“Your memory is a world of limitless knowledge in a nutshell. And without it, material world is nothing but a plain sheet of paper.”
Memory is a component of human mind which literally means reminiscence or the knowledge of a past event or exercise. Memory relates directly to the quality of our life. The whole lot of man’s lineage, heritage, history, civilization and culture rests on memory matrix. Should there be a lapse of memory, we may not even know who are one in first place. Then, where is our hearth and home? So to say, devoid of memory, we are no better than a wayward lunatic. For, it is only a mad man who doesn’t know who he is, and where on earth are his parents and family members.
By and large, a man with good memory is also deemed to possess a good intellect. Indeed there are people with astounding abilities to remember and recall events and factfiles in explicit details. Who wouldn’t want to develop his/her memory for enhancing personality and prosper in chosen field of activity? Shopkeepers would love to remember their customers, Orators their points of discourse, and students their equations formulae and subject matter. Many others would like to a better their ability to remember names and faces. Even in advanced oldage, people pine for a keen memory.
“Forgetfulness implies inability to memorise once again a text or subject matter that was known and understood in the past.”
—N.L. Maan
Forgetfulness
That fraction of memory which trips out of mind’s capacity to recall is called as forgetfulness.
Whatsoever you memorise proactively or passively, tends to fade off with passage of time. This failure to remember expressly is called forgetting. Various studies have revealed that the extent of memory lapse is influenced by time lag between learning and its application. When their time difference is more, forgetting is more pronounced.
For example, of what we learn:
After 20 minutes we forget 47%.
After 60 minutes we forget 53%.
After 9 hours we forget 56%.
After 1 day we forget 66%.
After 2 days we forget 72%.
After 7 days we 75%.
After 1 month we forget is 80%.
So to say, we generally remember only 20% of what we had nicely memorised about one month back.
Lapse of memory is not always a handicap though. Indeed in many cases it is positively beneficial. This keeps memory vibrant and ever receptive to new inputs. Also, we get relieved of unpleasant memories. Accumulated envy, jealousy, enmity and destructive feelings are thus vented out, and we better our life in light of new experiences, values and learning.
On a positive note, lapses of memory help us get rid of tumultuous, sorrowful, insulting and offending experience of past, which may otherwise haunt us for whole life.
Why memory Falters
How come that even when you study hard till late in night for exams, you forget key points for an answer when sitting in examination hall the next morning. And why should somebody you run into look familiar and yet stranger of sorts. You try hard to recall his name, identity, but can’t. But you are still confident that you have met him, sometime, somewhere. Have you ever pondered why such paradox comes into play. Why you suddenly have a lapse of memory and can’t recall in examination what was studied so well a day before? Why should you, for that matter, pull your hair to recall a person’s name and antecedents? How come memory seems to be teasing you when you need it most? And why should it desert you in the thick and thin of the examination hour?
These above are some questions that all would want to know answers of. And indeed they try to know all along why their memory plays hide and seek with them.
Kind of memory
Your memory is of two kinds. One is conscious; another subconscious. Former obeys your will, later doesn’t.
On the whole, subconscious memory seems to dominate a man’s domain. This is best illustrated in one’s inability to find an item in the household at the time of acute necessity. Even as you frantically search for item, it is not to be found. Yet you stumble upon it when it is hardly on your mind, and you really don’t need it at that point of time. Or, in a flash you seem to recall where you have kept it.
Same is the case with harried examinees. They have a lapse of memory while attempting their question paper. And back home from examination they rue over their inability to recall in examination hall what they had so meticulously memorised and had in mind all along.
It is natural to ask why the subconscious memory surfaces at all, and why conscious memory seems to suppress it in critical moments. One answer to why the dormant memory comes live is meditation, or the single pointed concentration of mental energy.
The amount of dynamism, stamina, concentration and enthusion you inject in your studies decides the quality of your memory in respect of studied course perused. What really comes in way of easy recall are a slew of negative emotions like fear, worry, depression, excitement and paranoia. It is these that make your memory play truant.
This is not to deny role of will power on memory. If we don’t wish to remember something for long, we tend to forget it easily. But, should retention of memory be mandatory, we do endeavour to keep that memory live. Memories required for short term use remain live only for so long as required. Thereafter they fade away. But what needs to be remembered for long, sinks deep into mindmatrix and remains live in memory for pretty long. Like we scarce remember rates of groceries beyond few days of their purchase. But some important people and places remain in our memory life long. Prices of vegetables don’t stay in our mind because neither they are significant nor we are interested in remembering them. However if rate fluctuations are astounding say Rs. 10 a kg potatoes on day one and only 50 paise a kg on day two; we remember it for ever.
