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Feb 19 2008

Memories are Made of This

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

New Scientist, 16th February 2008, carries a feature about memory. Starting with a description of AJ who has the rare capacity to remember accurately every day of her life since she was in her teens, it goes on to highlight the drawbacks of something which might initially be perceived as a unique talent.

AJ describes the phenomenon as a “running movie that never stops” which is “uncontrollable and totally exhausting”.

Only a few people are known to have this condition, known as hyperthymestic syndrome.

Whilst hyperthymestics like AJ may have an extremely efficient system of memory storage and retrieval, the article goes on to say that it is equally possible that the syndrome is actually the result of a failure to forget.

A well functioning memory has strategies to weed out unnecessary or irrelevant information, otherwise the amount of accessible data becomes overwhelming, as AJ has found to her cost.

Sometimes we can forget the wrong things since the mind is to a certain extent making its own judgement about which information to store and which to discard.

Do we really forget?

The author of the article then raises the question of whether forgotten memories have truly disappeared or whether we have just lost the ability to retrieve them.

Long before I became a hypnotherapist, it intrigued me that if asked, I might not be able to recall the plot of a book, yet upon a re-reading it would be all too familiar. Equally it can be virtually impossible to remember a particular piece of music, yet on the production of a single note, the whole composition will come immediately to mind.

And if the music has some link with a particular event in the past, that one note can bring up a host of memories, and associated emotions.

One day last week I was thinking about cash; I didn’t at the time want to make a trip to the nearest cash point. About a day later it suddenly came to mind that there was £20 note in a particular coat pocket. It must have been there for months, but I had completely ‘forgotten’ about it until that moment.

Working with the memory

Now, as a hypnotherapist I am frequently involved in the retrieval of memories, particularly if they have some relevance to a problem that my client is experiencing now.

Sometimes the client will have clear recollection of a past event and its impact. But often, whilst there is no conscious memory, the subconscious will be able to access old information which will help start to resolve a particular issue. In fact there are some schools of thought in the hypnotherapy world that we have the ability to remember everything, but that much of that memory is usually inaccessible to the conscious mind.

One client I worked with could not understand why they were so anxious. There seemed to be no reason for their disquiet. Working in hypnosis we discovered that something had happened at the age of two, which as a toddler, with no ability to evaluate her surroundings, had affected her deeply, and set off the anxiety. Once this incident was re-addressed from the point of view of the now adult client, it completely lost its impact and the anxiety disappeared. The client previously had no conscious memory of the episode in question.

Unwanted memories

Of course many of us have experienced events in our lives that we really don’t want to remember, ranging from incidents which are just a bit embarrassing to times of great trauma. New Scientist mentions an Iraq war veteran who “was constantly fighting to suppress memories of his experience” and had evidently become very skilled in pushing back these memories.

Suppressing memories in this way can be mentally exhausting. What many people do not realise is that whilst the memories themselves may not be particularly desirable, it is actually the emotion that goes with them that is causing the distress, and which gives the memories such apparent power.

The aim of Hypnotherapy and indeed Thought Field Therapy is not to remove memories of trauma or other unhappiness but to help the client take out the emotional sting. Once the memory has lost its emotional impact, it can be put in its place in the client’s personal history and will quickly lose its grip, leaving the client free of their preoccupation with the hitherto painful event.

Improving your recall

So what can we do to improve our memory? New Scientist pulls together a number of ideas.

Pay full conscious attention to what you are doing. Don’t put your keys down whilst distracted by something else for example. New Scientist suggests you even go as far as saying aloud “I am putting my keys on the table.”
Organise yourself by linking things you want to remember to existing strong memories. Any book on mnemonics will show you how but here’s a link with plenty of tips: Mnemonic Techniques and Specific Memory Tricks to improve memory, memorization
Get emotional about the things you want to recall. This is something which is very apparent in my work. We do tend to remember things in our lives which have an emotional attachment to them, whether pleasurable or otherwise. We don’t tend to retain memories of mundane repetitive activity.
Rehearse and review. This is what exam revision is all about of course. By revisiting information, and practising its recall we are literally reinforcing access to it, and building neural pathways in the brain, like the famed London taxi drivers who have to remember “The book”.

I have to say that I tend to be lazy about memorising and keep lists, but if something comes to mind at night and I don’t want to get up, I will either place something to hand in an unusual position so that it acts as a trigger, or I will try and imagine an unusual picture such as the person I want to telephone sitting on the kettle when I go downstairs in the morning. The more absurd, the better.

One tip I have is that you should never ever say “I can’t remember”. Your mind will accept your instruction and you really won’t remember. Instead try “It’ll come in a moment…” This gives a strong indication to your mind that you know that you know and you expect it to come up with the answer. It may take a while, even days, but suddenly the answer you need will pop into your mind.

Hypnosis has been known to help people remember forgotten security numbers and safe combinations. It can also be used to improve recall for exams, as well as calming over-active nerves which can interfere with peak performance.

So next time you forget to remember, or remember to forget, think about the amazing mental gymnastics that your mind performs in order to encode, store, manage and retrieve your memories. In the context of all the activity, the odd lapse isn’t really surprising.

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