: How do we forget something easily even if we try to remember it as hard as we can, but the same thing comes to our mind when we are not even thinking about it?

Question

: How do we forget something easily even if we try to remember it as hard as we can, but the same thing comes to our mind when we are not even thinking about it?

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Answer 1

Psych major here.

Your mind isn’t organised in the systematic way that we usually organise things, like by clear categories, alphabetically, by size, etc.

It organises itself by association to other things, so the only way to find the memory is to trace the string of associations. When we deliberately try to remember something, we use strategies that we’re used to, but it’s not necessarily the way the brain actually organises it.

But when we go about your day normally, our brain does things by association naturally, and might just remember it. Also, your brain probably will just encounter it by chance and it just seems significant to you only because you tried to retrieve out recently. You probably remember a lot of things you didn’t find significant as well.

Here’s the ELI5:

You’re trying to find a needle in a haystack. You start doing so by systematically inspecting the straws one at a time but you eventually give up because you can’t find the needle.

Later that day, you’re going about your work and you step on the haystack and find the needle in your foot.