The Event Boundary: No, It Isn't Sci-Fi, Just Doorways & A Stupid Brain Thing.
Can we talk about the name of this syndrome for a moment? The event boundary... how fucking badass is that? That's the name of my band, when I learn how to play an instrument.
I've always heard of this mental phenomena referred to as the doorway syndrome (lame) or the door jamb syndrome (sounds more like a fear of fruity bread spread). Seriously, search for just "the Event Boundary" and its all about fucking doorways and how walking through them makes our brain go full retard.
Now, let's talk about the actual thing, the doorway thing, not the name thing.... thing (thing). This topic came to mind today as I left my keys in a different area of the house than I normally do and as I stared at the gold bowl on the table in the living room, I remembered where I left it. So, I walked into that room, instantly forgot why I was in that room, left to go to work, couldn't lock the door, cursed, and then went to get the keys. I have a problem with keys apparently, which is why I made a normal place for them to go, that I don't use.
I know that this is a common human occurrence, a weird sort of adaptive behavior the human brain evolved from the hunter & gatherer days that simply hasn't evolved again since we created that art of living inside of a large stuff filled wood/gypsum box. It is amazing how many of our "evolved" instincts work against us so heavily in modern society. Other examples of this include our tribal mentalities, our focus on negative events, predatory behavior, dick pics. All occur due to outdated natural instincts that simply don't translate into modern living.
There has been quite a few studies on the mind wiping ability of doorways, the most often discussed one being the study done at the University of Notre Dame. In this study they used a crude video game to study how weak our minds are to passing from one location to another. That's right, they used a video game in a scientific study, and it is considered legit. Video games are awesome, suck it... baby boomers? (I'm not sure who the enemy is in that scenario anymore, so I'll just go with the one that wont be here much longer).
What's interesting about that particular study is that regardless if the doorway was passed through in the real world or in a virtual world, the effect it had on our memory was the same. Fucking hell! We don't even have to really go through a doorway, our brains get fucked by even the idea of a doorway. Thoughts are, like, powerful... man.
The reason we seem to forget this stuff is part of the survival instinct that requires us to constantly be aware of what is in front of us. It isn't important right at this second to keep in mind what was in the area we left, but to keep in mind what is in the area we are currently located in. Back in the old days, it would often be quite a bit of walking before we got to a "new area" and not just a few feet of hallway.
Not saying that our brain isn't still doing this because it is slow to adapt, there is just more comedy to thinking that it is. Maybe most of the time the memory purge is fine and we only notice when the status quo fails us, because it simply isn't important to remember when it succeeds. If we did, then it failed.
The past isn't as important as the present or the future, it simply isn't, and our brain knows this. Sort of... I mean if it really knew that, we wouldn't need therapy to work on past trauma, we'd simply walk through a doorway.
The discovery of the event boundary (so badass) is a great thing, because at least we can remind ourselves that our memory isn't slipping because of the inevitability of age related memory loss, it was caused by a natural brain purging instinct activated by a doorway. You can even tell yourself that when your memory is slipping due to age related memory loss, because denial is a great way to feel better about yourself.
