Can You Influence Your Conscious Mind For Better Memory?

Many factors influence who we are, our psyche.  Our conscious mind is only part of the equation.  Inner clocks, hormones, dreams, memories and our subconscious.  All these control our brains and our behavior without us being aware of them.

Imagine you are a lost tourist in Italy and you want to know how to get to the Leaning Tower Of Pisa.  You see someone who is sure of himself and you stop to ask that person for directions.  You do not speak Italian and you decide to try your luck in English.  “Which way to the leaning Tower of Pisa, please?”.  The person tells you politely that he does not understand English.  All of a sudden, he describes the way to you, in fluent English, complete with an accent.  You can’t believe what you’ve heard and you ask again. This time the person denies, in perfect English, that he does not speak English.  Is this person playing a trick on you, is he a liar or insane?  All of your presumptions could be wrong as it so happens that the person is under hypnosis.   Although you are unlikely to have this scenario on the streets, such a behavior is quite normal for a person who is undergoing hypnotherapy.  A language confusion of this nature can be found  in people who, in their early childhood, grew up in a bilingual, or two-language surroundings.  From our example, it is quite clear that our consciousness does not always work logically, sometimes our inner perception makes us believe strange things. 

It is not always the case that the brain gives us a complete picture of what is happening in our psyche, or unconscious mind.   Some of us will attest to this, that it is not always easy to be specific about what is we really wish for, strive for, know or fear.  Our brains have the tendency to block out unpleasant things, emphasize the good and gloss over the ugly.  The brain will even provide us with justifications for actions that are nonsensical, impossible, dangerous or even forbidden.

How many of us actually think that we are losing our memory?  We forget to bring an important document to work having spend some time the night before working on it.  We left the house without taking  our wallets along, forgot to pick up the kids, forgot to buy something from  the store that we’ve ran out and forgot to pay our bills.  Sometimes we enter a room to get something and forget why we enter the room in the first place.  We open the refrigerator and forget what is it we needed, was it the butter or preserves?  Then we enter into a self-fulfilling prophecy of telling ourselves that our memory is failing? 

A lot of this memory “failings” are the result of  not paying attention on the situation.  For example, to help you remember to bring the document to work, place it in your briefcase or in an area you are so to notice, like on a table together with your car keys.  Always pay your bills first.  That way, there is one thing less to take care of.  Need to pick up the kids up at 6pm?  Make a mental picture of your kids coming home with 6 gorillas.  Most mobile phone these days come with a reminder alarm that you can use to jolt your memory.  Need to do 5 things when you leave for home?  Imagine a cow in a suit having his photograph taken by a dog, sitting on a park bench eating a sandwich to remind yourself you need to bring home your suit from the dry-cleaners, get the prints from the photo shop and you’re out of milk, bread and dog-food.    Having fun with your mind and imagination will take out a lot of stress from daily living is the cause of our absent mindedness.