Do you think about thinking?

echoopera

Spidericemidas

@McD said:
Lately, I have been thinking about how memory works. How facts are retrieved and how dreams are experienced but rarely stored as a memory. If I think about the dream on waking up I do get more short term details I could recall but if I just start my day the story fades away.

I’ve noticed I tend to start memory retrieval with an alphabetic clue… like that actor in some older film’s name starts with the letter M. Then I start flipping through names starting with M to see if I can get a hit. Often the name just surfaces without thinking about it especially if there’s a visual component like a face.

I’m thinking that essential links between memories and the path to retrieve them get wiped away overtime due to a lack of use.

Anyway… this line of thought plays into the concept of muscle memory training required to learn an instrument or memorize song lyrics.

I use the same method of memory retrieval for old names and places from the past.

For some reason, I was feeling a bit sentimental a few months ago, thinking about my first workplace when I was 18. That was 35 years ago. So I tried a memory exercise where I wanted to list as many names as possible of the other people who worked there. There were a few standout names for starters that I have never forgotten, closest colleagues. But so many others from the general background that I had forgotten and could not recall so easily. The only way to do it was to really mentally put myself back there, clear my mind of all current things, and think only about the site, the rooms, the equipment, the products etc. Almost like hypnotising or regressing myself. And the interesting thing was, names started coming out of nowhere. And some names automatically jogged my memory and led to other names by various associations. I recalled names that I normally could not recall consciously. I recalled names by thinking of certain site areas and product lines. In the end I was able to recall 63 names! Many of them were in the background and any interactions with them would have been rare if at all. But I was able to recall them. Some of them would not have even known who I was at all!

I was only able to access those names by literally stopping all other thoughts and sending myself back there, and it was a gradual process recalling one name to the next, I could almost physically feel the pathways to those memories being reactivated, reconnected. It was very strange but so interesting how it worked. I could not recall all 63 names again right now. I would have to put myself back in that trance and imagine my 18 year old self again at that workplace. Possibly I could consciously recall slightly more names right now than I could when I first set out to do it because the memory pathways, connections, had been reactivated fairly recently. But if not regularly maintained, they will fade away again and get buried by current mind occupations and distractions.

After this exercise, I thought about each one of the 63 people I recalled and wondered if any of them remember me now or would be able to recall me if they tried. I bet myself that most of them probably couldn't, especially the ones who never actually met or interacted with me. But you never know for sure who notices and remembers you! I really surprised myself at how many names I was able to recall from the deep depths of memory.

The results of this exercise sort of helped to confirm what I already felt about memory. Everything is recorded. Everything is still there for you to reach. But it all gets buried under other distractions and memories over the years, and memory pathways, connections, become neglected and lose their place in your normal waking consciousness. You have to switch to certain other frequencies, put your mind in a different state, and you can find your way back to things that you thought were lost and forgotten. That's my thought and experience anyway.

On the subject of dreams I have quite a number of dreams clearly retained in memory spanning the years back to 1987. I could sketch the scenes out right now and write out their narratives in detail. Some are recurring, but more were just one-offs. Many dreams fade quickly upon waking or are never even noticed or remembered at all. I could be wrong but I believe it depends on what state of sleep, what frequency your brain is operating on, at the time you dream as to whether they will find their way into your conscious waking mind or not.

The whole subject of memory and dreams is incredibly interesting to me and I sometimes wish I had chosen a more brain/psychologically related career path.

Luxthor

@echoopera said:

Cool, thanks for sharing. 😎

scrape

I am a bemused witness to the thoughts and am thankfully much more practiced these days at just letting them happen rather than painfully grasping on to them.

chaocrator

@LinearLineman said:
I wonder how many people never think about their thinking.

as a philosopher and an NLP trainer (well, almost) — i think about thinking a lot.

Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr

@Luxthor said:

@echoopera said:

Cool, thanks for sharing. 😎

That’s a good one. I’ve only ever heard his 50s jazz stuff before. Will have to track the later works down now!

michael_m

Montreal_Music

@pedro said:
Yeah, it’s called meditation

Exact!