TED says of speaker and writer Joshua Foer, “In 2005 science writer Joshua Foer went to cover the U.S. Memory Championship. A year later he was back — as contestant. A year of mental training with Europe’s top memorizer turned into a book, Moonwalking with Einstein, which is both a chronicle of his immersion in the memory culture and wonderfully accessible and informative introduction to the science of memory. Much more surprisingly, that year of training also turned into a first-place victory at the national competition in New York and the chance to represent the U.S. at the World Memory Championship. Foer’s writing has appeared in National Geographic, Slate, the New York Times, and other publications. He is the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura, an online guide to the world’s wonders and curiosities, and is also the co-founder of the design competition Sukkah City.”

Joshua says, “Our lives are the sum of our memories…”

I have said this many times about the memory loss associated with dementia, and find it provocative to hear from someone without dementia related memory loss. When I was young, my memory was incredible, photographic almost, and it seemed to be innate.  Joshua discusses this, stating his research shows it is not innate, but happens because we have learned to pay attention, and the information we are remembering easily means something to us. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and realise when I was young, I did concentrate and focus on virtually everything around me and at school, and remembering things also meant a lot to me. Watch this TED talk, and see if you can become excited about transforming your own memory. I’m not sure if having dementia makes this possible, as I have tried all sorts of memory training games and activities, but it has excited me, and also motivated me to buy his book, and start learning about how memory works, and to try to re-train my own memory.