The Wonders of The Mind

I had previously written a post about our subconscious mind. Today I have another story to add to that.

Yesterday, I had written quite an important email at about 7pm. I didn't think about the email at all afterwards. Then when I went to bed at about 11:30pm, just as I was about to sleep, an image flashed into my head. It was of the email, and the image was crystal clear and I could read every word on it. My short term memory is quite good but I'm not one of those people with photographic memories. However, I saw this email so clearly, and had spotted a mistake with my address that I had written. I thought about going to sleep but my curiosity got to me. I got up, fired up the computer and started my email. Just like I had imagined, the address on the email was wrong. I had no clue how I had memorised the whole email. This was the first time this has happened to me, or that I can remember anyway. If I had spotted the email mistake earlier, I would have fixed it. But it didn't occur to me until I was about to go to sleep. I think my subconscious mind had spotted it but since I was pre-occupied in my waking hours, I didn't hear it. Not until I was going to sleep when my mind was quite blank did it come to the fore. It's the same sensation as when you are trying to remember something but can't. Then as you turn your attention to something else, that thing you wanted to remember pops into your head.

The second weird thing that happened today also concerns my strange mind. I went from the photographic memory high to wondering if I was becoming forgetful. I had gone to lunch, and had take my drink bottle as usual. I always carry a drink bottle with me since I like to be hydrated. I was walking downstairs to the kitchen as usual. I went by my work mate John's desk and stopped by for a quick chat. Then I went downstairs and ate my lunch as usual. Before my lunch ended, I packed up my lunch box and bottle and left them on the table. I went across the road to the shops to get a newspaper. When I got back to the kitchen and picked up my lunch box, I noticed that my drink bottle was missing. I went around to a few usual suspects and asked them if they had taken my bottle as a joke. No one admitted it. I was getting a little annoyed but decided to go back to my desk anyway. When I got back to my desk, what did I find, my drink bottle. However, it was where I normally put it.

This started me questioning whether I had taken my drink bottle downstairs at all. I tried to retrace my steps and remember everything but there seemed to be missing parts. And even the parts where I could remember my drink bottle, I was questioning whethere they were images from previous days. Such a simple act had caused me to totally question my memory. More and more things made me question whether I had taken my bottle downstairs. For example, I remember reaching into my wallet to get some money before going to lunch, so maybe I had forgotten to take my bottle. When I got to John's desk, I remembered raising both hands so how could I have had a bottle. Then when I was eating lunch, I didn't remember drinking any water. It was really starting to get my worried. I went to John and asked him whether he saw me with a bottle. Thankfully he said he did and I was totally relieved.

All the images came flooding back to me. I could remember getting money from my wallet and then grabbing my bottle. I remember raising my hand when I had put the bottle down on John's desk. I remember drinking from my bottle at lunch and even shuffling it around. It's so weird how selective the mind can be. It had chosen all the parts that made me think I was becoming forgetful but once it was assured that I was indeed correct, all the key evidence suddenly came flooding back.

If whoever played the joke had put my drink bottle anywhere else on the desk, I would have known they were playing a joke. But seeing it in its usual place made me wonder if I had imagined taking it. I was extremely bored at work today reading Approvals Standards all day and I thought I was getting a little forgetful. When I found out I wasn't, I was quite relieved and couldn't stop laughing at how silly I was. Whoever played that practical joke got me good. It has taught me that the mind is a strange creature indeed. Sometimes you need to draw your attentino elsewhere and what you wanted to know will come to you.