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[Fe] Question for y'all

SolitaryPenguin

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
824
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
9w1
So I got to thinking this morning, which is both dangerous and frightening, but hear me out.

How do you guys/gals remember things? I am talking everything, like where you put stuff, people's faces, phone numbers, important dates, etcetera.

For me, I find that each of these has their own sense tied to how I remember them.

For instance, if I watch myself set my car keys down somewhere, I know exactly where they are the next time I need to find them, even if it is a week later. As long as I have that visual picture in my mind, I can remember. I am screwed if I don't though.

Also, I have a photographic memory when it comes to phone numbers, as long as I can see them writtin down. I don't have to do the writing, but I have to see it written, and then POOF, stuck there forever.

Lastly, I can remember most people by smell. Not necessarily a perfume type smell, but just something that comes off them when I meet them for longer than 2 minutes. The smell somehow translates in my head to a visual of the face it belongs to.

Do you have any strange or interesting ways that you process memory this way?
 

Kleinheiko

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Aug 9, 2008
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IxTP
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9w1
I simply don't remember things. I know when I'm forgetting something, but I cannot for the life of me remember what that thing is.

As for things like car keys, I'm very tactile about them. If I set them down while sitting in this chair, even if they are under a pile of crap, my body still knows how to find them. Just repeat the motion of putting the keys down backwards.

Sometimes I think that my brain has a photographic memory, but it doesn't let me look at the pictures.
 

SolitaryPenguin

Active member
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Dec 20, 2007
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LOL, that's awesome, and unfortunate.

The tactile thing is interesting though, kind of like reverse engineering your own actions. I doubt I could find anything if there wasn't a visual time stamp in my head.
 

Quinlan

Intriguing....
Joined
Apr 6, 2008
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My memory is just appaling, I'm constantly having to ask other people what I have said or done in the past as if I wasn't there at the time, makes me look like a bit of a fool. Using my senses doesn't seem to help but smells, sights and sounds do bring back floods of memory and feelings but I can't seem to use it in a useful way like you do.
 

SolitaryPenguin

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
824
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ISFP
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9w1
Oh it isn't always that useful, sometimes someone smells like pee and I have to see them on a daily basis.

The smell thing has been a lot more evident since I quit smoking. At first it was rather overwhelming, but now I've gotten used to how intense some smells actually are. I've smoked for so long, that now that it is turning fall here in the northeast, the smells are reminding me of my teenage years when I started smoking. It's probably the last time I truly smelled fall in New York.
 

Hirsch63

New member
Joined
Dec 4, 2007
Messages
524
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IS??
For instance, if I watch myself set my car keys down somewhere, I know exactly where they are the next time I need to find them...

Yes Me too...so if anyone moves anything, I'm screwed.

Also, I have a photographic memory when it comes to phone numbers, as long as I can see them writtin down.

Yes, some numbers not all...much better at it when I was younger...

Lastly, I can remember most people by smell.

Nope, my sniffer seems to work intermittently....

About five years ago I went through a very challenging period...and my abilities generally and especially these "sort of inherent" ones took a major hit...though I have managed to get some back with time. Used to be able to visualize anything like any object suspended within a gridded cube observable from any angle within my mind since as early as I can remember. Also could just look at a map and "see" myself within it and then leave the map and continue to be able to locate myself or find my way through a visualized inner grid system. I was also unbeatable (when young) at easter egg hunts or finding things.
 

wolfy

awsm
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
12,251
I always put my keys and wallet in the same place. Nobody moves them 'cause it's my area.

Because my wallet cellphone and keys are always in the same place that's where I put anything I need to remember to take somewhere.
The "leave it by the door" technique.

I can't remember names well. I can remember what the person likes to do and what music he likes etc but I can't remember the name. :doh:
I remember names by imagining them doing something.For example Ian Baker is baking a cake and icing Ian on it. Works OK.

My visual and tactile memory are very good. That's how I try to make up for my various weak points.
 

sarah

soft and silky
Joined
Sep 3, 2008
Messages
548
MBTI Type
isfp
So I got to thinking this morning, which is both dangerous and frightening, but hear me out.

How do you guys/gals remember things? I am talking everything, like where you put stuff, people's faces, phone numbers, important dates, etcetera.

For me, I find that each of these has their own sense tied to how I remember them.

For instance, if I watch myself set my car keys down somewhere, I know exactly where they are the next time I need to find them, even if it is a week later. As long as I have that visual picture in my mind, I can remember. I am screwed if I don't though.

Also, I have a photographic memory when it comes to phone numbers, as long as I can see them writtin down. I don't have to do the writing, but I have to see it written, and then POOF, stuck there forever.

Lastly, I can remember most people by smell. Not necessarily a perfume type smell, but just something that comes off them when I meet them for longer than 2 minutes. The smell somehow translates in my head to a visual of the face it belongs to.

Do you have any strange or interesting ways that you process memory this way?

Yeah, I take visual "snapshots" of where I put important stuff. I have to put certain things like my purse and my keys in the same spot every time I come into the house or I might just set them down some place and spend forever looking for them later (done that too many times in the past...). Actually, all of my purses are in a cupboard in our living room, so when I want to change purses, I don't have to ever take the stuff in them them anywhere else in the house, which removes the possibility of my setting my wallet down somewhere and then forgetting where I put it. Any facts I have to remember get written in the notes section of my Filofax calendar, and I would be totally screwed if I ever lost that thing. I have to check to make sure I always have it with me at work every day, and I always take it home. I've lost several really good watches due to taking them off when I felt like it and then not remembering where they are, so now I keep my current watch either near my keys, on a dish on a side table near the door, or on my dresser -- I make myself NEVER put it anywhere but in one of those two places. I also NEVER allow myself to put the keys anywhere else when I come home but on that dish near the door (because I've lost them several times and that was no fun)....

As for umbrellas and gloves... *sigh* they still get lost when I take them places and then forget about them. I just don't buy expensive gloves anymore except for one pair that I MAKE myself keep track of whenever I wear them (they're just too nice to get lost).

Faces are easy to remember -- I have a great visual memory -- but remembering the names that go wtih those faces is impossible unless I repeat their name several times in my mind while looking at their face, or I make up a mnemonic device to help me remember. I also find it's easy to remember some people by their gait -- the way they walk registers in my mind as unique, and I make up a word or phrase to go with it that fits their name or their personality, and that helps me remember them the next time I see them.

Sarah
ISFP
 

millerm277

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Feb 1, 2008
Messages
978
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ISTP
Visual and Tactile for me. Both my desk and workshop are highly disorganized to a person who would look at them. However, I know where everything is.

I am very good with faces and can remember even every place I've seen that person, but names take me at least a month to learn.

I cannot remember anything by hearing it. You could tell me how to do something, ask me an hour later, and I won't remember. If I watch you do it, I'll remember it indefinitely.
 

me_plus_one

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Sep 25, 2008
Messages
194
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ESTP
When I was little and my grandparents used to tidy up my desk, I couldn't find anything, though everything was there, but when it was untidy, there was nothing I couldn't find.

I have a sort of photographic memory, I can remember school lessons & formulas by visualising their size, aspect, shape on the paper they were written.

However, if I mechanically drop my keys somewhere, without visualising that spot, I'll probably never find them. The same happens with my cell phone, but I can always use another phone to call myself and locate it.
 

alicia91

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Nov 20, 2007
Messages
671
I also have an appalling memory and there has been a couple of situations recently where I've wondered if I'm getting early-Alhzheimers. But then, I reassure myself that I've always been this way. Still, I've started taking Omega-3 oil supplements hoping it might help somehow..?

On the other hand I have a wonderful visual memory and also find that taking visual snapshots really helps me. I just have to remember to do it!
 
D

Dali

Guest
See, this is one why I once thought I was INFP.

I have total and complete sensotardation.

I put everything in a different place every single time. My ISFP flatmate has an immaculate room and mine looks like a wolves' den.

I will look everywhere, literally everywhere, for something before I find it. Most of the time, my eyes skim over the object 300 times before I finally find it.
 

Skyward

Badoom~
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Jul 3, 2008
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infj
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9w1
See, this is one why I once thought I was INFP.

I have total and complete sensotardation.

I put everything in a different place every single time. My ISFP flatmate has an immaculate room and mine looks like a wolves' den.

I will look everywhere, literally everywhere, for something before I find it. Most of the time, my eyes skim over the object 300 times before I finally find it.

Me too! I put things where I KNOW I will find them. And if they're not there, I never will find them :blush:

Maybe your roommate is just using neatness as a form of self expression?

( Waaahhh!! people posted in front of me! )
 

Randomnity

insert random title here
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sp/sx
Missed this thread earlier. I'm insanely absent-minded so I've had to develop a lot of OCD habits to function, lol

For instance, if I watch myself set my car keys down somewhere, I know exactly where they are the next time I need to find them, even if it is a week later. As long as I have that visual picture in my mind, I can remember. I am screwed if I don't though.
I do this -- I replay the "video" of my earlier actions, to tell if I've done something or not. This can backfre if it's a regular task though, since I sometimes "remember" doing it from an earlier day...

I always put my keys and wallet in the same place. Nobody moves them 'cause it's my area.
This too...keys/buspass always in my pocket, wallet always in my bag. I've also gotten into the habit of checking that I have everything as I'm leaving the house.

For remembering other stuff:

-a simple calendar I made in excel
-a cross between a calendar and a to-do list, for school
-a real to-do list for nonschool (a table with 4 colour-coded columns)
(when my laptop was broken I carried around lists on folded index cards, to half-decent effect, but I prefer my normal system)

and more importantly, getting into the habit of checking/updating each of these (fairly obsessively) multiple times a day, and adding things right away to the file...because otherwise I'll never think of it again. without the habit none of it would work for me...

how come we never use our private forum, anyway? I guess there's not much point....
 

Walking Tourist

it's tea time!
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Nov 11, 2008
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esfp
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7
I throw my set of keys into my coat pocket, whichever coat I happen to be wearing at the time. At the change of seasons, this could pose a problem.
I remember phone numbers without problem because phone numbers always seem to have patterns. I remember them as number patterns and sometimes, I remember the pattern on the telephone itself... the way in which my fingers press the buttons to get the number. Then, my memory is stored in my fingers.
I remember directions by remembering landmarks. I remember buildings at corners. For example, I always know when I am about to come to my street, whether it's daytime or night time, despite my poor night vision because, at the corner, there is a tree and, under the tree, there is a fire hydrant. There is no other fire hydrant under a tree at a corner nearby so that is it. Then, my house is easy to direct people to because there is a speed limit sign just before the driveway, and the speed limit and my house number are the same.
I remember people's faces without difficulty but I am terrible with names.
Sometimes, smells or the touch of things will trigger memories in me.
In general, I have a fairly good memory. I use all my senses: visual, auditory (especially musical auditory... I remember songs almost forever), tactile, smell, taste...
As far as remembering things that are written down, I will remember things that I write. It is the act of writing that helps me to remember, even if I don't look at it again.
 

Pancreas

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Nov 8, 2008
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ISTP
I could easily have the most useless answer, because however my brain remembers things, a lot of it seems to be subconscious.

When I’m trying to go somewhere that I’ve been a few times before I just head in the right direction and use landmarks to help me. I don’t consciously try and remember landmarks the first time round, but my brain usually stores them away. If I start seeing landmarks I don’t recall, I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.

When I’m trying to find something I’ve misplaced I sort of mentally scan a logically ordered list of possible places they could be until I hit the right one and remember putting them there. Or I replay my actions in my mind of when I last had them.

I try and put specific items in a general area though. For instance I’ll either leave my keys in my bag or on my bedside draw. I’m terrible at leaving things in pockets though. Like money, tissues, keys, my phone.

I’m good with words. I can usually remember the spelling of a word I’ve seen once and can remember a couple of minutes of speech word for word if I find it interesting enough. I’m good at recognising faces and have usually associated the person’s name with them somehow.

I get so accustomed to remembering the sorts of things I mentioned above though, that it is rather frustrating and occasionally slightly unsettling to not remember something, and even more so to outright forget.
 
D

Dali

Guest
I remember phone numbers without problem because phone numbers always seem to have patterns. I remember them as number patterns...

I do the phone patterns too! Mobile phone numbers here are 10 digits and I remember them as a pattern of 3 digits, 3 digits, 4 digits. It then throws me when someone asks me about someone else's number and they recite it differently e.g. 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 digits. I have to take a few extra seconds to process it and sync it with my pattern before I can reply.

Mo
 

Pancreas

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Nov 8, 2008
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This phone number thing actually made me wonder how good everyone was at... well, I’m not sure what you’d call it.

When people say numbers I can remember them pretty well. In fact, depending on the length of the sequence I can usually get it in one shot (by using a pattern of 2-3 digits). But as soon as someone tries to spell something out for me out loud I have to slow them right down, get them to repeat it multiple times until I can picture it in my head and then consolidate it into a word. Otherwise I have a vague recollection of maybe one or two individual letters, not necessarily in any sort of order.
 

sarah

soft and silky
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Sep 3, 2008
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548
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Missed this thread earlier. I'm insanely absent-minded so I've had to develop a lot of OCD habits to function, lol


I do this -- I replay the "video" of my earlier actions, to tell if I've done something or not. This can backfre if it's a regular task though, since I sometimes "remember" doing it from an earlier day...

This was posted a while ago but for some reason I only read it now. I do this too, and I 'm not ADD either. I usually have trouble remembering boring details, and I have the same problem with not remembering when I've created the video snapshot in my mind of myself performing some action -- because unless I've made the video both memorable and related to the day's date or a certain time of day, that also can qualify as a boring detail, and get easily forgotten. :blink:

Wasn't it Keirsey that said that boredom was the enemy of SPs?

Sarah
 
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