I Forgot My Own Phone Number
It happened at a doctor’s office. The receptionist asked for my number, and I drew a complete blank. Not a brief pause, a genuine, embarrassing void. I stood there, mouth open, scrolling through my own mind like a search engine returning zero results.
That incident, minor as it was, sent me down a path. I was in my thirties. My memory wasn’t supposed to be failing already. I tried memory apps, flashcard systems, mnemonic techniques. Some helped marginally. None addressed what I was starting to suspect was the real issue: I’d been telling myself for years that I had a “bad memory,” and my subconscious had taken me at my word.
That suspicion led me back to Joseph Murphy, and specifically to what he wrote about memory as a function of the subconscious mind.
Murphy’s View: Nothing Is Ever Truly Forgotten
Murphy’s position on memory was clear and, when I first read it, almost unbelievable. He argued that the subconscious mind records everything, every experience, every conversation, every page you’ve ever read. The problem is never storage. The problem is retrieval.
“Your subconscious mind has a perfect memory. It retains everything you have ever thought, seen, or heard. The difficulty is not in the recording but in the recall. Your conscious mind must learn to call upon the treasure-house of memory within you.” – Joseph Murphy (1963), Chapter 14
This framing changed everything for me. I wasn’t dealing with a faulty hard drive. I was dealing with a faulty search function, and that search function was being sabotaged by my own beliefs about my memory.
Every time I said “I’m terrible with names” or “I can never remember dates,” I was giving my subconscious a direct command. And the subconscious, which Murphy described as impersonal and obedient, followed that command faithfully. It made the information harder to access because I’d told it, essentially, that accessing information wasn’t something I could do.
The Belief Layer Beneath the Technique
This is where Murphy’s approach diverges from conventional memory improvement methods. Most memory systems work at the conscious level, they give you techniques for encoding information more effectively. Method of loci, chunking, spaced repetition. These are all valuable, and I still use some of them.
But Murphy pointed to something underneath the technique: the belief. If you employ the finest mnemonic system in the world while holding the deep conviction that your memory is poor, you’ll get inconsistent results at best. The subconscious belief will undermine the conscious effort.
I recognized this pattern in myself immediately. I’d learn a memory technique, use it successfully a few times, then “mysteriously” forget to use it or find it stopped working. It wasn’t mysterious at all. My subconscious was faithfully executing the program I’d installed: “I have a bad memory.”
How Murphy Said to Reprogram Memory
Murphy’s prescription was, as usual, built on the principle of subconscious impression through feeling. He recommended a two-part approach.
First, stop making negative declarations about your memory. Every casual “I’m so forgetful” reinforces the pattern. This sounds simple, but I found it remarkably challenging. I had no idea how often I made these statements, to friends, to coworkers, to myself in internal dialogue. Once I started paying attention, I caught myself doing it several times a day.
Second, replace those declarations with their opposite, delivered in the drowsy state before sleep. Murphy suggested affirming something like: “My memory is perfect. My subconscious mind stores and retrieves information effortlessly. I remember everything I need, when I need it.”
“The subconscious mind is amenable to suggestion. As previously pointed out, the subconscious mind does not engage in proving whether your thoughts are good or bad, true or false, but it responds according to the nature of your thoughts or suggestions.” – Joseph Murphy (1963), Chapter 4
The subconscious doesn’t evaluate truth. It accepts what’s impressed upon it with conviction and feeling, then works to make it real. If you tell it your memory is sharp, it will begin facilitating sharper recall. Not because it’s magical, but because it stops blocking what was always there.
What I Actually Did
I committed to a thirty-day experiment. Every night before sleep, in that relaxed, drowsy state Murphy emphasized, I repeated: “I have an excellent memory. Information comes to me easily and clearly whenever I need it.” I said it slowly, with feeling, letting each word settle.
During the day, I caught and corrected every negative memory statement. “I can’t remember” became “It’ll come to me.” “I’m terrible with names” became silence, I just stopped saying it. When I forgot something, instead of catastrophizing, I relaxed and trusted that the information would surface. More often than I expected, it did.
By week two, I noticed changes. Names were sticking better after first introduction. I was recalling details from books I’d read months prior. Small things, a statistic, a specific phrase, a person’s hometown, would pop into awareness unprompted, as if my subconscious was showing off.
By week four, the receptionist at the same doctor’s office asked for my number, and I rattled it off without thinking. A small victory, but it felt like evidence.
A Practice for Improving Your Memory
Here’s the exercise I’d recommend, based on Murphy’s principles and my own experience with them.
For the next twenty-one days, the period Murphy often suggested for establishing a new subconscious pattern, do the following:
Each night, as you’re falling asleep, repeat this phrase with quiet conviction: “My subconscious mind has a perfect memory. I recall everything I need with ease and clarity.” Say it five to ten times, slowly, letting the feeling of confidence in your memory build with each repetition. Don’t rush. Let yourself feel what it would be like to have flawless recall, the ease of it, the reliability of it.
During the day, refuse to make any negative statement about your memory, whether aloud or in internal dialogue. When you forget something, simply pause, relax, and say internally, “It will come to me.” Then move on. Don’t strain for it. Straining activates the conscious mind and blocks the subconscious retrieval process.
Also, and this was my own addition to Murphy’s framework, when you do remember something, take a moment to notice it. “There it is. My memory works well.” This reinforces the new program. Most of us ignore our successful recalls and fixate on our failures, which is exactly backward if we’re trying to build a new self-image around memory.
The Deeper Lesson
What this experience taught me goes beyond memory improvement. It taught me how casually and constantly I program my own subconscious with offhand statements about who I am and what I can do. “I’m not a morning person.” “I’m terrible at math.” “I always get sick in winter.” Each of these is a command, delivered to a mind that doesn’t question, it only obeys.
Murphy was relentless about this point, and I’ve come to see why. We spend enormous energy trying to change our circumstances while continuously reinforcing the very beliefs that created those circumstances. It’s like trying to drive forward with the parking brake on and wondering why the car won’t move.
Your Memory Isn’t Broken
If you’ve spent years believing you have a poor memory, I want to offer you the same reframe Murphy offered me: your memory is fine. It’s been fine all along. What’s been impaired is your belief about it, and beliefs can be changed. Not overnight, necessarily, but steadily, through the nightly practice of impressing a new idea on the subconscious mind. The storehouse is full. You just need to update the search function.
