06/22/2026
MONDAY MUSINGS
Did you ever wonder what the heck you were going to the other room for? Just the other day I was standing in the kitchen and I thought that I wanted to Google information on memory. When I walked into my office (very short walk; I live in a small house), I totally forgot what it was that I wanted to Google
Don’t be alarmed. It’s pretty common and doesn’t prove you are sliding into dementia. It’s a real thing, referred to as the “Doorway Effect.”
So why does it happen? There’s been research on this which suggests that the brain tends to store memories in distinct “event modes” coupled to specific locations. When you cross a threshold (literally), you change both physical and mental environments. Your brain then updates, according to the new surroundings. In order to make room for this new data, it has to file away the thoughts you had in the previous room.
Although common, the more distracted or overloaded your mind is, the more likely it can happen. Fear not. There is something that can help in those situations. When you have the thought, speak it out loud or visualize what you are planning on doing. I can’t visualize, so sometimes I write it down.
Another thing like the Doorway Effect is what’s called the Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon (TOT) The fancy word for it is Lethologica. This is when you suddenly can’t remember a word, name, etc, but you just feel that you’ll remember it any second. That happened to me and my brother recently. We couldn’t seem to remember the name of the star of the movie One Flew Over the Cucoo’s Nest.
At times like these, you might remember the first letter of the word, person, or what it means. Psycholinguists (no, not insane talkers) believe that trying to remember something comes in stages: you remember the meaning, then remember the sound. A TOT situation happens when you temporarily fail to connect the meaning to the sound.
It turns out that quite often the harder you try to remember the word, the harder it is to actually remember it. The advice is to stop trying. Focus on something else. Give it time. But I didn’t have that advice in my memory banks, so I mentally went through the alphabet thinking of “male” names and I got it! Guess you could say I hit the Jackpot.
Love ya,
Bodhi Mom
