Why We Forget Random Things

About a month ago, I came across the following article, about why we apparently forget (and then later remember) random things, and I’ve been meaning to post my thoughts about it ever since – but, ironically, I forgot! 🙂

https://www.thehealthy.com/aging/mind-memory/why-you-cant-remember-things/

(If that link no longer works, then there’s an archive version here that should be available.)

On a minor note, the article does refer to the “fight or flight” mode, which is a commonly used term, but it’s technically inaccurate. As the excellent book on body language by ex-FBI agent Joe Navarro discusses, there are really three default responses to potential danger – freeze, flight, or fight (which happen in that order).

Anyway, pedantry aside, I can certainly relate to the issues caused by stress.

Back when I was severely depressed, which is over 15 years ago now, my ability to remember information more or less vanished.

While I have always been somewhat forgetful, remembering numbers had never been much of a problem for me, which I put down partly to being one of those people for whom maths was never scary, partly to my long-time interest in magic squares, and partly to having studied mnemonics since I was about eight years old.

And at the time I’m talking about, which would have been around spring of 2005, I was using a few websites where you had to type in a six-digit security code that was displayed on the screen (which was an early version of what is now known as a CAPTCHA code).

Before I was depressed, I would have had no problem remembering that in one go – even telephone numbers had been relatively easy for me.

But because of the huge amounts of stress I was under, I could no longer do what should have been a simple task.

Instead, I had to break the code down into two smaller three-digit numbers, and enter the full code into the website in two separate goes.

What’s interesting is that, by the end of 2005, when I had extricated myself from the situation that had triggered my depression, my ability to remember those six-digit codes was fully restored, and it still is, some 14 years later.

Of course, these days, there are other factors that may be affecting more and more people, including reliance on technology (e.g. smartphones), and the apparently general increase in stress and anxiety that seems to be prevalent.

On a somewhat weirder note, I can have a song or tune stuck in my head for hours or even days, and then, suddenly and mysteriously, it vanishes, maybe to be replaced by something, or maybe not.

The bizarre part, however, is that sometimes, if I think back to the music that had been playing in my head on repeat for all that time, I have no idea how the tune goes, and it’s baffling to me that something I clearly know so well can be forgotten so quickly. (This is something I’ve touched on in this article too.)

The third aspect of this article that I found intriguing was what the author referred to as blocking.

I don’t know how typical I am in this respect, but my brain often finds so many associations between one topic and a seemingly random one that I do wonder whether there’s something wrong with me.

I can easily see how blocking can lead to forgetting something, even if it was on your mind only seconds ago.

But it’s also why conversations with me can meander all over the place – some new associated but not necessarily related memory will pop up, and off I go, following that new thread.

I have always loved such conversations, and my two closest friends back in England seemed to be happy with it too (which is maybe why we get on so well) although I have to say it used to drive my late wife crazy. In many ways, we had similar thinking structures, but in this respect, she preferred to talk in a linear fashion, dealing with one topic at a time, and found my apparent digressions difficult to keep track of, and annoying.

Anyway, it was an interesting article for me, and next time I find one that I think is comment-worthy, I’ll try to write about it in a more timely manner. (That’s why I generally make notes in my task manager, but for some reason, I omitted to do that in this case.)