How to quickly remember what you forgot: advice from neuropsychologists. How to remember where you put something

Has it ever happened that you forgot something? Couldn't remember someone's name, password, event or even a word? Surely yes. But what did you do in such a situation? What they were doing? Let's talk about how to remember what you forgot.

We will offer you several not only simple, but also effective ways to solve this problem, and also tell you why such annoying misunderstandings happen to us. We will also touch on how to develop your memory and even attention.

Why do we forget certain things?

Before we talk about how to remember what you forgot, let’s look at the main reasons for our forgetfulness. There are quite a lot of options why we constantly forget some information, important or not. We will highlight the main ones.

The first, most common reason is insufficient concentration.

Remember how often you cannot remember where you put your keys, phone, notepads, even things. In most cases, you forget where you put the thing if you are in a hurry somewhere or are distracted, if you are in a hurry and only think about how not to be late, feel bad, etc. That is, one of the reasons for forgetfulness is absent-mindedness.

The second reason, no less common, is that you consider the information unimportant or unnecessary. In this case, you don't want to memorize it on a subconscious level. The reason may also be the complexity of the information itself.

The third option that we will highlight is weak memory. Agree, not all people can remember large amounts of information for a long time, no matter what it is. This means that after some time it will be erased from memory. It can also be noted that over time, memory weakens, and a person increasingly begins to forget what he knew.

In order to remember as much information as possible and not forget it, you need to constantly train your memory. We will talk to you about how to do this later.

In addition, it happens that we ourselves want to forget this or that incident, words, names, knowledge.

Recalling forgotten information

So, before we talk about how to remember where you put a thing (and this is the most common problem), let's try to figure out how to remember any information that surrounds us.

How to remember forgotten information? For example, you studied the material for a year, then repeated it before taking the exam, but when the time came to answer, you completely forgot everything. What to do in such a situation? Try to remember. To do this, do the following.

First of all, remember exactly how you learned this material - sitting at a book, taking notes, listening to the teacher. Try to reproduce this moment in your head as accurately as possible. In most cases, this technique helps to remember forgotten things.

Looking for a missing item

What to do if you forgot where you left a necessary and important thing? How can you remember exactly where you put it? Let's talk about how to remember where you put something.

First of all, try to remember where you usually put this item and where you leave it. For example, if these are keys, try to recall in your memory what you did after you opened the apartment door and went inside. If it is a telephone, remember with whom and what you talked on it, where exactly, and it is quite possible that you will soon understand where you put it.

Remembering passwords

What to do if you forgot your password? For example, we had such a misfortune that we don’t know how to remember the WiFi password. What to do?

In this case, you also need to sharpen your memory. First of all, remember what exactly you put on passwords - numbers, letters or words. Next, we try to remember what ciphers you often use. Try to go through the most likely options. In addition, a fairly effective way is to remember what you were thinking about at the moment when you registered, what you were doing. If you recall those minutes in your memory, it is likely that you will remember him.

What if you forgot and don’t know how to remember your login? In this case, you just need to remember what you like, what or who you associate yourself with. After all, logins are often our nicknames, nicknames, what we call ourselves.

"Where did we meet?"

It happens that you see a person on the street and cannot remember where you saw him. How can you remember who it is and what his name is? How to remember a person, especially someone you barely know?

First of all, you need to strain your memory and try to remember where exactly you saw him. What places are associated with him? This will make it possible to remember exactly where you met him.

Next, we try to determine what associations you have with the name of this person. It happens that it is associated with a particular action, event, color, etc. In addition, you can go through all the letters of the alphabet. It is quite possible that this way you will remember which one of them the person’s name begins with, and then remember it completely.

Remembering the past

The most necessary, but difficult skill is to remember the past. Quite often it happens that you want to recall some moment in life - childhood or youth, to revive in your memory this or that event, celebration, meeting. What to do in this case, how to remember the past?

First of all, try to evoke in your head at least distant images associated with the event you need. Then begin to slowly pull on each of the threads, remembering what happened before or after this episode, what exactly caused certain actions and words.

It is also worth noting that it is not always possible to remember the past in this way, especially what happened in childhood. In this case, you need to seek the help of a psychologist and undergo a hypnosis session. In this situation, this is the most effective way to reliably reproduce the events that occurred in memory.

Remembering a forgotten word

It also happens in our lives that we forget this or that word. Just a couple of minutes ago it was on the tip of our tongue, but now we can’t pronounce it. What to do in such a situation? Naturally, try to remember, although there are other options for solving this problem. So let's talk about how to remember a word.

First of all, it can be replaced with a synonym. Of course, if the given word is a term or a name, then this option will not suit you. In this case, we try to gather our thoughts and try to remember at least part of it, the sound associations that this concept evokes in you.

Another option is to simply forget about this word, do not get hung up on remembering it, and in a couple of minutes it will definitely appear in your head.

Training your memory

So, we figured out how to remember what you forgot. Now let's talk about how we can develop our memory.

Of course, the most important thing is that in order to avoid problems with remembering certain things, you should definitely train your memory. To do this, we recommend to your attention several simple but quite effective exercises.

Surely you have heard that nothing trains your memory as well as memorizing poetry or even passages of text. Be sure to try to memorize at least a couple of lines from a variety of books every day. At the same time, it is advisable to pay attention to large texts, memorizing them completely. So, taking any story, learn a paragraph every day, and do not forget to repeat what you have already learned.

The second simple exercise is to replay the events of the past day in your head every night. So, when you go to bed, remember how your day began, then step by step approach the night. Alternatively, you can rewind events in reverse order. This will also be a good exercise for the brain.

And finally, one more exercise for developing memory and attention. Surely you are often on the street - going to school, work, or just walking. With such a pastime, you can also develop certain qualities. To do this, it is enough to simply remember the license plates of passing cars and carry out various mathematical operations on them. In this case, you will never have a question about how to remember your WiFi password or your login.

conclusions

We all face the problem of memory loss. This is quite understandable, because we are not always focused on receiving this or that information, our brain cannot always quickly remember this or that word, phrase, action, and we don’t want to remember some things at all.

In fact, remembering what you have forgotten is quite easy and simple if you follow the recommendations we have given. In addition, if you need to recall rather serious and necessary events in your memory, you can always seek the help of a specialist. As you can see, to answer the question: “How to remember what you forgot?” - not so difficult.

There is never a good morning... This joke can often be heard from those who like to spend the evening in the company of strong drinks. The morning for such people often begins with a terrible hangover. But headache, reluctance to eat and extreme thirst are not the most terrible consequences of uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages.

It is much worse when a person cannot remember what happened yesterday after he started drinking alcohol. Moreover, all attempts to recall the events of the past evening end in failure. For a drunkard, it remains a mystery how he got home, where he got his clothes dirty, who he could drink with when he fell asleep?

Often, after immoderate alcoholic libations, a person does not count a large amount of money in his wallet, cannot find a mobile phone, watch and other valuables that were with him. The question begins to torment him: how to remember what happened yesterday?

Alcohol amnesia and its types

Memory loss after drinking () is a fairly common phenomenon; it is typical for experienced alcoholics, however, in some cases, amnesia can also occur in those who simply did not calculate their strength and allowed themselves to go through too much.

Frequent complaints of memory loss after drinking strong drinks indicate the development of alcoholism in a drinker: if in the first and second stages of this disease amnesia occurs only after severe intoxication, then in the third stage the drunkard forgets everything that happened to him, even after taking small doses alcohol.

Narcologists divide amnesia of alcohol origin into 3 types:

Palimpsest is fragmentary memory loss when a person who is intoxicated forgets individual episodes, but remembers events that happened after that (this type of amnesia is typical for most people with alcohol addiction).
Drug-alcohol amnesia is a complete loss of memory that occurs during severe intoxication, after which a person wants to sleep and falls into a deep narcotic sleep (can occur when drinking large amounts of alcohol in both alcoholics and healthy people).
Total alcoholic amnesia is a condition when a drunkard completely forgets everything that happens to him throughout the entire period of drinking strong drinks (occurs in people with the third stage of alcoholism, even when drinking small portions).

The occurrence of memory loss when drinking alcohol

In order to understand how to restore memory after drinking, you need to understand why amnesia occurs after drinking alcohol. All types of alcohol contain ethanol, which negatively affects vital organs and systems in the human body.

Most of all, during alcoholic libations, not only the liver, but also the brain suffers. Ethanol entering the body with the contents of a shot glass or glass has a destructive effect on the cerebral cortex, causing disruptions there that lead to slower reactions, temporary clouding of consciousness, memory loss and other unpleasant consequences.

Similar processes in the brain occur not only during intoxication, but also as a result of traumatic brain injuries and some mental illnesses. For example, with a concussion, the patient often forgets about the events that preceded this unpleasant incident. The more severe a person's injury, the more amnesia they will have.

Approximately the same thing happens when a drunkard wants to drink a lot of alcohol, because in the morning he will not be able to remember the events that accompanied the process of drinking alcohol. The strength of alcoholic amnesia will directly depend on the amount and degree of drinks consumed.

It is no coincidence that a concussion is given as an example, because the harmful effects that alcohol has on the human brain can be easily compared with the consequences of a mild form of traumatic brain injury.

Memory loss during alcohol intoxication often causes a lot of problems for a person. It is often accompanied by inappropriate behavior: having tasted a decent portion of the green snake, the drunkard no longer wants to sleep, he ceases to control himself, gets into fights, pesters women, begins to attract attention to himself in every possible way and spend money uncontrollably.

Having drunk to the point of unconsciousness, an alcoholic can commit a serious criminal offense, which he will subsequently remember nothing about. It’s also good when a person, who has forgotten everything that happened to him in the evening, wakes up in his own bed, clean, not beaten and without strangers nearby.

But there are times when a drunkard comes to his senses after a drinking session in a sobering station, police station, hospital, or just on the street, and the last thing he remembers was preparing for the feast. At the same time, he feels disgusting, looks like a homeless person, and the people around him look at him with undisguised disgust.

How to remember events when there are memory lapses?

Finding yourself in a difficult situation, a person asks the question: how to remember everything after drinking? Narcologists can only upset their patients: there are no effective methods that restore memory after alcohol abuse. There is only one way to help an alcoholic get rid of the state of oblivion after regular drinking, and it is to abstain from alcohol.

If a person forgot something while drunk, only the people who surrounded him at that moment can help him. Not everyone gets drunk to the point of unconsciousness, and there will probably be at least one acquaintance among the drinking buddies of an alcoholic who will tell him about all the misadventures that befell him during his drinking period.

Often, after an alcoholic learns about the details of his drunken adventures, he becomes despondent and finds nothing better than to drown out his shame with another dose of alcohol. But there are drinkers who do not believe the stories of others and do not want to seriously assess the seriousness of the situation in which they find themselves. They treat stories about their “heroic” exploits with distrust and continue to drink themselves to death, further destroying their brain.

How to remember what happened after drinking, if the celebration took place in the apartment of a person whose memory has failed? Before calling his friends with questions, he needs to carefully look around.

If the rooms remain in relative order, all valuables are in their places, the dishes are intact, and the owner of the apartment himself looks more or less decent (without scratches or signs of beatings) - this is good. Most likely, Sabantuy passed without incident, and all the guests went home happy.

Broken dishes, overturned furniture, traces of blood on the floor indicate that during the celebration it was not possible to do without excesses. It will be bad if the owner of the apartment cannot remember after drinking how an unfamiliar woman ended up in his bed or where he got a black eye or signs of beatings on his body.

In this case, it would not hurt for him to visit a venereologist or traumatologist. Dissatisfied glances from neighbors will be further proof that gatherings with friends have gone beyond the bounds of decency. By the way, neighbors can tell a drunkard a lot about his behavior, especially if he, being unconscious, banged on their doors in the middle of the night to borrow money for a taxi or ran around the entrance in his shorts.

Our brain remembers absolutely everything!

Surely everyone has encountered a situation when you need to quickly remember something, but you just can’t.

Neuropsychologists say that our brain remembers absolutely everything we have ever seen. Even when it seems to you that the information has been erased from memory forever. It is enough to pull the right strings, and the memory will surface in all its details.

It seems incredible that the brain remembers everything that was seen with the eyes. Science confirms this fact. Thus, in the early 1970s, a famous experiment (Lionel Standing) was conducted. Ordinary people were shown 10,000 pictures at a fast pace. Let's say one had a picture of Muhammad Ali, another had a picture of dumbbells, then Neil Armstrong's footprint on the moon, then the cover of Friedrich Nietzsche's book The Genealogy of Morals, then a red rose, etc. And so as many as ten thousand pictures! (The test took a whole week to complete.)

It would seem that such a volume of information would not fit into any head. However, the most ordinary people were able to remember more than 80% of the images.

The trick is to retrieve information from memory correctly

At the recall stage, pictures were shown in pairs: One of them people have seen before, but the other has not. Let's say there was a photograph of Muhammad Ali on the left and a fizzy Alka-Seltzer tablet on the right. The subjects had to recognize a picture that they had already seen. And the majority completed the task without any difficulty.

In the early 2000s, the experiment was repeated in a more complex version (Timothy F. Brady, Talia Konkle). Participants had to choose between two almost identical pictures: say, on the right was a photograph of a stack of five-dollar bills, and on the left was a stack of dollar bills; on the right is a green carriage, and on the left is a red carriage; on the right is a bell with a thin tongue, and on the left is a bell with a thick tongue.

They found that even when the images differ in minor details, people still recognize almost 90% of the pictures.

We do not forget anything, but we are not always able to retrieve the necessary data from our storages. The history of neuropsychology knows only one case when a person had direct access to his memory. At the beginning of the 20th century, the famous Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria observed a unique person named Solomon Shereshevsky (he later wrote a book about him, “A Little Book about Big Memory. The Mind of a Mnemonist”).

Shereshevsky easily remembered a page covered with numbers, and could reproduce them in both forward and reverse order without hesitation. He remembered equally well both meaningful words and meaningless syllables, numbers or sounds, spoken out loud or written on paper. He could remember complex formulas without any understanding of mathematics and Italian poetry without knowing Italian. Shereshevsky did not forget anything even after a while (and suffered extremely from this!). Even after 16 years, he provided information with amazing accuracy.

The peculiarity of his memory was that he involuntarily created a visual image for every word or sound he heard (and visual images, as we already understood, remain with us forever).

So, every sound had its own color for him, structure and sometimes even taste. The voice of one person seemed to him “yellow and crumbly,” and he described the voice of another as “as if some kind of flame with veins was approaching me.”

The numbers had a face to him: for example, “one” is a proud, slender man, “two” is a cheerful woman, “four” is a man whose leg is swollen, “seven” is a man with a mustache, “eight” is a very plump woman, a bag on a bag, etc. .d. When he heard “87,” a plump woman appeared in his mind’s eye next to a man twirling his mustache.

Shereshevsky could drown out a toothache: she seemed to him like a red thread that was bothering him. The pain intensified - the thread became thicker. Then he imagined how the thread became thinner and thinner, and then dissolved in the air, the pain went away.

Words filled Shereshevsky's consciousness with mental images without effort on his part - instantly and automatically. This was his phenomenality.

An ordinary person needs to create such images consciously - and then the result of memorization will be as good as Shereshevsky’s.

How did Shereshevsky manage to easily get from his memory everything he wanted? After all, the nonlinear associative nature of our brain makes it completely impossible to consciously retrieve memories from memory in the proper order. An ordinary person, in order to remember, for example, someone’s name, needs some kind of association or at least a vague feeling: “like, it starts with “l”, so strange, something African... ah! her name is Liana!

Memory does not follow the laws of linear logic, so we cannot view information sequentially.

In Shereshevsky's head, the memories were organized like cards in a catalogue. The fact is that he carefully organized the information, plotting it on a map of familiar places in the sequence in which he received it (again, he did this involuntarily, without realizing it). For example, while reading a long series of words, he visualized each word and placed these images along Gorky Street in Moscow or around his house in Torzhok. The first is in the doorway of the house, the second is by the street lamp, the third is on the fence, the fourth is in the garden, the fifth is in the shop window. To remember the entire series, Shereshevsky mentally walked down the street and looked around.

Shereshevsky's incredible abilities lie dormant within each of us. Although it seems completely impossible to retain huge amounts of information in memory, in fact, it's just a well-developed spatial memory that everyone has and can be developed.

If you find yourself in London, look out for the boys on scooters with a map of the city attached to the handlebars. These are not tourists, but future taxi drivers. To be accredited by the city to operate public transportation, they must pass a difficult exam: find the shortest route between two points and name all the landmarks along the way. It takes young people two to four years to prepare for the test. As a result, they remember the location and traffic patterns of all 25,000 streets in the city. With such an impressive map in their head, these people are able to remember anything!

Very often we want to remember long-forgotten moments. This could be an important episode from childhood or an event that happened many years ago. In this case, it is quite difficult to reproduce pictures of past years. You should try to turn to friends, acquaintances, parents, who, if they do not completely reproduce the event, will be able to suggest some details. Photographs will also come to the rescue. But sometimes all this turns out to be ineffective. In this case, you can try to seek help from a hypnologist-psychologist.

Nowadays, hypnosis has received mixed opinions. Various charlatans, as well as criminals, use hypnosis to pursue their own illegal goals. This may be a desire to get rich or to commit a crime with the help of someone else. But at the same time, qualified hypnologists, who must also be psychologists, really help a person. With the help of hypnosis, they try to eliminate neuroses, depression, and also remember forgotten things. But no one guarantees 100% results, it is important to understand this.

In addition, there are some contraindications. You should not immerse yourself in a hypnotic state during psychosis or during an exacerbation of various diseases. We should also not forget that sometimes the brain, by blocking information, tries to protect a person from painful memories. But if it is extremely necessary to remember this unpleasant event, then before conducting a hypnosis session you should consult with a psychologist.

When it comes to easier cases, such as a lost pen or a forgotten band name, there are easier ways to remember. One of these is the so-called tangle method. The ball represents the events that preceded the present moment, and the tail of the thread implies the period of time during which the loss was recorded. You begin to mentally unwind the ball from the minute you last saw the lost item. In addition, it is advisable to repeat all mechanical movements step by step. If you can’t remember, it means your brain is still blocking information. Give him a little rest for a few minutes or even hours. Then start unwinding the ball again.

The association method is recognized as a very effective way to remember. An additional visual characteristic is assigned to an object, word or name. But it is necessary to understand that a certain connection must be established with the lost thing in the past. Sometimes we assign associations involuntarily, and in other cases we consciously assign them. Therefore, when it is so important to remember certain facts, you should take the choice of a suitable association quite seriously.

When associations do not help, close your eyes and try to relive the desired period of time again. Remember your conversations with people, your actions and words. You could even try making small notes or drawing a diagram. If you have a synonym for a forgotten word on the tip of your tongue, use a dictionary. By the way, now on the Internet it is possible to quickly search for synonyms. Don't forget to use it.

Sometimes you need to sleep to remember. But before going to bed, you should definitely think about a forgotten thing or event. In the morning, try to reproduce your dreams, maybe they already contain the answer.

Don't forget to take breaks. If you constantly think about the same thing for several hours, your brain begins to overload. Take a break, do something else, and stop any attempts to search for memories. In this case, the brain will rest and relax. Very often, information about a subject arises spontaneously when we have already despaired of remembering it.

In addition, our brain needs oxygen to function well and productively. Try to be in the fresh air as often as possible and give up bad habits. It has long been proven that nicotine, alcohol and drugs have a negative effect on both the brain and the entire body as a whole. Lead a healthy lifestyle and exercise.

Forgetfulness can sometimes significantly ruin your life. Therefore, when you need to remember important facts, you should not rely only on your memory. Create associations, make additional entries in your diary, or simply capture important moments in life in photographs.

It would be great if we knew how not to forget anything. But, unfortunately, the human brain is designed differently. He hides information that is not important for the current moment in the “bins” of memory. Then, as needed, it is removed from there.

But there are situations when you need to remember something forgotten, but it just doesn’t work out. The most common forgotten objects are usually a specific word, details of an event, or a dream. It happens that something very familiar is forgotten, in such cases they say “it’s jammed”, “it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t remember.”

How to remember what you forgot: mnemonic technique

In such cases, a mnemonic technique can help, the principle of which is based on temporarily “forgetting” what has been forgotten. For example, you cannot remember the phone number of a person, but which you know very well. You need to relax and mentally give your brain the following setting: “I really need to remember Pyotr Petrovich’s number. I know him and I will remember him in exactly five minutes. And during this time, I will not think about him.”

After this you really need to calm down and not think about the number. It usually helps the first time, but if necessary, for example, if you couldn’t get distracted, you can try again.

It happens that you urgently need something that “was just here somewhere,” but now it has mysteriously disappeared. Try scrolling through your most recent actions in reverse order, starting from the current moment. The phrase “Brownie-brownie, play with (name of the object) and give it back again” can help the superstitious. Oddly enough, after such a conspiracy things often appear on their own.

How to remember a dream

There are other practices for remembering dreams. It's best to keep a notepad and pen next to your bed so that when you wake up, you can jot down your memories while they're still fresh. When you wake up in the middle of the night, you also need to transfer everything to paper.

Keeping such a dream diary also trains your memory. Over time, you will begin to remember them much more clearly and clearly. But perhaps you already need to remember a dream that you forgot. In this case, the association method can help. The idea is that you make a list of general definitions. For example:

People. Boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, child, boss, colleague, etc.
Terrain. Forest, river, lake, desert, etc.
Actions. Run, walk, dance, jump, etc.
Famous people. Writer, actor, artist, etc.

You can edit the list to suit your associations. The main thing is, after waking up, take it in your hands and, slowly, read it. You can do it out loud. If one of the points appeared in your dream, you can be sure that your memory will helpfully give you this fragment with some details.

How to remember what you forgot: hypnosis

But there are situations when a person has absolutely no idea how to remember what he forgot. It could be a childhood memory or an important incident that has great significance in reality.

For example, a person witnessed a crime, but cannot remember the details. In this case, hypnosis can help. Remember that only a professional can do this. Under no circumstances trust your nervous system to amateurs. An incorrectly conducted hypnosis session can lead to serious mental disorders. In addition, it is possible that several sessions will be required, and this is a big burden for the body.

To make it easier for you to remember what you have forgotten, you need to regularly train your brain by performing special exercises. Organize your time. It has been proven that people who live according to a routine have much better memory. Give up bad habits, spend more time in the fresh air and be sure to get enough sleep!