As I was walking toward my locker at the gym I checked my pocket for the little card with the locker combination written on it. It wasn’t there. In a panic I tried to recall the combination. It was just 30 minutes ago that I had that combination in my head. But I couldn’t remember it. So I searched all of my pockets and finally felt the card in my back pocket. Panic over, I left the card in my pocket and kept walking, my mind quickly wandering to some random topic.
When I reached the locker, without thinking I opened it from memory without looking at the card.
I often have that sense that trying too hard makes it hard to remember something. There is even a physical feeling that comes with it. It’s like the brain seizes up and gets locked into a certain part of memory storage with no way of retracing steps back to neutral and starting the search over. After enough experience with this I sometimes notice the potential for panic before starting to search intensively for a memory that feels like its going to be hard to find. You have to pretend like you don’t really have something to remember. And most of all you have to make sure not to think of the thing that you are trying to remember because you know that if you do, the search will start by itself and get stuck. If you can do a little Zen breathing for a minute and let that feeling pass over, then you can safely start to think about it and recover the memory with ease.
At least that’s how I imagine it would work.
Cheap Talk 
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November 16, 2010 at 7:54 am
Steve
I experience this all the time with piano music.
Quite frequently I will be playing a piece from memory and find that I have forgetten a sectionof it. Rather than root out the music, I find that if I play it through again when I get to the problem section my fingers find the correct cord about half the time. Occassionally it takes a few attempts and always I have to be very careful not to think hard about it, to the extent that a few bars before the section I have forgotten I force myself to think about or concentrate on something else.
Even after playing it through correctly using this method I cannot recall the notes from memory without playing it through again…
November 17, 2010 at 11:31 am
Jay
This is due to a conscious thought of recalling the details. Mind becomes more involved in process of trying to remember than the actual task at the hand. For example, opening locker is primary function and recalling the combination is secondary task that mind has to do subconsciously, which would happen normally if everything is good. But the moment a realization that card is lost triggers another chain of thoughts and what would be normally done subconsciously becomes the primary task and fear of forgetting makes one actually forget by self proclaimed prophecy. It’s like telling some one not to think of monkey before going to bed will make him see monkeys in his dreams. So to overcome this tendency of mind, Zen suggests No Mind. ‘No Mind’ is effectively applied in martial arts, archery and numerous other Zen arts. In fact it can be applied to any art I believe.
November 18, 2010 at 11:01 am
Kelly
Along the same lines perhaps- if I have to remember I phone number to redial it momentarily, I tell someone to remember three or four of the digits, but by telling them I end up recalling them anyway. However, if I try to memorize the entire number myself I simply cannot remember. The brain is a funny thing isn’t it.