Lately, I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm experiencing memory lapses. Particularly when a friend of mine mentioned that we once slow-danced together during our teenage days, and try as hard as I might, I simply have no recollection of the event.
You might say it's no big deal not remembering a dance with some guy donkey years ago, but what a waste not to remember it when my dancing partner was (and still is) a hunk of a guy!! How could my brain have decided to put that piece of memory into the "un-retrievable archives" without my permission?!
So here's what I know about our minds (I prefer using the word "mind" iso "brain") - other than being separated into the right and left sides - there are trillions of nerve cells in our mind called neurons (micro-chips if you like), and each neuron has a dozen or so dendrites attached to it. Dendrites are tiny wiry legs that connect the neurons. Everytime we choose to put something or someone into our memory - either consciously or unconsciously - a dendrite from 2 or more neurons will connect to "store" the info. The number of connections that are created in order to capture that info will depend on the number of body senses we use at the point of the event - visual, auditory, touch, smell and taste.
Switching on just one "connection" of the dendrites will trigger off a series of other connections. And thus our hunky friend's memory of the slow-dance also brought back the smell and taste of the chicken wings. The less new connections we create among the dendrites of the neurons in our minds, the "older" and weaker our minds become. There is now something called neuro-bics....get it? For more info, get the book by Lawrence C.Katz (Ph.D.) & Manning Rubin titled the same as this post.
Oh....for those of us who were born in 1971, now you have a better idea of how your "tu-now" works!
You might say it's no big deal not remembering a dance with some guy donkey years ago, but what a waste not to remember it when my dancing partner was (and still is) a hunk of a guy!! How could my brain have decided to put that piece of memory into the "un-retrievable archives" without my permission?!
So here's what I know about our minds (I prefer using the word "mind" iso "brain") - other than being separated into the right and left sides - there are trillions of nerve cells in our mind called neurons (micro-chips if you like), and each neuron has a dozen or so dendrites attached to it. Dendrites are tiny wiry legs that connect the neurons. Everytime we choose to put something or someone into our memory - either consciously or unconsciously - a dendrite from 2 or more neurons will connect to "store" the info. The number of connections that are created in order to capture that info will depend on the number of body senses we use at the point of the event - visual, auditory, touch, smell and taste.
Switching on just one "connection" of the dendrites will trigger off a series of other connections. And thus our hunky friend's memory of the slow-dance also brought back the smell and taste of the chicken wings. The less new connections we create among the dendrites of the neurons in our minds, the "older" and weaker our minds become. There is now something called neuro-bics....get it? For more info, get the book by Lawrence C.Katz (Ph.D.) & Manning Rubin titled the same as this post.
Oh....for those of us who were born in 1971, now you have a better idea of how your "tu-now" works!
6 comments:
Ivy,
I do agreed with u that we especially at this age tend to forget something very fast....But again some sweet/sad memories we tend to remember and still fresh in our mind. Do u agreed?
In fact, (my personal view) during our teenage day, we dont have much worry or could say no worry in term of pocket money, liabilities etc...what we have to do is study hard to get a good result and played around with our classmates or neighbour's children. The usage of our mind at that teenage days are for storing the subjects we learned for exams to come and what to do after school time...
But now or b4 that during the time we walked into the society and the business world. Can u imagine how many things that we need to think, worry, carry out, deliver,etc...no matter in work or in personal life....our mind's storage (HD) had a limitation too (as a human being). When we stored new memories and old one had to be taken away or put them idled.
On yr fade away memory of slow dancing with a hunk guy during teenage days...I can confirmed that to you that it did happened! :)..:)... Again not him only....still a lot of guys including me also...hahahaha....:)...dun let yr hubby know hor... :-O
You're right Heroes, it seems that the info which have emotions attached to it - be it happy or sad - are stored in "anytime-retrieveable" archives.
I do remember you and maybe a few others whom I jingled with in the early 80s....but some how just can't see Gr8buds in the picture.
Hmmm...you're making me look fwd to meeting up with you cos you seem to know a part of my life which my HD has some how deleted.
Slow dance? Hmmm.
I have once read an article about the power of mind...we have only use less than 3% of total capacity. For those high IQ...like our geniuses of our year...they could probably use up the max 3%.
Interest, emotion, excitement play important part to our memory..
Catching up with our buddy/old friends/family members will always helps to "defragment" our storage capacity...thus, helping to have total recall. So,..a wake up call for our friends to attend the reunion dinner as if not, your mind will have a lot of bad sectors (irrecoverable infors)...
Ivy, reenactment of the whole scene may help you...I guess ? or I guess you have to much use up your space as Wife 1.0(referring to one of the blog) into your hubby HD ?:) One smart guy did shared...Just loose yourself...you will find yourself ??
Re-enacment, ha ha ha ha! That's a good one. We wld have to go back to Sibu, pinjam Kok Say's house, put on those special disco lights etc etc. Is your memory good enuf to remember what tune we were dancing to..?
I attended a NLP w/shp a couple of mths back...and researchers now say that we are using just 1% of our mind, isn't that terrible? As tech grows, our mind is shrinking.
But mind power isn't just a saying, scientists say that it is now possible to practically "watch" a brain work - zaps of "electricity" can be seen going to & fro.
I'm very into the "mind" things, they truly intrigue me.
Ivy/Gr8buds,
It would be nice and anxious to see both of u slow dance again...but do save yr energy and practice more often for our forthcoming reunion dinner.ok..:-)
By the way, now both u make my mind to work on my imagination part that try to figure out or imagine 'hellow kitty with incredible hulk' shows play on the same time and same series for the first time after so many many many years........ :-))
Unfortunately I cant provide both of u the old venue which is my house in sibu that brought back a lot of sweet memories for gr8buds at this moment and ivy that still trying to retrieve her fade away memories....we had sold the house....anyway i will try to arrange a new venue when both of u r ready....OK!!
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