelled something in the air, and it triggers a flood of memories you never knew you had? Or thoughts you haven’t had in ages? Or feelings? Some smells trigger memories and thoughts as if I have been sucked into a time machine. I am there. Experiencing all of it again.

I have worked with animals all my life, and there are zillions of smells and tactile experiences that trigger my memories. Sometimes a dish I have for dinner will do the same thing. A song on the radio, any number of things will produce an unbidden flood of memories. I will stand there transfixed, as the memories wash over me. People who know me, have seen this happen a lot and they know to wait until I am done “time traveling”.

A common misconception is the brain works a lot like the hard drive on our computers. XYZ information is stored in 123 location. Go to 123 location and “BING!” there is your information. Think about physics and all the information you have on physics comes to mind. Yea right. If only. Memories are stored in bits and pieces over vast regions of the brain.

I think we have problems remembering things because we don’t have filters or our filters aren’t working very well because of our ADD/ADHD and other conditions. Those memories and bits of information get stored with stuff that we won’t use and they all have the same priority. Kind of like the garage of a hoarder. This makes it doubly difficult to get to the memories and information we want.

OK Here we are. Here is what I do.

I start by writing down those things I wanted to remember. I do this, in case I can’t access them, when I need to.  At work, during meetings, or when I need to have the information at hand, I have my notes. I organize them by projects, subjects or time order sequence. Organization and categorizing things is sort of a thing with me. This is my fall back.

I do this so I don’t have a heap of information that is as disorganized as my own mind. If there is a question that I can’t answer right away, I give my standard reply “I don’t have that information right now. I will email it to you after the meeting”. No apologies. No fumbling. I just write down a to-do to get that email out with XYZ information provided. Nobody will challenge you, because THEY don’t want to look like an @$$.

How to improve memory:

A few years ago, I was reading an article about how people memorize information to be recalled later. A lot of those techniques are based on how the brain stores memories. One of these techniques is what I call a “Hall of Memories”

Pick a place you know well. One where you can close your eyes and walk through and see in your head. Mine is my office. It is filled with old books, new books, puzzles, models, my desk, and pictures. Next you want to picture what it is you want to remember. Let’s say I want to remember the song “Open Water” on Alchemy Index. In my mind, I would place a sound I associate with that music on an index card in my fish tank, by my desk. It would have the words I need to know, so I can look it up on the computer at a later time.

Any time I need to remember “Open Water”, I reach into the fish tank of my mental office, and pluck out the index card. When I am done, I put it back. It takes practice, but I can memorize an amazing amount of stuff in a very short time. I don’t stress out, because I have my back up notes and coping mechanism.

Why does it work, you ask? Remember when we were talking about how the brain stores things? In a junk pile with everything having the same priority, memories get “lost” because they are in with all the junk. The memories are still there, but they are hidden because they are in with a bunch of stuff we are not looking for.

By placing the information in a specific setting,  I have made a connection to that useful information that is stored in many places in my brain and associated it with multiple points of reference. The wetness of the water (touch), the smell of the fish tank (smell), the fish tank itself (sight), and the sound of the music (hearing).  One of them will connect and out pops the information I need! Ready to use! It’s like putting blinking lights  on the stuff I want in that garage.

The down side? Sometimes I smell a fish tank, and up pops “Open Water” on Alchemy Index. Funny how the mind works. But that is how we started this conversation.

Hope this helps.

 

 

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