Today I'd like to address a very serious subject that is (or would be if we could remember) on the minds Baby Boomers who survived the 60's without the help of recreational stimulants stronger than Coke (the kind that was sold at an old-fashioned soda fountain). Is it forgetfulness or brain farts (yes, it's a real thing) and how can we tell the difference?
Forgetfulness is defined as a persistent failure to remember. It results from changes in the brain and can be a normal part of aging or a symptom of another condition (brain farts maybe?) or disease. That's me in a nutshell. I can forget what I'm doing WHILE I'M DOING IT!
And for you kiddos under 40, a soda fountain was a place where you could sit on a stool at the local drug store and order food and drinks. One of the popular things my friends and I liked to order was something we called 'cherry on ice' which was cherry flavoring poured over a glass of crushed ice; the pre-cursor to sno-cones I wish we'd have been smart enough to think of. And maybe we would have if we hadn't been so preoccupied with boys and looking cute sitting at the counter drinking our pre-sno-cones. (See, I can remember some things.)
If any scientists happen to be looking for subjects to study on the effects of brain farts (and how we can tell the difference), give me a call. Please.
It can be so annoying when, right in the middle of a sentence, you forget what you were talking about, or you can't remember the name of the person you're talking to. I guess I inherited my mother's ability to never remember a name. Unfortunately, I can't remember faces either. It's a condition called prosopagnosia.
I decided to do some research on the subject, and by research, I mean trolling the Internet, for trivial bits of information to assure myself that I'm not losing ALL my marbles and that there are others like me out there, somewhere.
The following is attributed to Natalie Wolchover, a graduate of Tufts University (with some minor changes added by yours truly). The smart stuff is hers alone.
Do you ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind, to get something, perhaps, only to completely forget what you were going into the room for? I do way more than I'd like to admit to. When I can complete a task without having to return to the room numerous times until I finally remember what in the heck I was doing, I'm as proud as a kindergartener learning to tie her shoes.
Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses. (Think my family would buy that? That's my new excuse!)
According to Ms. Wolchover, psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what's known as an "event boundary" in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next, just as exiting through a doorway signals the end of a scene in a movie. Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale. I don't think my brain is that organized although it definitely tends to go blank a lot.
This may explain why I have such a lousy sense of direction:
When traversing the desert, a plain, a thick forest, or any terrains devoid of landmarks, apparently we tend to walk in circles. Experiments on blindfolded people show that lacking external reference points, we curve around in loops as tight as 66 feet in diameter, all the while believing we are walking in straight lines. Turns out, it isn't because one leg is longer or stronger than the other.
According to researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybergenetics in Germany, loopy paths follow from a walker's changing sense of "straight ahead." With every step, a small deviation arises in the brain's vestibular (balance-maintaining) system, or perhaps the proprioceptive (body awareness) system, and is added to the person's cognitive sense of what's straight. These deviations accumulate to send that individual veering around in ever tighter circles as time goes on. The little brain farts aren't allowed to accumulate when we can regularly recalibrate our sense of direction using a nearby building or mountain. (You know I didn't write this myself when you read highfalutin' words like proprioceptive, vestibular, or cybergenetics.)
Now I know what to blame it on when I'm driving down a very confusing (translation: any) interstate highway system where a dozen roads loop together combined with some very confusing signage that will send me hurtling off towards Canada – Brain Fart!