MEMORY LAPSES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 65, 11 December 1918, Page 7

MEMORY LAPSES

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN -YOU . FORGET.

One of the odd tilings about what we call loss of memory (writes Jfr. B V. Lucas, the well-known English author) is that it is.catching. How often when one person forgets n name well known to him does liis companion, to whom it is equally well known, forget it too. Why is that' o The other day I had an excellent example of this odd epidemic, ft was necessary for the name of a certain aclor —not a star, hut a- versatile repertory actor of. much distinction—to be recalled in order that a letter to him might quickly be dispatched. ] had forgotten his name, but I described him and hi 3 methods with sufficient accuracy for everyone (there were about six of' us) to recognise him. Some of us could even say in what part* we had seen him and compare notes as to his excellence, and yet his name absolutely eluded ono ami all. Why? We oil knew it; why did we unanimously fail to know it then? We parted intent upon obtaining this necessary information. On meeting again the next day ouch of us had it pat enough, and it had broken upon each, more or less suddenly, during the night. The great mystery to me is, Where aro the things one forgets, but suddenly will remember again 'iJiile one is forgetting them? Where are (hoy lurking? This problem of their whereabouts, their capacity to hide and elude, distresses me far more than my inability to call them from the vasty. <lecp of the brain. Or aro they, perhaps, not there at. all? Do they not, perhaps, havo evenings out, times off for lunch, and so forth, and thus wo sometimes miss them? Or can there perhaps bo • some vast extramural territory of the memory from which facts have to bo obtained—as if olio would consult reference books, ono must wait until the volumes can be secured? The fact that they always, or nearly always, return, sooner or later, rather supports these theories.