by Kim Pederson…….

You may have noticed (I certainly have) that doorways have a pernicious ability to cause short-term memory loss. You’re sitting at your desk or lounging on the back deck reading a book when suddenly you stand up, stride with great purpose into the next room, and, after three steps (it’s always three for me), stop short in blank bewilderment. “Self?” you ask yourself, “Why the [expletive of choice] did I come in here?”

You may be relieved (or dismayed) to learn that a term exists for this behavior: the Door Effect (or DE). I know this now thanks to my wife Kalo, who sent me a link to a BBC Future article that asks, “Why Does Walking through Doorways Make Us Forget?” written by Tom Stafford. Stafford notes that “as we move through our days our attention shifts between…levels–from our goals and ambitions, to plans and strategies, and to the lowest levels, our concrete actions.” This movement allows us (or at least some people) to carry out complex behaviors. The DE occurs when our attention moves between levels. Here’s the example Stafford offers.

Imagine that we’re going upstairs to get our keys and forget that it is the keys we came for as soon as we enter the bedroom. Psychologically, what has happened is that the plan (“Keys!”) has been forgotten even in the middle of implementing a necessary part of the strategy (“Go to bedroom!”).

Probably the plan itself is part of a larger plan (“Get ready to leave the house!”), which is part of plans on a wider and wider scale (“Go to work!,” “Keep my job!,” “Be a productive and responsible citizen,” or whatever). Each scale requires attention at some point.

Somewhere in navigating this complex hierarchy the need for keys popped into mind, and like a circus performer setting plates spinning on poles, your attention focused on it long enough to construct a plan, but then moved on to the next plate (this time, either walking to the bedroom, or wondering who left their clothes on the stairs again, or what you’re going to do when you get to work or one of a million other things that it takes to build a life).

He then sums the experience up this way:

The Doorway Effect occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things. That hastily thought up goal, which was probably only one plate among the many we’re trying to spin, gets forgotten when the context changes.

Thanks, Tom. I appreciate the explanation. It makes perfect sense. In fact, it may be too perfect and too complex. I have a different, simpler idea (simpler is always good for me). In The Twilight Zone episode called “The World Next Door,” a character named Barney experiences a strange feeling of living in two worlds instead of one. He falls asleep on the train to work and seems to wake up in an alternate time and place, which disappears when he really wakes up. Later at home, he is cleaning the basement and discovers a bolted door behind a bookcase. He opens it and finds another door behind it. He opens that one and finds himself in a basement just like his and another Barney who’s having the same dreams he is having.

So here’s my theory. There are multiple universes out there that mirror the one we live in. Every so often, say, the door to the hall from my study aligns exactly with the door to a parallel hallway. As soon as I step through it, I’m in a place where the reason for my stepping through the door no longer exists and hence I can’t remember why I stepped through the door. When the door realigns back to my hallway, I remember. I call this the Dooropler Effect. There’s no need to go into the math here (as if I could). Just remember. If you experience a sudden loss of purpose, just wait a bit. The imminent return of szyzgy to your space-time continuum should bring you right back to your senses. No promises, however.

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Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings.

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