Don't you wish our brains had a memory erase button?

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
Well i was wondering if anyone else is living with this issue in some or other form. In my view its a mental health issue but heck i have no idea what triggers it.

For some weeks now for a guy that sleeps like a log, i have been waking at the oddest times in the night and then reliving specific past period of life.

Just so happens this has been the time when we got drafted back in SA.

I cannot stand it, I don't seem to be able to shut it off either and i don't have any "skeletons in my cupboard" either. But man last night i was going through the whole motion of the day we (myself and two friends) got driven down to the station where we were told to muster and boarded a train to be taken off to a military base for training and onward all the way through 18 months. When i say detail I recalled the sandwiches we were given in brown paper bags before embarking. :rofl: And that is only a small part of the stuff going through my head. The thing that gets me is the incredible detail with which i can recall it all. I mean down to each piece of kit we were issued and the stores running out of my size shirt and having to wear what was called then a bush jacket for weeks on end in place of a shirt.

Here i am battling to remember important things I need to when i need to, yet this "crap" excuse the french of no value to me, i can recall as if it happened yesterday in such darn visual detail i cannot believe it. I tried the "watch tv to change the topic in my head" stunt but it has not worked. Once morning comes and i get on with my routine I have no issues. And no i am not dreaming when i do this i am wide awake.


My Dad used to do a lot of reminiscing about his time in the Navy but for him i always felt i could understand the reasons why, it was the bulk and best part of his youth and a most important part of his life. NOT so for me. I was neither for nor against, i tried to make the most of it and had a positive attitude towards making the most of it and did. I don't persistently talk to my kids about it.

So any of you have any ideas what causes this.

If only we had an erase button where we could simply wipe the hard drive clean and move on.

Are we programmed to relive our entire life in ever increasing detail as we get older? Can anyone else relate to this?
 
I often lie awake at nmight remembering every stupid thing I've done from high school onwards. I haven't found much that can shut the voices up. I have had some success with counting my breaths with great concentration, and the old jedi mind trick of trying to empty your mind completely. Sometimes it helps. If it gets really bad, I can get my doctor to prescribe sleeping pills.
 
I guess I'm a little luck here... I have few memories of my childhood, youth or military experience.... ever so often something might happen that will trigger a memory, but for the most part, not much remembered. I've never been one to live much in the past anyway.
 
When things from the past come to the surface as you describe, I'll let them linger for a moment maybe. Then, I apply a simple adage: You can't change history, but you sure don't have to repeat it! Next, I go back to memories of the first girl I ever 'really' kissed. Then, I go back to sleep. :zzz:
 
Yeah, I go through the remembering thing also. Sometimes keeping me awake. It is called anxiety and there are helps for that sort of stuff. There is no shame in talking to the doctor and taking meds for it. Trust me - that stuff helps and it does NOT turn you into a walking zombie. I also like going for walks alone and in solitude - NO headphones.
 
My best strategy is to start noodling details on some new project then I can lay awake all night thinking about that instead.
\

That's exactly my strategy. If I have a project (NOT work related) I'm working on, I find thinking through the details of 'how' to do it helps relax me and take my mind off whatever else is going on.
 
I think this is old age creeping up on you. Did the same thing and haven't been able to shut it off.
Did have trouble with lots of wake ups and bad snoring ( how the wife tolerated me I don't know). One friend
who I fished with called her a saint.
Anyway had sleep study done and discovered I had sleep
apenia. Now sleep with breathing mask. No snoring and sleep
through the night. Sometimes nature calls but not as frequently as the past.
Just a thought do get it checked.

David
 
Rob i understand thats normal after a major surgery. I had the same problem. So Doc gave me a great sleeping pill. It last only 8 hrs. I'm a light sleeper and i can sleep through a trsin wreck on them. Wake up refreshed and non drowsy.
 
Anyway had sleep study done and discovered I had sleep apenia. Now sleep with breathing mask. No snoring and sleep through the night.

All joking aside, a sleep study is worth looking into. I was having some of the same now that I think back, I was lucky to get in 4 or 5 hours max a night; and days that I did sleep in, could sleep 10 hours and still not feel rested. The machine took some getting used to, but I can put it on and wake up pretty refreshed, I really notice when I fall asleep without it.
 
One of the side effects of 2 hours a day in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber is solid sleep. Used to be hard to sleep longer than 2 hours. Now I can go 6 hours without getting up to pee. Amazing! Also feel much more rested. I learned in the hospital that I had developed a pitifully shallow breathing habit, especially at night. Os saturation levels were low enough to sound of alarms and make nurses run to me room. In rehab, I had to learn how to breathe more deeply. Got my own O2 meter (<$20). Learned to breath my way to at least 96%. They supplemented me with breathing treatments which I hated. I also hated the 02 hose. Alternative? Learned to breathe decently.

Rob, seriously, get some medical attention here. There is more going on than detailed recalls. Best you learn what and quickly. Heart attack and stroke are possibilities I am told. If you woud miss me here, please believe we would miss you here as well.
 
One of the side effects of 2 hours a day in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber is solid sleep. Used to be hard to sleep longer than 2 hours. Now I can go 6 hours without getting up to pee. Amazing! Also feel much more rested. I learned in the hospital that I had developed a pitifully shallow breathing habit, especially at night. Os saturation levels were low enough to sound of alarms and make nurses run to me room. In rehab, I had to learn how to breathe more deeply. Got my own O2 meter (<$20). Learned to breath my way to at least 96%. They supplemented me with breathing treatments which I hated. I also hated the 02 hose. Alternative? Learned to breathe decently.

Rob, seriously, get some medical attention here. There is more going on than detailed recalls. Best you learn what and quickly. Heart attack and stroke are possibilities I am told. If you woud miss me here, please believe we would miss you here as well.

I'm going to order one of those meters, I was told I was the same way according to my sleep study. I was pausing so long between breaths that my O2 drops way off, good to know I can retrain myself. :thumb:
 
we can thank ben franklin for this bit of advice on a good night's sleep:

1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake) less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bedclothes receive it longer before they are saturated, and we may therefore sleep longer before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more.

2. By using thinner and more porous bedclothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable.

3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bedclothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the mean while, continuing undressed, walk about your chamber till your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be dryer and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented to your fancy will be, too, of a pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may, instead of it, lift up your bedclothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and by letting them fall force it out again. This, repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterward. But this latter method is not equal to the former.

Those who do not love trouble and can afford to have two beds will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds would also be of great service to persons ill of a fever, as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet may in a degree answer the same end.

One or two observations more will conclude this little piece. Care must be taken, when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to suit your manner of placing your head and to be perfectly easy; then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one another, as, for instance, the joints of your ankles; for though a bad position may at first give but little pain and be hardly noticed, yet a continuance will render it less tolerable, and the uneasiness may come on while you are asleep and disturb your imagination. These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend; but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things,

A GOOD CONSCIENCE.
 
Thanks for all the input and suggestions I will look into a few of them I think though what has been on my mind is this house we in and the housing market in Canada in the area we living in.

3 years ago now i made the decision ( I dont regret it, my brain determined i was right which was good enough for me) to get out of the local property market. As many of you will know i had issues with my NN but beside them, i felt at the time that a real estate bubble was due to collapse. So we made the decision to rent for a while and watch from the sidelines. Well now the property owners have an issue which has forced them to put the house we in up for sale. Typically closings here are 60days and both parties have 60 days notice in our lease that has expired in terms of term. So we now up for another move, something neither Linda and I like doing.

But we believe the property market is still way over heated in fact its worse than when we got out 3 years ago. This puts us in no mans land. Add to this the Canadian dollar is 30% lower against the US dollar and foreign buyers have a discount on local property and have been instrumental in driving prices to frankly stupid heights. Even the local CMHC (Canadian government housing corporation) has been warning of serious trouble in the greater Toronto market but it has not yet resulted in any cooling off.
When the US Fed raises interest rates we going to have to follow suite or our dollar will tank further and that has even more serious consequences given how much of our food is imported. This is then going to have a knock on effect on house prices because mortgage rates will finally start to move up and then the fun will start when over stretched people have under water mortgages.

So we were tempted when the landlord told us of their plans to get back into our own home. We have never been tenants and dont enjoy the lack of freedom as you well know the garage power issues i have limiting what i can do in the shop.

But common sense and my own business brain is telling me we got to be patient and sit tight until this bubble bursts. We also got our son who needs a base in this local market with 2 more years to go in University so we cannot yet move to the country which is what we have in mind for the long run.

So this is driving me crazy and fundamentally there is nothing one can do about it except swallow hard and man up to taking another lease on another place.

We nearly popped for a place in the country a couple of weeks back. It was one of these "too good to be true" listings. So we went an took a look. Sure enough a good old bait and switch. Did not take us long to be in and out of the place.

Was the perfect place for us if it had been what the pictures (taken i dont know how many years prior when the place was in its prime) said it was.

1.5 acre country property , log cabin from milled logs (Pan Abode) raised on concrete foundation (so with basement) and a shop fully wired even for welding 20 x20 .

But it was a disaster and the property itself was a nightmare for this part of the world when one considered things like snow and spring melt etc.

Luckily it was in this state because i think we would have paid too much for it.

Last time this market had a bubble burst back in the 80's it took 25 to 40 % off the market price of houses and it took 10 years for the price to recover.

When you have real estate agents that have 30 plus years in the business telling you they think people are crazy paying the prices they are , then its time to be seriously concerned.

NONE of this is fun.

The landlord offered us first bite at the place we in but i aint paying $725 000 for a piece of land the size of a postage stamp with a house on it that should be torn down. Just to rebuild a house at even more expense. So that gives you some idea of the crazy situation we find ourselves in.

I think this has been disrupting my peaceful sleep patterns.:rofl:


But as the saying goes " this too shall pass" we have been through worse than this so we will just take it in our stride. One thing though i will find a place and move before end of November. I am not waiting to move in the middle of January or Feb can you imagine that. Digging out garden furniture from under snow. :eek:
 
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