Dick Olney's Memory Triggering Experience
This
is Dick Olney, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His remarks were tape-recorded at
a memory triggering workshop at Ixtapa, Mexico, soon after he created a
memory map of his childhood.
"As soon as I got the idea . . . I was simply astounded. Here's a spot where I had a fist fight with a kid when I was eight years old, my first fight. Here's another where I watched my cousin, who was my idol, three years older than I, fighting with a kid who was much bigger than he was.
"Here's where I was walking home from school, age six, with my 12-year-old aunt; she was like my older sister, only six years older than I was. And when the snow started to fall, she caught a flake on her coat and looked at it very closely and told us that they were six-pointed and no two were ever alike, which was an incredible piece of learning for me.
"The memories are so vivid. I can see my young aunt with her normally pale face all glowing red and white. And the brilliant red of her wool coat. She had a coat that, well, I couldn't begin to describe it. I'm being carried away, as you can see. I'm right there, right this minute. And this was true of one thing after the other.
"The one and only time that I ever skipped grammar school, when I came home and expected to be welcomed by my mother -- I think with a sandwich or something -- instead she raised the devil with me.
"And when I had to wear a new green sweater that I despised. Because my mother had bought it for me and my father insisted that I wear it to school. And how I stood in the doorway of the school and wouldn't play with the kids because I was wearing this sweater. I can just go on and on.
"You see what's happening? Several hours after doing the map, just remembering what my map is like is still carrying me along.
"It's amazing. Even while I'm talking about this with you, I'm back there again, back in my childhood. It's really taking me back. It gave me a feeling of being surrounded by open air and sunshine even though I was sitting in this stuffy seminar room when we did it. It's like we're feeling here, in this hot humidity, and then feeling this breeze, and how good it feels. It has the same sense!"
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