A blow to the head

There is a memory that has haunted me: injuring my father by slamming the trunk of the car down on his head as he reached in.

It wasn't deliberate; I thought he had taken out the last item. I was trying to be helpful.

An added aspect to the horror of this memory is a gang of children from my school were walking by. I was a little self-conscious standing there with my Dad. I intended to slam the trunk down and then turn to greet them as coolly as I could.

Instead the trunk banged onto his head. He shouted and ran into the house howling. I followed while the gang from school looked after us.

During the years since, I have remembered the incident from time to time and cringed.

Then one day over a meal my father related the story of when he had gone into work with a great gash on his head.

He turned it into a funny story about his worry that his colleagues would think his wife had hit him with a frying pan.

The horror and embarrassment at the memory of the thud as the trunk hit his head sent me dizzy once more.

But my father finished his story explaining he had done it to himself by bringing the garage door down upon his head.

"Hang on," I said. "It was me slamming the trunk of the car down on you."

He looked at me as if I was crazy and denied it flat. He had done it to himself.

He hadn't. Probably he had invented the garage door story to avoid blaming either his wife or me when he went in to work. The official story had replaced the truth in his memory.

Suddenly it seemed that all the times I had lamented causing my Dad great pain that day were somehow pointless. If he said I hadn't done it, what was I feeling bad about?

From that day on, rightly or wrongly, the memory bothered me no more.

Remembering by distraction

I am now attaching full date information to the image I pin to my internal calendar as a memory tag for the day.

So, for example, on 25 February 2012 I was walking round a lake with friends and we sat in a hide to watch the birds on the water.

My memory tag is the view across the lake with my friends seated and standing beside me. The date is there in black font in the sky above the lake. This image calls up the other events of that day.

Thinking back over the past few weeks and adding the date information to my memory tags, something struck me. Somehow having the date to focus on made the image more vivid.

Memories can be slippery things. The more I try to focus on a particular memory and call up details, sometimes the harder it is to latch on to.

For a while I couldn't remember the image for 2 February 2012, so I just focussed on the date. The image then came to mind, fading in behind the date.

It may be an illusion, but it seems easier to pick up on extra details when I have the date there to direct my attention to, as if they are in the corner of my mental eye.

Full date tags

For over two months I've been adding images to my mental calendar as memory tags to be able to remember each day.

I have realised I need to think of the full date when I review the memory tags.

I am in danger of becoming confused when scrolling back using the number of the day alone.

For example, I quickly remember that the 15th was when I met up with my brother in the Capital, but what month?

It doesn't take long to work out, but as the days pile up it will be far easier to have the month and year immediately associated with the image.

It is not just enough to see the image on the page of the calendar.

I'm now stamping the full date on the image when I first store it in my memory and each time I reconsolidate it in reviews of past days.

Narrative

One of the joys of being able to remember every day of the past two months since I began this process of remembering is narratives emerge and are much easier to follow.

I now have enough material pegged down to specific dates.

It was thinking of my friends having a daughter that crystalised this for me this week.

Laura was born on 10 February. I remember receiving the call at about 5 pm in the living room of our flat and handing the phone to my wife so she could also give her congratulations to the parents.

All the times we met them up with them over the past three months come to mind.

They are in my first ever memory tag in this process of remembering on 17 December, going out to lunch with Sandra heavily pregnant.

After Christmas we met on 8 January at their place for lunch. We ate salmon and shared fish-related stories over the dining table.

We met at the café in the library for lunch on 20 January, and shared visa stories: Sandra's aunt was applying for a visa to visit.

We had them round for dinner in our new flat on 25 January - a Wednesday. I can picture them on the sofa as we talk about the imminent arrival and how they have prepared their home.

On 5 February, I travelled with David to the airport to meet her aunt's flight.

We intended to call round on Tuesday 7 February, but Sandra was kept in the hospital after visiting for her check up. My memory tag is sitting with my wife in the car deciding where to go instead.

Their daughter Laura was born on 10 February. I hope to remember her birthday forever.

My memory tag for 11 February is sitting with my wife in a favourite café writing messages in the huge card we had bought them.

We have still to visit as we have colds and don't want to take germs to their house.

Beyond the three months, there are also memories, of course. Hearing about the pregnancy. Meeting Sandra for the first time. Being unable to travel to their wedding. Hearing about her from David for the first time. Some of these memories are foggy. Some are clear, but of unknown date.

I prefer the new way of remembering the story of our lives.

Bugs Bunny at Disney World

It is recognised that people can honestly believe memories that are false. False memories are a challenge to the criminal justice system. They can even develop into a syndrome affecting relationships if particularly traumatic.

I want to avoid settling for "must have been" memories in this process of remembering every day of my life. One approach is to recognise that a false memory sometimes presents a niggling doubt: I feel like I'm trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Experiencing this feeling earlier this week and thinking about false memories reminded me of a study which I read when a teenager. The subjects in the study were shown a brochure for Disney World and then asked if they remembered visiting as a child.

Those that had were questioned in more detail about what they had seen and done. Either voluntarily or when prompted a large number remembered seeing Bugs Bunny. Although Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character, he appeared in one of the photos in the brochure and this had been incorporated into the subjects' recall of their own trip.

They created a false memory incorporating something they thought must have been true. Meeting Bugs Bunny became as real as any other memory.

I remember the report was published in New Scientist magazine, which I read regularly when at school and again when working in Africa in the 1990s.

I know the study involved Bugs Bunny and Disney World.

However, the detail about the brochure is something I have invented, because it sounds feasible; it is not a genuine memory of my own, but a false memory I've created to fill a gap in my story. I recognise this at the moment. Perhaps in the future I will recall my plausible invention as a fact. It could become a false memory.

There is a curious footnote to this posting.

I thought I'd search our great collective memory of the internet to see if there is a reference to this study, even though it predates widespread use of the internet.

I found page after page of search results referring exactly to the Bugs Bunny at Disney World story. Here's one http://www.rickross.com/reference/false_memories/fsm49.html 

The only thing is, these reports date from 2001 and I am convinced I read about this study in the late 1970s. Possibly it was when I was in Africa in the 1990s and also reading New Scientist, but it feels longer ago.

I know where I was in 2001 and placing the memory of reading about the study then feels like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Can I trust this feeling and conclude the study reported in 2001 was a repeat of something from years before? Am I a reliable witness?

If anyone knows for sure, that will help me know whether I can trust this feeling or not.

I will keep looking.

Avoiding false memories

I can remember every one of the days of the last two months, since beginning this process.

The fact the past does not change certainly makes it easier.

However, buzzing back through three months of Thursdays yesterday to reconsolidate those memory tags, I hit a blank when it came to 12 January.

As it was a Thursday, my wife would have been attending a college course. Taking and/or collecting her from college figures in every Thursday, even if this is not involved in the specific memory tag.

So somehow that must have been part of the day. But using that as a prompt to recall my memory tag felt like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. I just knew there had been a radically different image for the day.

I don't worry anymore when I hit these blanks.

I have learned that remembering will give me a buzz so rather than panicing, I tell myself relax 'cos there's a buzz coming.

It was the conviction that it was a very different sort of Thursday that reminded me in the end.

It was the one time I hadn't been in town to take my wife. I had gone to the Capital for a meeting. My memory tag for that day was riding a hire bike across town to the train station to make my way home. I was back in time to drive to pick up my wife, but the bike ride was my memory tag, now reconsolidated on my mental calendar.

It would have been easy to just drop in a generic sort of trip to my wife's college and create a false memory.

I have learned from this that I should trust the feeling that a memory is not fitting and not invent must have beens.

Synaptic plasticity and magic pills

"Memory-Boosting Drugs Could Be A Step Closer" the media is declaring, with a picture of pills to make the point clearer.

This relates to research just published in the Public Library of Science biology journal with the title: Facilitation of AMPA Receptor Synaptic Delivery as a Molecular Mechanism for Cognitive Enhancement.

It is interesting stuff and very welcome it is published in an open access journal.

Rats treated with a peptide designated FGL had improved spatial learning. This was evaluated by how well they could find their way around a water maize.

The improved learning ability remained even after the peptide had been administered. It had apparently sensitised the brain to lay down memories more effectively.

The authors (who declare having a small shareholding in the company that synthesizes FGL) explain:

The human brain contains trillions of neuronal connections, called synapses, whose pattern of activity controls all our cognitive functions. These synaptic connections are dynamic and constantly changing in their strength and properties, and this process of synaptic plasticity is essential for learning and memory. Alterations in synaptic plasticity mechanisms are thought to be responsible for multiple cognitive deficits, such as autism, Alzheimer's disease, and several forms of mental retardation. In this study, we show that synapses can be made more plastic using a small protein fragment (peptide) derived from a neuronal protein involved in cell-to-cell communication. This peptide (FGL) initiates a cascade of events inside the neuron that results in the facilitation of synaptic plasticity.

Which in my simplification means the physical change that takes place in the brain to form memories take place more readily once FGL has been present.

How FGL arises naturally in the brain and whether it plays a role in the improved spatial memories of taxi drivers is another question. After all significant brain changes have been found to occur when taxi drivers learn the routes they need to obtain a licence, as the BBC reported in December 2011.

The FGL was actually administered to the rats using "A 22-gauge double-guide injection cannula ... fixed with two screws in the skull using dental cement".

Whether or not FGL has a role to play in future treatment of degenerative disease, there is a way to go to get the FGL to the correct location via the stomach using the pills that are pictured in the media stories.

Remembering not to cheat on my wife

Every day I see attractive women. Attractive because, by definition, I am attracted to them.

I have never done anything about it when I have been in a relationship. I have never cheated on any partner. Even my Second Life avatar did no more than flirt with a few female friends I made when this became a temporary obsession - I had actually joined as a place to meet my wife when we were in our respective countries for a few weeks, but she was never taken with the idea.

Today I see an attractive women waiting at a bus stop with a child in a push chair. I am not lustful - or at least not solely. I think, I hope you have someone who loves you, treats you well and looks after you. I have a twinge of regret that it won't be me.

I will never have a relationship with her or the many other women I might want to be with, to share our lives, to make laugh, to support when they are down.

I know that any affair would sooner or later pass the electrifying pleasure of finding feelings reciprocated and evolve into familiarity and the risks that brings. That is what happens. I remember.

Fourteen years ago I first caught sight of my wife at a crowded meeting and everyone and everything else receeded. Our relationship began and strengthened to the point where time apart was too much to bear and we resolved to spend the rest of our lives together, through thick and thin.

Seeing an attractive woman sometimes reminds me of that day - and the many days since when I have looked at my wife as if seeing her for the first time, seeing her individuality, her wholeness, and the love between us.

I remember the feeling that I wanted to be the person who loves her, treats her well and looks after her. Today is another chance to do so. 

Brain stimulation and spatial memory

There have been media reports recently about how electrically stimulating the brain can improve memory.

More specifically, a small study, that should be interpreted with caution found that, in patients being prepared for surgery to counter epilepsy, electrical stimulation of the entorhinal cortex improved spatial memory. This improvement was measured by having the patients drive a virtual taxi on a computer and evaluating how well they remembered different routes with and without stimulation.

Mo Costandi analyses the study in The Guardian and explains:

"Since this effect occurs during the learning phase, it seems that electrical stimulation of the entorhinal region facilitates encoding of the spatial memories, and the researchers suggest that it does so by resetting low frequency theta oscillations, which optimizes memory formation by synchronizing electrical activity of the cells needed."

I commented on one report as follows:

This is interesting, but is there a connection between the stimulation of the applied electrical signals and simply exercising the brain through using the memory?

As I approach fifty, I've thought my memory was getting worse. However, since reading recently of people who can remember every day of their lives I decided to remember every day going forward. A couple of months in, this seems to be working and seems to be having a wider impact. I'm blogging about the experience here:
http://lembransation.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-it-began.html

Although something that helps people with medical problems is to be welcomed, I wonder whether this electrical stimulation of the memory is like those machines that twitch your muscles to tone you up so you don't actually have to do exercise.

After all, real taxi drivers have been found to undergo changes to their brains as they memorise routes, as the BBC reported in December 2011.

Reference: Suthana, N., et al. (2012). Memory Enhancement and Deep-Brain Stimulation of the Entorhinal Area. N. Engl. J. Med. 366: 502-10.

A pill to forget

There is a fascinating article on Wired.com about how memory is thought to work - and how it may be possible to chemically remove troublesome memories, such as those causing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/all/1

On formation of memory it states:

Every memory begins as a changed set of connections among cells in the brain. If you happen to remember this moment—the content of this sentence—it’s because a network of neurons has been altered, woven more tightly together within a vast electrical fabric. This linkage is literal: For a memory to exist, these scattered cells must become more sensitive to the activity of the others, so that if one cell fires, the rest of the circuit lights up as well. Scientists refer to this process as long-term potentiation, and it involves an intricate cascade of gene activations and protein synthesis that makes it easier for these neurons to pass along their electrical excitement. Sometimes this requires the addition of new receptors at the dendritic end of a neuron, or an increase in the release of the chemical neurotransmitters that nerve cells use to communicate. Neurons will actually sprout new ion channels along their length, allowing them to generate more voltage. Collectively this creation of long-term potentiation is called the consolidation phase, when the circuit of cells representing a memory is first linked together. Regardless of the molecular details, it’s clear that even minor memories require major work. The past has to be wired into your hardware.

I posted the following comment.

Since reading a couple of months ago about people who can remember every day of their lives back to early childhood, I've been conducting an experiment remembering every day going forward and reclaiming as many memories for specific dates in the past. It is working surprisingly well and having a wider impact on the effectiveness of my memory.

My experience chimes with the reconsolidation theory explained in this article. I have memory tags consisting of trigger images pinned to a mental calendar. These become embedded through a process of remembering the images for the past ten days or so and then for the same day of the week for dates beyond this window and, if time allows, the same day in past months and the same date in previous years (where I have to fish around for clues as I didn't record memory tags at the time).

I'm blogging about this experiment here: http://lembransation.blogspot.com/

This has convinced me of the capacity of the mind: this process seems to be getting easier with practice, not harder as my memories accumulate.

It has also shown me that the memories I retain are to a large extent a matter of choice: I remember who I was with, what I did, conversations, the weather. But not what I ate or what was in the news, because in general I don't use those factors in my memory tags - though occassionally I do and perhaps I will be able to add them to the richness of the memory as I become more skilled.

It has also shown me that it is as easy to record false memories, which I think I am avoiding because in reinforcing the memory tags (perhaps I should now say "reconsolidating") I don't cement in something as fact unless I am sure; sometimes it is tempting to just say, "It probably was on that Thursday" but I resist.

One other thought is that I find to an extent some validity in the memory as video view because from the memory tags I have been able to identify the details and timing of events that I had not made a point of remembering at the time. There is a trivial example on my blog of trying to remember when I had made a cake which explains how this worked:
http://lembransation.blogspot.com/2012/02/baking-cake.html

My idea is to continue this for some months and then, in parallel, try to pin down more for the dates before I began this process - that is where I will encounter painful memories (though, not doubt, I also face some in the future) which invoke a strong physical and mental reaction when I do call them up. I'm not sure I would want to zap them with pills, though.

Remembering perfection

Some months ago I thought, "This is a perfect time. I am very happy."

This was immediately followed by a worry that to think it was a time of perfection was to put it at risk, to tempt fate.

I felt uneasy, that something would go wrong to shatter the happiness. A loved one may die, or become ill while I was far away. Another form of disaster could befall me or my wife.

I realised it was a certainty that the time of perfection would not last: time passes.

My superstitions are long dead. What is in my mind will not make my loved ones more likely to suffer an accident or illness. Even the preachers who claim distant events can be influenced by prayer do not suggest our happiness will be punished by tragedy (unless you are Job).

So best to enjoy the happiness while it lasts.

We had returned to my wife's country and she was overjoyed to be catching up with family and friends and looking to restart her career. I had enough work to keep me busy, but also had time to exercise in the agreeable climate, shedding the pounds that had made me a stranger to myself. We were back in our home, our bills were low and debts built up under less favourable circumstances were rapidly being cleared.

In our relationship, we seemed to be on the same side, us against the world, challenges making us stronger, not driving us apart. It was not always so.

This was before I began this process of remembering, meaning I don't have the luxury of being able to scan back through every day of this happiness. I wish I did.

I do clearly remember the morning I awoke to it and dismissed the fear that noticing would jinx it.

It ended sooner than I hoped. My wife's plans did not go as she wanted and she suddenly announced she wanted us to return immediately to my country. She could not articulate a clear purpose to justify the financial consequencies and we argued about the sense of it, but in the end we returned.

Three months later, we are settled, but the harmony has not yet arrived. It is a trick of memory that moods bring back memories associated with the same mood. When relationships breakdown, partners catalogue events both recent and long past, a chain of hurt that hides the links of love and happiness.

Which is why it is important to me to be able to remember there was a time not so long ago when things were perfect. It is a chain of those events I wish to see.

Sweet memories

The biochemistry of memory involves teasing out the most intricate secrets at a molecular level.

In news just in, researchers at Caltech have apparently found evidence of the important role played on memory by a sugar with the name O-GlcNAc. In an experiment mice were investigated to see how well they could remember that a tone was associated with an "unpleasant stimulus".

I need to buy the research paper to find out what they did to the poor mice - usually an electric shock in these types of study - but whatever it was the mice were more likely to remember it two hours later if the sugar was prevented from attaching to transcription factor cyclic AMP–response element binding (CREB) protein. The axonal and dendritic growth that takes place in the brain to store memories was enhanced by blocking this process, known as glycosylation.

More succinctly put, the mice were more likely to remember if glycosylation of the CREB transcription protein was blocked.

More simply put, by me, the brain changes that happen when memories are stored were enhanced when this sugar wasn't messing things up.

The mice were judged to remember if they displayed defensive behaviour when hearing the tone, freezing in preparation for whatever that unpleasant stimulus was.

According to the report in Chemical and Engineering News the research "reveals a previously unknown sugar-based mechanism for regulating gene expression, neural development, and memory. It could lead to new ways to enhance memory or to reduce memory loss among patients with diseases such as Alzheimer’s."

Memory is mechanistic and so magic pills may provide benefits, particularly when the brain starts to go wrong. The sugar O-GlcNAc seems to be involved in many cell processes so I imagine that the process of preventing it from attaching to the CREB transcription protein does not rely on removing it from the body, but either providing something else that it is more prone to attach to, or something that will attach to the CREB instead without having an effect.

Pinning memory tags to my mental calendar results in me remembering better presumably because it too enhances axonal and dendritic growth in my brain. Whether my generally improving memory is due to this process blocking glycosylation of the CREB is another question. There are undoubtedly many other mechanisms at work of which I currently know nothing, but am now interested to learn about.

New improved memory tag

It is now exactly two months since I began this process of remembering every day of my life. So far, so good.

I can recall what I was did on every one of the days of this period, who I was with, where we went, the weather.

This information comes to mind from thinking of the date on my mental calendar. I see the image I have pinned there as a memory tag and the rest of the day flows from that.

Going back beyond two months and there is the familiar fog.

I might be able to remember where I was. I can only remember what I did exactly if the date is significant. More often the best I get is a generalised sense of mashed experiences; many days merge into any day for that time and place.

I much prefer remembering.

A lot has happened in the past two months, even if much of it is mundane. The routine makes it a challenge to choose a memory tag that captures each day's uniqueness.

Sometimes I've found the memory tags first selected need some improvement. For Wednesday 8 February, I chose to store away a conversation with my parents about the medication I needed for my wife. It was symbolic of how they have been there for me in things big and small and how I will miss them when they are gone, if I don't go first.

Then I found just a week later I couldn't for the life of me remember whether I had been in the office that day or worked from home. The following days also had more quirky memory tags and I had no strong sense of where I had spent them.

It took a  little while to remember one incident that brought the work aspect into sharp focus. It came back to me that I was in the office on the Wednesday because a co-worker had left a message, but was not in herself. I wrote a reply on her message and we discussed it on Friday, because I didn't go in on Thursday.

Adding the image of writing the reply to my internal calendar for 8 February is enough to sort out my movements for those three days.

For a moment I thought it didn't matter, to let it go. Let the fog descend again.

But I have chosen clarity. I believe my mind has the capacity to remember these details. I am going to work on the theory that I will be able to remember more details of each day as I continue this experiment, not less.

Sleeping and memory

Around the world headlines are appearing saying things like: "People who have trouble sleeping twice as likely to suffer memory problems in old age".

These arise from a press release issued by the American Academy of Neurology, which itself has the title: "Trouble sleeping? It may affect your memory later on".

You could be forgiven for believing that scientists had found that if you have trouble sleeping this will affect your memory. But that is not what the study found.

The study looked at the sleep patterns of 100 people (a low number in research terms) aged between 45 and 80. Of these 25% had evidence of amyloid plaques. Whatever these may be, we are told they can appear years before the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease begin.

People who had trouble sleeping were more likely to have amyloid plaque build-up compared to people who didn't wake up as much.

The obvious question is what came first? The chicken or the egg?

Does trouble sleeping lead to amyloid plaque build-up and consequent memory problems, or does amyloid plaque build-up cause trouble sleeping?

One of the researchers' definitions of "trouble sleeping" is waking up more than five times per hour. If I was waking up five times per hour, I'd think I had a problem.

The press release quotes a researcher: "The association between disrupted sleep and amyloid plaques is intriguing, but the information from this study can't determine a cause-effect relationship or the direction of this relationship."

So it would have made as much sense to give the press release the heading: "Early stage Alzheimer's disease? This may affect how you sleep".

It's like the difference between: "Trouble sleeping? This may be bad for your back" and "Bad back? This may affect how you sleep".  Either - or both - may be true if people with bad backs have trouble sleeping.

The researchers warn against jumping to the conclusion implied by the press release headline. But people are. A comment on the first article cited above says: "So sleeping pills do more good than harm !"

Perhaps, but as a researcher says: "We need longer-term studies, following individuals' sleep over years, to determine whether disrupted sleep leads to amyloid plaques, or whether brain changes in early Alzheimer's disease lead to changes in sleep."

So sleeping pills may treat a symptom, not a cause, of early Alzheimer's.

All very "intriguing" as the researcher says.

My conclusion is I need to look beyond the headlines of science reports and rest easy.

Panic over?

As the train pulled into the station and I gathered my things together, I started to reach for the piece of paper where I had noted the details of the next part of my journey.

Then I realised I could remember them: the number of the bus I needed and the street where to find the bus stop. The kind of details I was used to forgetting as soon as I knew them.

That's exactly what happened at my wife's church on Sunday, where a family introduced themselves to us. At the end of the conversation I asked them their names again. They are with me still. So too are the names of the couple we met on 18 December, the second day of this experiment. Details I decide to remember are staying with me.

The discipline of remembering every day of the last two months has either switched something on in my brain or simply convinced me at a fundamental level that I can remember if I want to.

This is a new ability - or at least a vanished one recovered - and it feels fragile, not to be taken for granted or fully trusted yet. Too often I've felt the panic of a lost memory. But it feels exciting, like a new relationship.

No plot holes

There are no plot holes in life.

I may not understand why something happened. I might jump to the wrong conclusions. But, in theory at least, the more I know and the more I am able to remember, the more sense it will make, not less.

Unlike, say, the US series Heroes. One of my favourites. I could suspend disbelief to accept that people had the ability to fly or walk through walls. But not that an eclipse of the sun drags on for a whole episode and sends a continent into gloom. Fine that a telepath can make Nathan see a deceased character who could heal, but the illusion couldn't cure Nathan of his terrible burns, otherwise the telepath would have used the powers at other times. As time passes the holes puncture the fabric of the story so it can no longer sustain.

Life can be stranger than fiction; I've experienced coincidences that would be too far-fetched even for Hollywood. But certain rules are unbreakable. For example, I cannot be in two places at once. If my recollection of events requires me to have travelled on my bicycle at the speed of sound, I can be sure that there is something wrong with my memory. I have not turned into Jack Bauer from the US series 24.

In this process of remembering every day, continuity not only matters, it comes to my aid.

The Thursday when the sun shone gloriously as I cycled home mid-afternoon and a flock of white birds settled in the field by the river filled the air with sound has to be 26 January. It cannot be 2 February, because the river was frozen that day. So 2 February must be the Thursday when it was bitterly cold.

In reality, filling in the gaps completes the picture. Sadly sometimes with fiction, the more complete the picture, the more visible the holes.

Remembering to forget

Nearly two months into this process of remembering every day of my life and I notice something else positive.

This conscious effort to remember not just the two months, but the same date in past years, seems to have quietened my mind's propensity to throw in snippets of memory at the most unhelpful moments.

It is not that I could not remember before; some troubling memories and thoughts keep coming back to me with such weariness that I wish there was an off switch. Now I am finding peace within this new habit of remembering what I choose.

The English actor Bill Nighy explained something about the ability to forget in an interview a couple of years ago:

"In the theatre, there are always a couple of shows where you just forget. Somehow you turn off that part of your mind which is out to get you, the bit that undermines you, the self-conscious bit, and everything happens by magic, everything flows, everything's good, every single action you perform, every word you speak, every time you react to something, it all seems to fly. That's the holy grail."

This stayed with me because I think I know the feeling: unable to be in the moment because the past won't be quiet.

Whether exercising my mind by remembering my chosen memory tags will continue to quieten its rebellious nature remains to be seen, particularly as there is undoubtedly embarrassment and hurt to face in the future, as well as in the past.

Success and reward

Yesterday was Saturday so lying down to sleep I scroll back through the memory tags for past Saturdays. They are pretty entrenched in my memory now.

Then I hit 7 January and I feel the panic of a date with nothing attached.

In a second I switch to 8 January, find a tag, and that brings the 7th back.

The panic turns to a mind burst of satisfaction. A mini eureka moment.

If the fear of a blank is an obstacle to remembering, then the thrill of remembering - particularly when it is momentarily difficult - is not only motivation for trying, but surely also a reinforcement mechanism.

A blank need not invoke fear, but anticipation of a reward for success when I find the missing memory tag, so developing that skill.

If this is something inherent to the human mind, then the lengthening history of days to remember need not be daunting.

But a pleasure.

Remembering the future

We moved into our flat on 29 December 2011. Since it was after I began this process of remembering every day of my life I can say, "Ah yes. I remember it well!"

It is a great flat, but things did not get off to a good start as we both found we were allergic to it. After a couple of hours our noses were blocked up and eyes sore. My wife is more sensitive than I and I had to assure her we would either solve the problem or move out without much delay.

After cleaning carpets and walls, changing a curtain and not using a particular radiator that seems to have been painted with something it shouldn't, it is fine and we are able to enjoy it.


I become very practical in situations like this, thinking about what needs to be done and getting on and doing it. I visualise how things should be and try to make it happen.

I thought of us being settled and the teething problems a memory and an experience to relate to friends. And now we are living that future.

A while ago I found a diary written during a dark time in my life.

In amongst the despair are drops of hope saying, the sun is shining outside, life is a miracle and one day things will be better. And they were.

Of course, there are bad days to come too. Every life ends in death. And as Queen Elizabeth II said at a memorial service to September 11th, grief is the price we pay for love.

Every day will pass. So I try to enjoy what is good and bear what has to be borne in that knowledge.

Ask Mum and Dad

I choose the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar. What I want to be sure to carry with me through the rest of my life.

For Wednesday 8 February the image is speaking on the phone to my parents on the way to the pharmacy to buy throat sweets for my wife. She had virtually lost her voice, brought low by the cold weather. When she was last ill like this we were at my parents and my father gave her some throat sweets she found particularly helpful. But we could not remember the name.

They were out when I first called, so I tried again on the way to the pharmacy. They have two phones so are both on the line together. After a quick chat about their day out, I asked asked the sweets and immediately they told me the name. I explained the situation and promised to call them later.

This conversation is my memory tag for this day. But not because I want to remember the name of the sweets.

My parents are in their seventies. My maternal granparents lived into their nineties, but I never met my paternal ones. My father has already outlived his father by more than fifteen years.

Although they have always been there, I know that - if I don't go first - there will be times in the future when I want to call or visit and they are there no longer.

It may be for a forgotten recipe or simply because I miss them.

Then I will remember this and other days and be glad I appreciated them at the time.

Happy days

Where was I on this day? Like the man in the time machine imagined by HG Wells, the years wind backwards and so quickly I am a child again.

Searching the net I chanced across a discussion board where the first poster asked if she was alone in having no memory of fourth grade. In reply after reply people affirmed the same or similar. Spotty memory was the norm. One or two said they had many memories from their youth, but they were the exceptions.

I had a happy childhood in a family where I was loved, but the memories that are clearest are of unhappy times at school, where I was bullied for being smart and coming top of the class. Having a different accent as my parents had moved to the area didn't help. Being taunted for an aspect of my appearance made me feel like I was a deformed freak - until I became a desirable young man.

Those memories are not representative, because the unfolding world was wonderful to me. My parents shared their love of the outdoors. My father told me stories from history. I was enthralled by the stars and astronomy, our smallness in the universe. I loved reading and, on the whole, I loved school and learning. That is why I was good at it, a handicap where doing well made you a nerd or a swot.

The days of childhood may seem long gone and barely recorded, but I am shaped by them. Who I am now is built upon that core of wonder and love, even if the hurt and humiliations seemed to overwhelm me for a while in the transition to adulthood.

It has always been the case that memories I have not revisited for years will suddenly come to mind as fresh as if yesterday, like a forgotten exhibit in a museum drawer. Something in the present will echo; a train of thought will transport me to a moment long ago.

Where was I on this day? I rarely know as the years roll back, never know for sure when I reach my childhood. But I remember everyone seeming so tall. New discoveries around every corner and within every book.

Nearly two months into this process of remembering every new day and my mind seems to be building its muscles.

Days too rarely thought of to even consider forgotten come back to me. I remember how happy I was.

Here we are again

It is starting to feel like home again, this city we have moved back to having lived here just over four years ago.

Our town in my wife's country was as familiar when we left two months ago. We had lived there for extended periods since marrying in 2001. Whenever we were there, it seemed like we had never been away. Now we have moved back here, the feeling is the same. It is like wherever here is normal and the memory of being abroad the aberration.

This apparent continuity of punctuated experiences has struck me before. Switching between different places or ways of being. For example, being part of a couple when I visited my girlfriend before we married and being alone when I returned home. There was the same feeling of recognition, of here I am again.

Before then, the was the more dramatic switch between being in a relationship and being single when it ended and on the lookout for another. Returning to a single life was like slowly putting on a familiar set of clothes that had been packed away.

A more marked change of mental state comes from my early twenties when I smoked marijuana with friends if it was around. Returning to the warm familiarity of being stoned, we would often say to each other, "Here we are again". It messed my head up in the end. The state I returned to stopped being joyful and insightful and became unhappy and paranoid. That is now half a lifetime ago.

These experiences support the theory that being in the same location or state of mind helps when it comes to reclaiming linked memories. That's why police will reconstruct a victim's last movements; similar scenes bring to mind forgotten details.

It is also why I have heard it said drinking alcohol (or smoking a joint) when revising for exams is not a good idea. You need the same state of intoxication to most optimally recall the information memorised.

Which brings to mind a story from the ancient university of Oxford in England.

A student turned up for an examination having carefully read the university statutes. "I demand my quart of ale," the student told the invigilator. Sure enough, there was a rule from the 16th century saying students had the right to such refreshment while taking their exams. Being sticklers for the rules, it was duly provided.

The student felt very smug by the time the exam was over. The paper had gone well and the two pints of beer brought a warm glow.

However, the stony faced invigilator had something to say on the way out: "I have been checking the statutes myself and I am sorry but I have to tell you that you have failed the exam."

"Why?" asked the student.

"Because you were not wearing your sword."

Memory failure

What a horrible feeling.

Yesterday I couldn't remember what I did on Wednesday 25 January.

Before I began this process of remembering every day of my life, this would not have been a big deal.

But as I now have a memory tag for every day going back to mid-December, finding a blank day on my mental calendar was a shock.

So far any memory failure has been short lived. Recalling the days from either side or week has been enough to remind me. This time I felt panicked as I drew a blank for 24 January too.

What was happening? Was my brain's ability to handle this level of detail failing after less than two months of data?

More likely, it was a case of being tired from getting to bed after two in the morning after a trip to the airport. I decided to let it go for now, thinking I'd remember tomorrow. But I was concerned that this experiment is running into problems already.

It came back to me while I was doing the washing up. We had our friends round for dinner on 25 January.

On 24 January it had been raining, and so I took the bus to work rather than cycling, and wrote my second entry for this blog on my laptop on the way in.

From these images I am able to recall more detail for each of the days. Meeting my wife at the bus stop, the rain still falling, to travel home at the end of the day.

Somehow I feel the act of having to exercise my mind to remember, rather than checking back over notes, will make these memories stronger now.

Preserve your memories

Sunday was a very full day with much to remember.

I have a theory, founded on not very much at all having only been following this process of remembering every day of my life for less than two months. The theory is that each day should have just one memory tag image pinned to my mental calendar, two at most.

The image has to be selected with care to call up the other things I wish to remember for that day.

For Sunday 5 February 2012 it is of my wife outside a building next to the river, wrapped up against the snow, with a packet in her hands.

I will review this picture for the next ten days, the period I look back over daily to solidify the memories.

At some other point each day, I also review the same day of the week for the last few months - flipping back through every Monday, for example (I've been able to pin down some memory tags for dates before I began this process).

If I have the time and inclination, I also flip back through the years. So today I will try to remember where I was each 6 February as far back as I have the time and inclination to go. It may be that all I can recall will be as vague as which town I must have been living in.

Since starting this process, I have concrete images pinned to each date. Forever more, the image for 5 February 2012 will be that of my wife.

From this, I know it was a day we walked past the river in the snow to arrive at the building in the background.

I will either remember, or work out from the tag from the previous day, that this was a new snowfall.

So I will remember that a multitude of snowmen and women had sprung up that morning in the fields and we took a picture by one that stood over 3 metres tall.

The building is an industrial museum. The packet in my wife's gloved hands contains the guide book we bought, for this was the day we finally visited the museum after walking past it many times.

I will remember that it was not yet open when we arrived. We had to fill the time. What did we do? We carried on to a favourite café for lunch.

The museum is memorable enough to be able to visualise the steam engines inside it working just by thinking about it.

My wife is wearing a large pair of my gloves over her own, because it is very cold.

I will remember that one of these was lost on the way back and I had to retrace our footsteps to look for it.

That memory of cold and falling dark will hopefully associate with my secondary memory tag for today: accompanying a friend to the airport that night to collect his wife's aunt. His wife is pregnant and due to deliver this week. There were traffic warnings and I volunteered to go with him so his wife could stay in the warm and I could help if the road became impassable, as had happened the night before, when the snow fell. All went well and he dropped me at the end of my road at two o'clock in this morning.

The image of my wife in the gloves outside the museum will hopefully be enough to bring this all to mind in the years to come.

I was actually taking a photograph of her as she stood there.

One day I hope we will look at the photograph and I will say, "Do you remember this day? It was when...."

And we will laugh and smile together.

Where I lay down

Drifting off to sleep is a good time to review days lived. One theory of dreams is that our sleeping minds are reordering our memories and storing what is to be remembered.

The days stretch back through time. Since I began this process of remembering every day, they are a continuous chain of images on my mental calendar.

It is not only days that link the now to the past, but nights.

Sleep provides punctuation, but time flows without a break, washing over every bed where I have lain.

I have a curious sensation when I recollect my beds: I can remember the direction they pointed.

I think of lying in a bed and know whether it was in the same line, at 90 degrees, or whatever, to where I am now.

How accurate this is, I am not sure. If I try to place the bed on a mental map, it seems to be correct. Maybe I will investigate more rigorously one day. Possibly my subconscious has recorded the position of the rising sun. Maybe, like a pigeon, we can sense magnetic fields.

We spend a third of our lives in beds, often the same bed year after year.

I find them strong markers of a time and a place - and the direction in which I slept.

You were saying

When you are in a routine, what distinguishes one day from the other to be able to remember them individually?

Yesterday, Friday 3 February 2012, I was in the office as usual, doing the usual things. I needed something unique to this day to be able to remember it for the rest of my life.

At lunch time, I went out to pay my local tax at the town hall.

It struck me last night how sad it would be if the mark I carried with me for this day was paying tax.

Then I had a revelation.

The day was also unique because of the conversation I had with Linda from the post room as I shared some of the bread pudding I made on Wednesday 1 February. It started with bread pudding and continued into anecdotes about her family.

It was a moment of sharing, not just food, but ourselves.

What a far better memory to hold on to.

We have many such conversations. Whether they will merge into one, or work as effective memory tags remains to be seen.

But I noticed today that I listened more attentively to my wife as she reminisced about a student trip while we were drinking coffee in the café we walked to. It is a conversation I will remember.

Connecting with bad days

We have moved back to the town where I lived before getting married. My wife and I have spent a period here before.

Cycling back from work on the dark cold evening of 1 February (part of my memory tag for that day), I remembered two of my wife's sisters staying at a guest house near my route many years before. In fact, close to eleven years, all but a week or two. They had come over for our pre-wedding party, shortly before we left the country to get married.

This was a memory tinged with shame, surely one of the most powerful emotions to make us want to forget.

It was not a major issue, but it has taught me a valuable lesson.

When we visited them the evening after they had settled in, I saw they had bought some food from the local shop I had shown them. But once home, my fiancé was upset as she said they were hungry because they didn't understand our food and had not eaten well all day.

I felt bad for not being aware, for thinking things were fine. My shame is I became angry at not being told when I could have done something about it. Which didn't help matters or ease my fiancé's concern for her sisters.

So that particular day, whatever date it was, does not have a particularly pleasant memory attached to it. The fact it comes to mind all this time later shows it has not really been forgotten. This is a trivial recollection of my human frailty. There are far worse days in my life, which I am not yet ready to share or delve into.

If I am to continue with this project of remembering every day of my life – and reclaiming as many past memories as I can from before I began this process – then knowing this will include bad days is not encouraging.

But then something else came back to me as I continued cycling home. At the earliest opportunity, the following morning, I took my wife's sisters shopping for snacks. From then on, whenever we ate out, I was mindful to take them through the menu carefully and patiently, explaining the different dishes, until they made a choice they were happy with.

That bad day connects to the lesson learned and the happy memories of meals enjoyed together.

Bad days – at least of a certain type – should not be an obstacle to remembering, if they are seen in a wider context, as part of a continuing story.

I hope, going forward, I can apply it further. Bad days can become bearable if there is some sort of resolution.

For those unresolved, perhaps there is something that can still be done to make them so.

Baking cake

There have been days in my life that have been momentous. There have been times of great adventure. But even in the most exotic of locations, there can be little that makes one particular day unique. As I am currently in a more settled period of living, this is particularly true.

And so the memory tag may be something trivial that makes a day stand out. For example, Tuesday 17 January was very cold and the river was partly frozen as I cycled by it to work. It was also a day I had my hair cut. I made a point of remembering the haircut, not only as a tag, but also because I don't really register how long I leave it between haircuts. Generally I leave it too long, as my style is short and I can get away with it growing several inches. So I am prompted by it becoming untidy, rather than any routine. If I am remembering every day of my life, I might as well remember my trips to the barbers.

Yet such trivial and recurring events are only useful as tags if I decide to make them so. Yesterday I made a cake. Bread pudding, it was; I had a loaf past its best. This was the second time I have made this recipe and I had sufficient special ingredients (raisins, brown sugar, mixed spice) from the last time to add to the bread, milk and eggs. Making the cake is part of my memory tag for 1 February.

As I made it, I realised I could not remember when I did so before, even though it was a short time ago and after I began this process of remembering every day of my life. It had not been used in my tag for that day.

But surely I can remember, I thought.

Passage of time has a feeling associated with it. It was longer than a couple of weeks ago, I was sure, but less than a month.

I could remember selecting the ingredients in the supermarket, and which particular supermarket it was. But it is one we go to regularly and I am not making a point of remembering what I bought on every trip. Perhaps with time I will develop effortles perfect recall, but I'm not spending hours of my life rehearsing shopping lists so I remember them forevermore.

It was on a weekend. I made a point of making the cake that evening as I had spent the preceeding days working late and wanted to do something more relaxing and as a surprise for my wife.

Armed with these clues, I ran through the weeks from a month ago, thinking particularly of what we had done at the weekend and whether I had been working late during the week. Saturday 14 January was a day I deliberately left the computer closed and we went to nearby Easton for a day out. On the way back we called in at the correct supermarket; the memory of selecting the pack of raisins could have been from this day.

Then I remembered where we had lunch while we were out; the café was my memory tag for that day. Thinking back, I saw a display of cakes when I paid, including bread pudding and that had given me the idea of making it that day.

So, voila, the previous time I made this recipe was Saturday 14 January.

It took a while to remember, identifying the associated clues and feelings. There were several contender days, which is a warning that potentially I could have opted for the wrong one and reinforced a false memory. In the end, seeing in my mind's eye the cake in the café gave me the certainty that it was that day I decided to make it myself.

The significance of this is it shows that this process allows me to pin down and flesh out memories that I did not make a conscious effort to store away at the time. The power of this is a strong motivator for continuing.

Writing things down

Some things remain in the memory for the strangest of reasons.

I still recall an episode of the British TV series "Tales of the Unexpected", which I saw as a child and have never seen since. I recall the denoument of the episode; all episodes had them, like a punchline to a joke. I remember that an actor known from a soap (Crossroads, I think) appeared in it as a policeman. It was odd at the time to see him out of place.

I can imagine the story that led to the punchline, if not remember it as such. A travelling salesman picks up a hitchhiker. They get talking. Perhaps they turned out to be old acquantances. The hitchhiker is secretive about how he makes his living. They are pulled over by a policeman for speeding. The salesman gets a ticket, which means he will lose his licence and so his job once it goes to court. Driving away afterwards, the twist is the hitchhiker reveals he is a thief and has pickpocketed the policeman's notebook with the name, address and car registration of the salesman.

The salesman is worried, thinking he is in even more trouble, but the hitchhiker tells him, "The policeman won't remember your name, address or car registration because he wrote them down. The notebook replaces his memory."

That has stayed with me until now, as I type this perhaps thirty years or more later. I mention it because, in part, that final comment is the reason I am not writing down the memory tags that I have pinned to my mental calendar during the weeks since I decided to remember every day of my life.

When preparing for examinations, writing things down is supposed to help with reinforcement. But in this process I fear I will be like the policeman. Making notes could replace my memory. I have to put in some effort to ensure my memory tags are firmly embedded in my long-term memory. If a day is indistinct, I have to use surrounding memory tags to remind me and bring it back into clarity. If I knew I could look it up in a notebook, I somehow think that would allow me to prevaricate and allow a memory tag to fade in the belief I could do some revision later from my notes.

So other than those I have described for the purposes of illustrating this blog, my memory tags exist only on my mental calendar