memory

[ringlat]

been stressed out a bit too much with class lately. the actual class isn't going bad at all, and i can say i'm seemingly the second-best in the class (the best actually lives IN japan and also knows like korean, chinese, swedish etc) but i always freak myself out about it.

the good news is, i've really noticed over the past few months that my

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[ringlat]

Yeah, the book I've been reading ends up making it pretty clear, the more different things (sound, taste, sight, touch, smell, movement) you can put in your mental picture or movie, the better it will work!! Presumably because some of those things are going to fail you so you need the others as backup...

I think it works even to just try it hard once or twice a day. "Right now I'm going to memorize the opening hours for Monday at the grocery store". Or "right now I'll memorize this ONE word using a detailed picture-story". That's fine, that's it for the day.

Also, even though I didn't think I needed it either, I've realized just how amazingly easy life could be. Potentially, I could go to a lecture and not have to take any notes yet I'd still remember it all. In everyday life, I could remember if I had turned the stove off, locked the door, where I put my sweater, etc. I could at least match faces to names and not forget them. When learning something new or being at someone else's house and asking where something is, I wouldn't have to be told twice. And I could memorize town layouts or street names so if I was wandering around without a map it wouldn't be a problem. It's small stuff but I think it makes you just feel smarter.

Some practise options for "things":
- your grocery list
- the order of the planets
- small facts about people (ex. "her degree finishes in july", "her parents are from norway")

Numbers:
- which episode of which TV show has what in it (for fandom purposes)
- birthdays, holidays, telephone numbers (just memorize your phone's address book)
- timezones per country (if you have random foreign friends)
- how much things cost, or where they're located (which aisle), in the grocery store
- ingredients in a recipe
- license plates of you and your friends (perhaps it will come in handy sometime)
- conversion rates (ex. °F to °C)
- street name + building number + floor number, when necessary (ex. hospital entrance, hotel room, someone's address)
- when you make an account on a new website, try to remember the username + password combination with a picture-story instead of the normal way

If you want to try purely visualizing, there's stuff like, you can look at a chart showing how "if the banana looks like this, it has x days until it's ripe and y days until it's overripe"... But a more fun one is "try to memorize the look of your favorite character's room or workplace" etc.

And names + faces should be really easy to get practise in, just as soon as a new character appears pause the show and try to do it!!

[thewhitelily]

Yeah, I think my main day-to-day issue is the inattention thing. I don't know I put my phone because I wasn't thinking about my phone at all when I was putting it down, because I was dealing with an emergency, and that developed into another two emergencies and four non-urgent requests for assistance, and then I remember I was halfway through folding the washing, and then I need to start dinner... I don't even need to memory train, really, to remember where I put it down, I just need to pay attention at the crucial moment when I'm putting it down. My hope would be that if I did some more deliberate memory training, it would osmose into those moments - either by making me pay attention more instinctively, or helping me remember it without consciously applying a technique. In a moment when I know I'm going to forget something, I rarely have the attention to spare for constructing a story because someone's bleeding, or asking me to recast world hunger into five year old language, or I'm running through four simultaneous pre-flight checklists for getting going to school. Usually all at once. :P

Or the other issue is remembering that there's something to remember. I can focus really hard on remembering that I've just used the last of the frozen peas, or that I've just heard the washing machine finish and there's stuff that needs hanging out, but half an hour later when I get a chance to write on the shopping list or go out to the line, I don't remember that there was a thing I was remembering. I need an 'active tasks' list in my brain, and that just seems to volatile to use memorisation techniques on.

And also, to some extent, I don't really want to work on memorising random things: anxiety means I already have a lot of 'noise' in my head constantly. I can't afford to add more. I generally write lists to get things out of my head, not fix them in there more solidly. Perhaps a better memory would help me put things into boxes and stop thinking about them, in the same way as a list does? Maybe worth a try. But practicing memorising trivia doesn't feel like it will help. Still, short term loss, long term gain, right?

Thanks for the ideas, there's some good ones there, I should be able to work on straight away. Nothing's ever as simple as it sounds when you read about the technique, though, is it? A grocery list isn't a static thing, it's an organic process of deciding and solidifying into main components and side dishes, and balancing the number of red/white meat dishes, preparation time balance, kids current favourite dishes, what's on sale - it's a massive ongoing multiprocessing event that doesn't just get written and then memorised and regurgitated at the appropriate moment. But my aim would be to be able to do more writing/editing in my head rather than churning words I keep forgetting in my brain when I've got no access to a computer to get them out--and to imagine it more vividly when I do.

So maybe the everchanging landscape of grocery lists and to do lists is actually a pretty good set of things to practice. :)

[ringlat]

With me, after a while it started coming instantly. Now I have a surprising amount of times where the entire image/movie etc. pops up literally the second after I get that "I have to remember this" feeling, without having to actually think about it. Or when I think back "how many spoonfuls of flour did I put in?" I can just remember it right away, even though I haven't exactly been doing memory training on stuff like that. From what I understand, the end goal is to just have that happen all the time. And then if you actually want to forget whatever it is, you just don't actively try to remember it.

We're only two people and we go shopping every 2-3 days (+ tend to impulse shop the same few things) so the grocery list is usually really short, but I think it's good practise because you'll still have the list in your pocket anyway, so forgetting stuff doesn't do any harm ; D