Please forgive me for breaking my promise to write a follow up on the brain post I did last Friday. But during the weekend I came to realize how extremely important and powerful associations are. Our mind is built all around associations, nothing is ever separated or placed outside anything else, it’s all connected.

Let me explain. Whenever we make new memories it’s done through association. The new memory will be connected to something that has happened before. An experience will build on a previous experience. No, they don’t always have to be related to a similar item. A memory or an experience can be related to an emotion, or habit, pretty much anything really.

You see, when our mind processes input it will generate new neural pathways, or experience patterns if you like. But one such segment is never completely separated from surrounding networks. This is how associations comes into play. Have you ever experienced how you think of something and then suddenly something completely unrelated pops up? I certainly have.

The reason for this is that whenever we try and dig up a memory from our mind, we can’t always completely isolate this one particular memory, experience or emotion. What happens is what when each neuron processes the signals from surrounding neurons they will only continue to fire if they reach a certain threshold. When this happens it can create a domino effect which will result in the triggering of a new network. Hence the “random” experience.

Making use of the Associative Power

What's your association? (uncleBE/deviantART)

Now it wouldn’t make much of a blogpost if I didn’t give you some ways to try and utilize this new found knowledge, right? Understanding that our brain works through use of associations we can make some powerful changes to our habits, routines or even completely rewire our history. Remembering stuff, that’s a good one. We all want to remember that thing we mustn’t forget, right? But, we generally forget it anyway.

The key is to utilize the brain for how it is inherently constructed. My first little experiment was carried out while reading a book. I used to keep a little slip of paper between the pages in order to keep track of where I in the book I should continue reading. So, I thought about removing this paper and instead try and remember which page I was on, and what line.

Making the association between the page, line and a couple of random things will make it much, much easier to recall them. Before closing the book, and let’s say I was on page 66. I said to myself, devil brother. You know, 666, all this devil related stuff (I know that it’s really not, but work with me here). I kept repeating that to myself a couple of times.

Recalling the pages were done in an instant without problems (obviously not immediately after, that wouldn’t really be a challenge!). I continued doing it through out the day, each time with a new type of association. Sometimes it took me a little while to remember, but usually through my seemingly random associations I could still recall the page and line.

I think a key to remember here is not to consider the numbers as numerical objects, but rather two, or even one object. Don’t try and remember the page numbers, try and remember the association or the shape and it will come to you.

Disassociation and reprogrammable brain

Associations could also be used as a sort of conditioning. Fear of dogs? The fear is just an association you made during a traumatic encounter with this devil dog. Each time you see a dog, this association is brought forward and reinforced. Neural networks become stronger the more they are used, which means that your fear of dogs will keep on increasing. (Now sometimes fear of dogs may be valid. Should you come across a real devil dog, with horns and fangs… you might want to stay clear!)

When you realize that fear in itself has no meaning you have the power to disassociate it from the experience, or object. It’s only when connected to an experience or memory that it is given meaning. You create an association between two logically separated objects. Understand that the fear can be replaced with anything you desire. Compassion, happiness or even laughter, you choose.

This is powerful stuff. The brain is completely reprogrammable and dynamic. It keeps changing all the time. And this is happening each second, each hour of the day. What’s association would you like to change?

/ Christoffer