Occasionally young men from the local university come to
see me, as well as schoolteachers, who often seem to suffer from
suggestive amnesia at examinations. The complaint is always
the same: “I know the answers after the examination is over,
but I can’t remember the answers during the examination.”
The idea which realizes itself, is the one to which we
invariably give concentrated attention. I find that each one is
obsessed with the idea of failure. Fear is behind the temporary
amnesia, and it is the cause of the whole experience. One young medical student was the most brilliant person
in his class, yet he found himself failing to answer simple
questions explained at the time of written or oral examinations. I
to him that the reason was he had been worrying
and was fearful for several days previous to the examination.
These negative thoughts became charged with fear.
Thoughts enveloped in the powerful emotion of fear are
realized in the subconscious mind. In other words, this young
man was requesting his subconscious mind to see to it that
he failed, and that is exactly what it did. On the day of the
examination he found himself stricken with what is called, in
psychological circles, suggestive amnesia.