If you have something you’re trying to remember, but don’t have anything particular in mind to associate with that memory, do you have a “go to” image or smell or sound or some other “trick” to start the process of remembering?
As often as not, those old memories will just “come to you” unbidden and more or less “out of the blue” and they’re often by way of stimuli over which you have little control.
But in spite of those tenuous connections to other memories or sensations from your past you can focus on something like that to bring back the “train of thought” or “series of images” to help your memory go where you want it to.
As my own memory apparatus weakens or fades with age I find it progressively more difficult to “go back” to an area of my mind where I know that “something special” must be stored. And those old thoughts and ideas will generally connect eventually to what I have been hoping to recall. Sometimes, often now it seems, it will take conscious effort to get that particular memory back. But it’s such a delight when it does happen!
Does this sound familiar to you? Do you have any tricks to make it happen when you need it to?
I mostly am wired to do this (though the wiring is fraying.)
The only trigger I’ve set up involved the Egmont Overture by Beethoven, which I used to have trouble remembering the name of for some reason. However, I knew it was an overture, which begins with “O”, which looks like an egg, which leads to Egmont.
Thanks, Voyager, for that set of details. I used to have some “hooks” like that when I wanted to do (as a parlor trick sort of thing) memorizing a random list of random things that had no obvious connections to one another. It was useful as a trick but didn’t have any staying power (past a few days at most) and tended to go away (both the list of hooks and the list of things to remember) in a matter of days or less.
These days the best I can hope for is to re-imagine some sort of “hooks” that must have been there when my memory first was invoked for whatever I’m now trying to recall.
I’ve done a minimal amount of reading on the subject but can’t even remember where that reading was from. It’s a bit of a vicious circle sort of thing.
As a kid, I read a Carl Sagan book on the brain and he contended that the smell center is close to the memory (I just grossly simplified). But I’ve always noticed scents can trigger memories from waaaay long ago. Like when I knew Beck’s mom…
Recently we were watching some old Led Zeppelin concert footage on YouTube. Early on, I realized that I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the bass player, though I did remember there was something about his name that stood out for some reason. Then when his face appeared in a close-up, I remembered it immediately: John Paul Jones, the same as an early American naval hero.
I’ve never noticed before that a person’s face can trigger the memory of their name, but it certainly was one in this case.
The only thing I can think of is that sometimes when I am trying to remember the name of a person or place, I will go through the alphabet in my mind. That does trigger it at times.
I did think of something else. I have read that walking through a doorway will trigger you to recall something. For example if you walk into a room and can’t remember what you intended to do there, walk back through the doorway again and that may jog it loose. I do remember recalling things I had been trying to think of a couple of times as I walked through doorways, and it reminded me of this theory.