The Mind's Greater Capacity

Recently I was reflecting on what felt like a supernatural experience, because of how remarkable it was, and was thinking deeper about how commonplace it actually is. It’s a matter of the mind and its greater capacity to process information than we realize.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you’ve been trying to remember something, for a while you can’t quite place it, and then all of a sudden it jumps into your mind? That happened to me in a crazy way.

I was going for a run, headphones on and in the zone, and as I ran past some people on the road I recognized somebody. It was my friend Matt, and he was with his wife and his six month son. It would’ve been great to say hi but they were in conversation with someone else, I was in the middle of pushing myself during a workout, and decided to keep on going.

I’d been at Matt’s house just a few weeks before, we had a great conversation, but for some reason I couldn’t remember his baby’s name. I could picture him… I could remember everything we discussed about him… But his name escaped me. 

I became fixated on trying to remember, thinking about it for minutes, and for whatever reason is just wouldn’t come to my mind.

Until I tried a different strategy. In my mind I made up a situation. I visualized that as I continued on my run I bumped into them again and this time stopped to say hello. I literally, in my mind, forced myself to have to say the boy’s name. In my visualization I committed to asking Matt “How’s baby ____ doing?”

But the crazy thing is… The moment I spoke it my mind figured out the answer. In my visualization I actually asked the question “How’s baby Adam doing?”

I have a theory as to why that worked. In the visualization I created a deeper necessity. There’s a social consequence to not remembering someone’s name, one that’s painful and that we as humans don’t willingly want. So in order to meet the need and avoid the pain of social embarrassment, my mind flipped into hyperdrive and recalled the information I couldn’t place before.

To me, this demonstrates how much information is encoded in our brains. Our mind’s capacity is greater than we can imagine. The limiting factor is our ability to use it, and apparently raising the stakes and cultivating necessity is a way to tap into that greater potential.

Having said all that, it’s not guaranteed an exercise like that will work for you. But it’s interesting to think about what’s possible, and what this story represents, isn’t it?

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