Remember not to forget

Dear reader,

I think Albert Einstein was right when he said, „The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Sadly this happens far to often and far to quickly when one is looking for something and can't find it. At least for me anyway. This happened again actually the day before yesterday.

Normally I keep a couple of things only at very few specific places and never anywhere else. I taught myself to do that automatically with my flat keys for example, to avoid looking for them for long and so I don't lose them. I keep the keys to my dad's flat, say, almost all the time in a certain backpack and in a specific inner pocket there. But a few days ago I had them in a different backpack, haven't been at my dad's, but I was in the neighbourhood and just in case, I had those keys with me. I did see those keys in this other, unfamiliar outside pocket several times the days before two days ago. I knew where they were. In the small outside pocket of the smaller backpack. I had seen them there the previous days again and again when I had the backpack in my hand and the outside pocket had been open. And yet I only checked the bigger pocket and also repeatedly(!) completely emptied the big backpack. It took me almost a quarter of an hour to finally take the small backpack again and for once also check the outside pocket to find the keys again.

Years ago I was looking for glasses once with blue tinted eyeglasses, which I have had. But did I have them still? In the past I had glasses at all times. Only a couple of years ago I started wearing them only occasionally. That's why I never used the sunglasses with the tinted eyeglasses. They didn't have the glasses I would have needed for my eyes sight. Did I have the glasses still? I checked every possible drawer of two specific cupboards in my room, also two drawers in the hallway. Several times. Because it's so much fun and suddenly the biggest things could have become tiny and hidden and be overlooked. I thought of Einstein checking everything the second time. After the third time I cursed myself for checking again, although I had found nothing the first two times already. I thought to myself, “I'll go to the living-room ask my mum. Maybe I don't even have the glasses anymore anyway. Checking a 100 times wouldn't help then. Maybe she knew something. Should I still have the glasses, I trust my unconscious and wish for to just walk up to the right drawer to find them there.” I went to my mum. She knew what I was looking for, but couldn't remember if we still had the glasses or not or where they might be. I went back to my room. Purposefully I stood in front of a commode where the guinea pigs and their cage were sitting on. There is only one drawer there where the glasses might be, in which I keep necklaces and earrings and also a big magnifying glass with a horn grip, too. If the glasses were there at all, it would be in that drawer. The other drawers had paper, note books and notes. I really pulled out the drawer this time and in the back of a corner there really was the small blue paper box in which I kept the blue tinted eyeglasses. I thanked my unconscious for guiding me to them that way.

Many scientists agree now that our brain never forgets and in theory we could remember everything that happened once. The individual information gets displaced by other information and new information and with that they fade into the background so much that we seemingly forgot them. Methods like the memory palace can help to organise and sort through thoughts and memories and find them faster, have them more “handy”.

Dr. John Watson gives a quite good description of how the memory palace works in “The Hounds of Baskerville” (Sherlock season 2, episode 2). Sherlock Holmes knows that he's got important information in his head “somewhere buried deep”. He tells John and Dr. Stapleton to get out, he'd go to his mind palace now.

“His what?”, asks Stapleton confused.

John explains to her, “Oh, his mind palace. It's a memory technique, a sort of mental map. You plot a map with a location, it doesn't have to be a real place. You deposit memories there. Theoretically, you never forget anything. All you do is find your way back to it.

“So this imaginary location could be anything?”, asks Stapleton. “A house or a street?”

“Yeah”, confirms John.

“But he said "palace"”, bursts out Stapleton. “He said it was a palace!”

“Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?”, says John almost a bit bored and maybe a bit annoyed that his friend has to boast with a palace in his head.

The way to information or memories is in fact important, too and doesn't have to be a mental walk or visual, seen in your mind. In “Dynamic Learning” by Robert Dilts and Tod Epstein, Epstein describes his work with an old lady. With her eyesight fading, she also had difficulties remembering certain things, which didn't cause problems before. Epstein noticed that the lad was visualising and thinking in pictures to retrieve memories. With fading eyesight, it became more difficult for her to see in hear mind. Epstein helped her getting back to memories through other senses. Which helped her memory getting better again, too. Before reading “Dynamic Learning” I only read in Thomas Harrison's books about the memory palace and after Derren Brown's “Tricks Of The Mind” I started creating a sort of system for myself. The suggestion that the way we retrieve information and that the senses we use for that are relevant as well, was new and an important aspect. It didn't change anything for me personally, not that I'm aware of anyway. Nevertheless it is something especially people working with other people, old people specifically, should keep in mind. Apparent memory loss doesn't necessarily have anything to do with not remembering.

Until next blog,

sarah

Brain attic vs. memory palace

Dear reader,

this here is my blog, my thoughts. No idea whether this matches what scientists think as well.

I believe that there is a difference between a brain attic and a memory palace. Both store things, but in different ways. Sherlock Holmes says that we store all kinds of things in our head. Like in an attic. An attic has got many boxes in which all sorts of things can be kept. Maybe an attic has several different spaces, but it's limited, a defined space. A memory palace on the other hand is a complex of buildings with many rooms. A palace can be enlarged and rooms can be attached to it.

In The memory palace I mentioned different examples of people and their way to remember things. Jonesey's memory warehouse seems to be much like an attic. He explains to the others that for new information to store, he's got to delete other information.

Many years ago I have started writing certain things on index cards. They're separated with separation cards in alphabetical order and sometimes lined with one another with arrows and keywords. I wanted to have information to specific topics sorted and kept in a short way. Index cards seemed to be a good way to me. The good thing about index cards is that I can use them to look things up and the loose card system allows me to add new ones, should I feel like that. I've still got the cards. By now there are other topics added to them than that of the original one.

Although I've still got the cards, I don't as such use that system anymore. The memory palace is a system I know better now than I did then when I started the index card system. I seem to store information in my head much like index cards these days anyway, short information like index cards or newspaper clippings. Single words, images, fragments. I'm not aware of having a whole set of information stored in a single room for certain information. At least not yet. I'm sure that Derren Brown for example does have rooms created for specific things and does use the whole room. I do have single rooms, but I use them more for the atmosphere they have. Much like someone might for example go to church to do some reflective thinking.

When I waiting for the third "Sherlock" season was at times too long and unbearable for me, I was able to keep scenes, dialogue and images of the episodes so far together and in one room. I walked out of the room, the door had a tag "Sherlock" on it. I closed the door. Sometimes I sat in front of the door with my back against the door. Those are rooms that I can create, but not in a sense that I use the room and its content. It's not consciously forgetting. Naturally the information is still there. But they're behind a door and not close anymore. Distant to information also creates emotional distant. I'm not saying it's easy. I closed the door several times and more than once did I sit with my back against it to forget that I had to wait an unbearable long time for a new episode of "Sherlock". Mind control in that way is possible though. If you're not waiting for the next episode of "Sherlock", which seems to be a lifetime away, those kind of thought experiments can also be fun.

Probably the brain attic grows to be a mind palace some day, if you're taking care of the attic and work in it and at it. So I guess my headline wasn't quite correct. It's not an either or, no one or the other. Likely the brain attic is more like a possible beginning of a memory palace. Like my index cards were the beginning of more thoughtful remembering things and retrieving them at my leisure.

Until next blog,
sarah

The Memory Palace

Dear reader,

I'm don't remember exactly in which book I read about this first, the thought of a memory palace. Either it was Stephen King's "Duddits" (probably better nown as the movie "Dreamcatcher") or Thomas Harris' "Hannibal". The memory palace is a way to remember and recollect things that are connected at any time.

Some of you may know this idea of connecting a list of words to a story and by retelling that story also remembering the individual words in their set order. The memory palace works similar. Only that the memory palace, as the name suggests, is a set of rooms, which play a role in this. You start with one room and then expand with other rooms and at the end you have many rooms: a palace.

You start it like this: You take one room you know well. It makes little sense to go to this room now and look for certain aspects in it. If you can't recall them and have them in your head already now, it will probably be difficult to remember the aspects later when you have to and when they're linked to information you want to remember. You use this room to place things in it. Things you want to remember later. It could be a picture of a friend on the door of the fridge, to remind you that you wanted to call him. Cupboards, shelves, tables, chairs can be used to put objects on them to remind you of something.

To create a palace like that is very much connected with the so called loci method. Loci deriving from latin locus a "place" or "location". In a sense the memory palace is the loci method in its most beautiful way.

To see what wikipedia had on the topic of the mind palace, I looked it up there. Thinking back I'd have to rewise my first paragraph here. Many years back I read the Sherlock Holmes books by Arthur Conan Doyle. In the book "A Study In Scarlet" Doyle mentions that Holmes uses his memory palace, to remember certain things.

Three moies are also mentioned on the german wikipedia page (I didn't bother to check the english one, too, but suspect there are listed there as well). In an episode of "Mind Control" Derren Brown shows, how he created a room that helps him count cards and remember in a Black Jack game which card were dealt. In a new, modern BBC version of Sherlock Holmes, the series "Sherlock", in the episode "The Hound of Baskerville", Holmes uses the method to recall associations. Here's the scene for you to watch. In the second episode of the american, modern Holmes version, the series "Elementary" (episode "While You Were Sleeping"), Holmes describes to Watson why he hypnotises himself in support group meetings to take a break. He has what he calls "attic theory": in an attic there is only a finite amount of space. The brain is the same. This space should be consciously used to fill with things and only useful ones. Unuseful things will be thrown out again.

Which may be an explaination why Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes as well as the BBC-Sherlock-Holmes both don't know how the sun, the moon and the earth relate to each other and which revolves around which planet. There's no space for something like that in Holmes' head.

Also Jonsey in "Dreamcatcher"/"Duddits" explains to his friends that for new information, like for example how to use a computer, he had to throw out other old information. Here is Jonsey's explaination for what he calls his memory warehouse.

The german wikipedia page also mentions the series "The Mentalist" in which Patrick Jane also uses the method to help witnesses to recall things. But right now I can't remember a certain episode or scene that would show this. Sherlock Holmes is more familiar for me these days, because I'm currently watching the two series I mentioned.

More on Sherlock Holmes some time later... I'm not sure, if I described the memory palace well enough so that others know what to do and how to use it. For me this is something like describing only with words to someone how to tie a shoe lace. Like you may find, it's way more difficult and takes endlessly longer than showing it and actually doing.

Doing! I don't really use the rooms I created to explicitly remember a list of tasks or a string of numbers or something like that. Strictly speaking I don't use them to remember anything as such. They're places to relax or to be in good company. Sometimes they're rooms and scenes of movies with the persons of that scene in it or I take the position of one of the persons involved. I won't tell you the movies. I think those of you, who are interested in movies will find and have your own movies and scenes.

One room is dark and only a small, square table with a drawer is visible. In the drawer there's a note with 20 words on it, the words Derren Brown listed in his book "Tricks Of The Mind" to explain how one can remember this (one) list of words in a set order forwards and backwards. I have to admit, I only take out a sheet of paper. I don't actually see the 20 words then. I think in those moments to take a break and just focus on this string of words is creating a distance for a while. At least as long as it takes me to recite a list of 20 words forwards and then backwards. I read that book in 2008. I still remember the list forwards and backwards. The only thing I didn't do yet, is remembering the position of the words. Like when someone called out a number, I'd know which word was on that position. It would make for a neat, little magic trick.

In recent time I realised I half consciously, half unconsciously go to a supermarket around the corner from where I live. It's a big shop. Take a walk there to check if I know where to find which things. But it's more for fun and pleasure than to actually checking facts.

Until next blog,

sarah