Remembering every day that passes continues to be part of my routine.
To stop the days for nearly eight years I've been doing this now from fading, I call up the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. The techniques I used in the early months and years, as described in the "how I remember" posts can no longer cope with the volume. Instead of moving windows recalling images from a few days each week or month, I now run sequentially through the days.
Sometimes I start with 17 December 2011 and work forwards. Sometimes I'll complete the current year and then each previous year. Sometimes a year here, and a year there.
Generally at some point of the month, I'll recall the images for the same month of each year, for the perspective on my life it brings me. It's now October. It's interesting to know what I was doing for every day of each October from 2012 to the present year.
Sometimes I can rattle through a period of days or weeks in seconds. Other times, I'm stuck and may have to range ahead until I find an image to anchor me and then can try to fill in the blanks.
There are two realisations this ever growing challenge to refresh the memory tags have brought.
Firstly, it seems recalling the images about once per month is about right to maintain easy recall. I know when a retrospective of the current month in past years strikes images I've recently remembered because they come so easily to mind. However, covering the whole eight-year period takes more than a month now and I fear it will become progressively more difficult.
And the longer it takes to find the images, the less I get done in the short snatches of time when I do this, and so the longer between recalls. It's a vicious circle. Previously such challenges have led me to find new refresh techniques. But I don't seem to have anywhere else to go now. It seems inevitable blanks will appear or I'll simply give up on the recall procedure.
The second realisation is that there is something going on in my brain that determines how easy it is to recall images.
I sometimes find I am struggling to fill the blanks in a month and so put it aside and get on with something else or move on to the next period. But then I'll come back again and suddenly the images all pop into place (I can remember the point I had reached in the refresh process from the wave front of clear images).
It may be that a specific memory tag orientates me and triggers other recalls.
But other times it seems there is something else going on, as if the presence or lack of some brain chemicals makes all the difference.
It is worrying in a way that my ability to recall varies like this. My mother has Alzheimer's and I see how her ability to connect varies throughout the day and from day to day. Might there be a link? Could this be an early symptom in me?
On the other hand, it could be down to my level of tiredness or blood sugar.
It's something I will continue to explore.
To stop the days for nearly eight years I've been doing this now from fading, I call up the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. The techniques I used in the early months and years, as described in the "how I remember" posts can no longer cope with the volume. Instead of moving windows recalling images from a few days each week or month, I now run sequentially through the days.
Sometimes I start with 17 December 2011 and work forwards. Sometimes I'll complete the current year and then each previous year. Sometimes a year here, and a year there.
Generally at some point of the month, I'll recall the images for the same month of each year, for the perspective on my life it brings me. It's now October. It's interesting to know what I was doing for every day of each October from 2012 to the present year.
Sometimes I can rattle through a period of days or weeks in seconds. Other times, I'm stuck and may have to range ahead until I find an image to anchor me and then can try to fill in the blanks.
There are two realisations this ever growing challenge to refresh the memory tags have brought.
Firstly, it seems recalling the images about once per month is about right to maintain easy recall. I know when a retrospective of the current month in past years strikes images I've recently remembered because they come so easily to mind. However, covering the whole eight-year period takes more than a month now and I fear it will become progressively more difficult.
And the longer it takes to find the images, the less I get done in the short snatches of time when I do this, and so the longer between recalls. It's a vicious circle. Previously such challenges have led me to find new refresh techniques. But I don't seem to have anywhere else to go now. It seems inevitable blanks will appear or I'll simply give up on the recall procedure.
The second realisation is that there is something going on in my brain that determines how easy it is to recall images.
I sometimes find I am struggling to fill the blanks in a month and so put it aside and get on with something else or move on to the next period. But then I'll come back again and suddenly the images all pop into place (I can remember the point I had reached in the refresh process from the wave front of clear images).
It may be that a specific memory tag orientates me and triggers other recalls.
But other times it seems there is something else going on, as if the presence or lack of some brain chemicals makes all the difference.
It is worrying in a way that my ability to recall varies like this. My mother has Alzheimer's and I see how her ability to connect varies throughout the day and from day to day. Might there be a link? Could this be an early symptom in me?
On the other hand, it could be down to my level of tiredness or blood sugar.
It's something I will continue to explore.
Congratulations on your many successes and lessons learned by continuing this challenge and experiment, and thank you for sharing this with us. Your experiences and observations have been insightful and instructive. I hope that an individual or organization in the field of neuroscience will intercept your writings and find that your personal experiences contribute more knowledge the field.
ReplyDelete