Brain Fitness Australia

I was woken up about 3.30 am this morning by kookaburras in the street tree. Ding! Wide awake in a second….

I had been busy last evening, so as I awoke I soon had lots of interesting things zooming around in my thoughts. The TV program I had watched on SBS soon came to mind, as I had wanted to have a chat about it in the morning. But could I remember anything about it? Not a single thing!

It was a complete blank.

I could remember the channel, that there were adverts (which I muted), I could recall the look of the television, the room, what I was doing at the time (downloading stuff from the movie camera and having a cup of tea) etc.

So about 4.45am I turned on the radio.It was business news so I didn’t pay much attention.

Then DING! The newsreader said the word “company” and I immediately remembered last night’s complete television program. It was about three whistle blowers one of whom was an accountant with the failed insurance company H.I.H. There was also a policeman and a careworker and I could recall the narrative detail of the three stories and the visuals. (My visual memory wins hands down every time.)

What does that tell me about my memory?

1. That I had experienced a perfect example of a memory “blank”. I tried every way to recall the TV program, going over all the aspects of the situation in the hope that something would trigger the memory. No luck.
2. I stopped thinking about it, thinking I’d remember it later. “It will come to me”, is what I say in conversation when I get blanks.
3. A chance external stimulus (the word ‘company’ from the radio announcer) triggered the entire network in memory in one fell sweep (and probably my interpretation as well!)
4. Last night I was doing several (detailed) things while I was watching the TV program. Perhaps that’s the problem. Need to follow my own advice and focus if I want to avoid blanks.
5. The Story Telling exercise of the BFP mapped directly onto my eventual recall of the TV program: the newsreader gave me the “right” word , company, and I recalled the entire memory at once.

But I want free seamless recall of memories, not to have them triggered by someone else. Perhaps I am hoping for too much?

Well, I’ve still many BFP exercises to go….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.