How to use your five senses to write a memoir or autobiography

Did you know that you can evoke memories with all your senses? Some studies have decreed that being right or left brain defines your personality. Other studies show that we use both hemispheres to solve problems.

According to Dr. Judi Hollis, a family therapist and psychologist, “Our creative and emotional right brain is much more influential. I always recommend less highbrow talk and instead more action and emotional exploration.”

No matter which side of the hemisphere your memories come from, just know that they are there waiting for you.

I have the perfect plan to recover memories. She closes her eyes and calls on your five senses in search of memories. I guarantee they will come! I’ve used this method in my workshops, and once my students tune in, they can’t stop their pens from going wild. A treasure trove of memories is waiting to spill over, and it’s hard to know where to stop.

This, then, is the easiest way to write a memoir of a certain moment in your life, or an autobiography that you can leave to your children. You are giving them a gift. When you ask the question: How did my parents and their parents deal with life? What made them the people they turned out to be? What made me the person that I am?

Try these exercises the next time you sit down to recall memories.

AUDIENCE: Use your ears to pick up sounds that can remind you of years gone by: favorite songs, expressions, poems. The haunting whistle of a train in the distance. Have you ever taken a trip on the train? Where? What was the occasion?

Think about listening to the radio when you were a child. What shows were favorites in your family? Do you remember lying on the carpet with your siblings listening to those radio shows? Was there a favorite baseball team you rooted for while watching the radio and listening to the announcer shout out exciting play-by-play action? Were your parents there? Did you have a sense of family?

VISION: Look for hidden items in old drawers or boxes; things you could have saved years ago. These treasures will awaken memories. Tickets to theaters, plays, ball games. Napkins or a box of matches from some long-forgotten first date. Who was she/he? Old photo albums. Scan them for people you know who you haven’t seen in years. Did they impact your life? What were they like? Where was the photo taken? Old photo albums are a link to your past.

PLAY: Find old clothes in the back of the closets; clothes in boxes stacked in the garage that you couldn’t part with. An old coat that belonged to your mother, father, or a child who moved away a long time ago. A mohair sweater that years ago you relegated to a back drawer. Touch them with your eyes closed. Feel the memories.

TASTE: The burger joint you found that reminds you of “the good old days”. The cherry coke you used to drink after school at the corner malt shop that has now returned to diners in a 1950s style. Think about who you hung out with, your favorite outfit, hairstyle, friends. What were your favorite songs you played on the jukebox while you were at the malthouse?

SMELL: This is a sense we could not do without. This is a tried and true source for bringing back memories. Animals live on it, humans take it for granted. However, without smell, the food would be tasteless. Imagine a world without the taste of food! What if there was a fire? You would have no warning without smell.

Now sit down at your computer or grab your yellow lined notepad. Close your eyes and breathe in slowly through your nose. Now think of your youth. Think about the wet grass early in the morning that you loved to run through barefoot. Inhale slowly through the nose. Think about how the dirt smelled after a good, heavy rain. Inhale again. Think about how bad your dog smelled after being caught in a good, heavy rain. Don’t inhale!

One thing about the sense of smell is that most people can associate some kind of memory with it. You hear it often: “Oh, what is that smell. It reminds me of when I was…”. The smell of our mother when she worked in the kitchen; Fried chicken, oven-roasted ham, scents that clung to her as she went about her chores. It smells like she was getting dressed to go out on the town with dad; the cologne enveloping her as she leaned in to kiss us goodnight. Comforting smells.

Then take those memories, one by one, and expose them to enhance your writing memories. Try to associate those memories with another memory. A sentence on the page can last ten more pages as you remember smell, taste, touch, sight and sound, all associated with moments in your life. All of these memories can be triggered by most of the senses, but are more easily retrieved by the sense of smell.

Try to remember what was happening in the world at the time you are writing about. What year was it? Open Wikipedia.org in your browser and type a year. Amazing what you can find if you try. Start with that year on your document. As you write, other memories from that time will bounce off those memories. More associations. Write down the month or season. If those memories take you to another year, start another page for that year.

When doing this, don’t be tempted to edit. Let your fingers fly and your memories flow. Inhale the scents. Write whatever comes to mind while you’re in that old room with your family. Don’t stop until you run out of thoughts.

When you return to your story, whether it’s a day later or a week later, go back to those memories and inhale. More will come. As the years pass in your document, you will remember more: your classroom; the smell of chalk, the smell of sweaty children after recess. You will remember the children you played with; the bullies, the friends. Write it. All these memories are what made you who you are. They should be included so that you know what made you the person you are. Your children need to know this.

Soak in the smell: your college dorm, stale beer, dirty socks, and cigarettes. Or dances, dates with cute boys, and corsages that smelled like lavender and gardenias. Memories will flood one after another. You will be surprised how easy it is to bring back memories from your sense of smell.

Give it a try and let me know how it worked!