I'm interested in the subject of memory, how it works, how it doesn't, and why. I'm intrigued and fascinated by the subject of brain power or brain fitness.

There's a process in writing workshops that I've worked with many times-that of stream of consciousness writing. To begin anywhere at all, choosing a subject based in reality or fiction and then without censorship writing writing writing. I believe the idea is to allow yourself to write without thinking and certainly without regard for consequences, the goal to ignite the creative process.

I think that there's something else that occurs through this process as well. Mind power is so powerful and, in my opinion, only fractionally understood. When I have begun with something based upon a memory of something in my own life, there is an unfolding, an opening of windows through which other memories are awakened or brought to the fore. It's an inspiring process.

I have been suspect of memory in the past, realizing that there is a questionable truth in memory and very often a great deal of foggy crossover between what may be an authentic memory, what may be a learned or interpretation over time memory, and what is an adopted memory or someone else's recollection of an event that has become my memory.

The fascination I have with all this at the moment is that there appear blocks of my life about which I have very little memory and I want to regain what I appear to have involuntarily lost.

I heard on a radio program recently of a geriatric therapy or maybe it was just an activity-I can't clearly recall-wherein elderly folk were asked to write something about a memory they had from a random time in their lives. Those interviewed spoke of how the exercise was stimulating and interesting as they would take turns sharing what they'd written with the other participants, often learning something previously unknown about their partner, friend, or associate.

More interestingly, some participants spoke of their own surprise [pleasant and sometimes not so] when the exercise awakened forgotten memories and experiences.

Opening windows. Remembering. Somewhere in the many compartments of our complicated and unique minds, there is stored everything we've ever seen, felt, tasted, thought....we only need awaken the sleeping keepers of the key.

Learn more about this author, Fhaedra Wright.
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