Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with remembering

I'm smarter only in my dreams. Literally.

raztaj — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:44:46 -0800

I just had a dream in which I could remember dates, names, and lyrics (correctly) that I could not recall in my waking life. Why can't I draw upon the same pool of stored information in my brain when I'm awake? Can I change this? The dream didn't involve a kind of memory-jeopardy, of naming and remembering things, but they were along the plot of my dream, in which I could remember various things that I couldn't remember when awake. Obviously this information did not go in one ear and out the other, but is being stored somewhere in the deep, dark, recesses of my brain.

Can I access this pool of stored knowledge? Or work at it in some way? Why do dreams so freely do this, recall such information as if there's nothing strange about it in the least? Am I forever doomed to be smarter only in my dreams??

How can I stop being self-centered?

monkey85 — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:13:58 -0800

I have a problem remembering the responses other people give to my questions, unless I'm really interested for selfish reasons (e.g. I'm interested in the other person as a potential date). How do I fix this? I don't think of myself as self-centered. When I'm around other people, I generally try to ask them questions about themselves and to talk about topics that are of interest to others. I do enjoy talking about myself and my experiences, but I try not to monopolize conversations.

The thing is, I not infrequently forget how other people respond to the questions I ask, and this can be embarrassing.

Here's a recent example: "What did you do on your vacation?" I ask this as part of small talk and then somehow, just a few hours later, I find myself asking again. When the person starts answering, immediately it rings a bell and I realize I had actually heard the answer already. Then I feel like a jerk for having forgotten (and wonder if the other person thinks I'm a jerk, too). Another common example is asking where someone is from and then immediately forgetting...or forgetting that a friend told me he is sick with a cold.

Judging from experience, I think if I were speaking with someone who was a romantic interest, I *would* remember. But even with very close friends, I'll forget things they tell me that I really should remember, like the example above of being sick.

I *want* to pay more attention to what people say to me, and to remember. I just don't know how to make myself pay more attention/not forget. This has started happening more and more frequently, and it is troubling me. (I'm in my mid-20s, so unfortunately I can't chalk this up to old age....) Any advice would be much appreciated!

How can I better remember the names of new people I meet?

Effigy2000 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:53:29 -0800

I'm really, really bad at remembering the names of new people that I meet. How can I get better at remembering new names? I meet a lot of people in my job and I have come to realise that I am really, really bad at remembering the names of many (if not all) of the people I meet. I know and remember the names of people I work with on a daily basis as well as family members, friends and other loved ones. It is mostly just people I have only just met whose names I keep forgetting. Often (but not always) it gets so bad that I even forget the name of a person mere minutes after I have met them.

But it's only names I seem to have trouble with. I don't forget birthdays and I have some very vivid long and short term memories, so I don't think that my brain is malfunctioning in any major kind of way (put another way, I'm a 30yo guy so the chances of it being Alzheimer’s or something similar seem slim). I'd say the issue is just that I meet a lot of strangers every week and I think my brain has obviously decided that it is better to forget this information rather than compartmentalise it for later use. My brain is wrong to do so, and I have told it as much, but still I meet new people and I forget their names.

Well, I'm sick of it. Are there any tips, tricks and techniques you can offer me that will help me remember the names of new people that I meet? One caveat; it is not always possible for me to write their name down with notes that link the name to facial or bodily features (something I have decided would help me if I were able to do so). I need tips that will help me train my brain to remember a new persons name without the help of a pen and paper.

Memories Triggered by Smells

peacay — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:02:56 -0800

For a lot of people, a particular aroma can be a strong trigger for memory. I don't think it works in reverse: why is this? If I get even the faintest whisps of aroma from a certain musk joss stick [incense], I am immediately transported back to the streets of Bangalore and Hyderabad which I visited many years ago. This can be as mild as a passing thought of 'India' in general or if I stop and concentrate, it can be vivid remembered scenes and colours and peoples' faces - you know, strongly evocative.

But in the absence of some aroma trigger, if I think about India (and I just use this as an example), even if I concentrate to try and remember events or people or places, I may get passing 'visions' or thought rememberances perhaps, but they never involve actually experiencing the same smells. In other words, smells don't seem to be able to be evoked but are themselves strongly evocative.

Is this just me? Do some people experience aromas when they think about specific people/places from their past? Are there all different grades of aroma-memory-responses? What's the interplay going on here? Is the sense of smell different in this respect to our other senses? Why? And I guess, arising from this, why can the smells make me remember things more vividly than my non-aroma mediated powers of concentration?