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I have spent most of my lifetime trying not to remember anything about yesterday. No point in hanging on to a bunch of clutter that competes with really useless information that gets stored. It has the added benefit of not having anyone ask me questions about pass events and keeps me focused on the now. I don't remember names or numbers. If they are important I will write then down and put them someplace where I can't find them. I have a large file drawer some place with all that important info. I don't remember where it is but I do have it. If I need the information I can organize a search and locate it instantly after several hours looking in the ten most likely places. Been taking Statin drugs for a few years and they don't seem to effect my memory, least not that I can recall.
During my first 20 years there were too many events that I wanted to forget. Focused on the future and hopefully a better, calmer, safer life. While I waited a long time for a better life, my memory just isn't there for some reason. I have had a couple of friends who keep insisting I know something and someone I met 30+ years ago. Gee whiz. I met a friend's relatives in another state right after my divorce (33 years) and another friend (now deceased, bless her) often talked about people I didn't know but insisted I should remember what happened with them 5 years ago and where. And who they were.
Drives me nuts. Why would I remember all that if I've been living a busy, somewhat full life since then?
My friends are important to me, but not every little detail of someone else's family member stays in my memory bank.
The "gold standard" memory test is one simple question asked at the end of a day. It is, do you remember what you had for breakfast?
What would it say if you jokingly replied what's breakfast? Does coffee count? I'm not a fan of food when I get up, but can not exist without coffee. I find I can recall what I need when its a lot of stuff, but I reload the whole file. Yesterday I worked on a story and can tell you a bunch of characters names and life stories, and when I finally get the &&&timeline set and written in stone I'll summarize the important parts and forget the rest. That's what notes are for.
If there is a some main thing I'm doing on my mind, the rest of me is pretty much in robot mode. I can understand the computer model of memory. Memory alone is just data. A structure it applies to is what makes it worth remembering.
My keys? Who knows? I have a LONG history of losing my keys. There's usually a few duplicate sets stashed in familiar places so I don't have to do a household search. Losing the purse on the couch under a pillow is a far more immediate problem.
I'm one of those who focus absolutely on what I'm doing and unload all those other unneeded bits of data for now.
Just curious, how many people's memory's of times or places are pictures, images, like a series of snapshots? I don't remember most of the names from Jr High, especially not last names, but I can flick their pictures through my head like flashing them on a screen and remember everything I know about them. As sometimes when nothing else works, I can focus on the image of some missing item and my mind finds a snapshot of where it is. No words, just pictures.
Last edited by nightbird47; 02-11-2016 at 12:16 PM..
I find the memories are not gone, they just got shuffled to the bottom of the stack. If I can't remember something I just put in a file room request and give it a while. Normally it will come back to me. There's a lot of stuff packed in there, some of which I would just as soon forget.
When I was younger it didn't bother me if I forgot something, I'm much more critical of myself
now though...afraid maybe it's early alzheimers...(had to check my spelling, something else I didn't
need to do years ago).
I was just reading an autobiography, he was talking about his grade school days, the rainy days when you couldn't go outside for recess, and I got to thinking of my grade school days in Minnesota, those long winters, snowy days, rainy days, and I got stumped thinking of what we did on those days in grade school? Blank!
With Facebook, I've tried to remember names of childhood friends I grew up with, thinking, hoping I might find them on Facebook, but the names? First name ain't gonna do me no good! Last name?
I dated someone in high school, occasionally, I know her first name, but can't quite spell out the last name, and she may have married, died, so gone with the wind!
I don't get upset by these memory blanks as they're not crucial to my survival, and haven't I got better things to do then remember something that's, essentially, inconsequential?
I figure if it was really important to remember, I'd remember it, no?
How about you? Do you find yourself spending an inordinate time, at times, trying to remember things that aren't all that important to remember? Or are there times it sends you into a panic? Like, I think I'm losing my memory!
What my husband and I notice are the differences between what each of us remembers about the events in our life. But we can share with each other.
When I was younger it didn't bother me if I forgot something, I'm much more critical of myself
now though...afraid maybe it's early alzheimers...(had to check my spelling, something else I didn't
need to do years ago).
I have always had to check my spelling but I get a little riled when the automatic spell check does it for me and does it wrong. Sometimes it totally changes the meaning of what I wanted to say. This started with Windows 10. I think I have noticed this on the posts of others too. Don't change my spelling unless you ask me first, please.
If you were doing a trivia test, how would you know you had forgotten something or just had never learned it in the first place?
I used to get annoyed when I would recall a statement or line that I'd read in a book and I couldn't remember just what book. But then I'd notice a couple days later that I'd be reading a book and the line would just pop up. So now I just let it go, because if I don't remember where I read something, I'll subconsciously pick up the book and find it in a few days anyway.
Now I remember everything about my 17th and 18th year in detail including my high school graduation, but that's because those were two of the worst years I've ever had. What I think is hysterical is I didn't learn/don't remember anything at all from my high school math classes. But in community college more than 30 years ago, I started with the basics again, going on to Algebra I, Algebra II, Trig, and Calculus. Between then and 2009 I never cracked a math book, yet when I wanted to go to a community college here, I had to take a test to get in. And I basically aced the math portion of it. I then took a business math class and aced that. So now I have to ask myself, why did I remember so much of a couple classes I took 30 years ago and I can't remember if I dropped off my library books?
I also have a problem finding my car sometimes, but then you try to find a little PT Cruiser in a field of huge SUVs and tell me how you fare!
When you drive around trying to find your car keys and realize they are in the ignition you have a problem
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