SENSE Memory: On the Stage and in Real Life

It's interesting what many other things drama directors or acting coaches are doing these days. Their services have been recently in demand among quite unlikely clients. Many service companies and wellness clinics have discovered that acting lessons help improve the work performance and customer-relations skills of their employees.

Politicians also contract directors to help "package" them at election time. A few years ago, I giggled in amusement when a friend called me and asked, "Will you be my acting coach?" This was a guy who you'd think didn't have a single actor's bone in him. He was running for a congressional seat in Mindanao and wanted me to help him embody his sincere intention for public service.

In this poker-face generation of ours, it sometimes takes special effort and skill to let our true character show. This is especially true with people in life endeavors that require them to appear hardy and impersonal in order to succeed. The social masks we wear eventually become our image, drowning our true identity. This was exactly the case of my politician friend.

The other weekend, I was hired by a human resource company for their customer service training with the frontline crew of a popular fast-food chain. My job was to give basic acting lessons in relation to handling customer complaints. Well, I also had to role-play different customer types, to check the trainees' level of learning.

In the few non-theatrical applications of the acting art I've facilitated, one technique is my favorite: sense memory. It worked with my politician friend, so I repeated it with the fast-food workforce. The young guys seemed to enjoy the lessons so much, especially the acting exercises. I can only hope that the ultimate result of the whole activity will be as delightful to their customers.

Sense memory is based on the principle that the senses of smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing are the factors that create the experience of a person. It's a technique which, once mastered, can bring back a past sensory experience-at will. Hence, a desired sensation experienced before can be repeated without need for actual stimuli to bring it on.

Not a few of the world's great actors have acknowledged their dependence on sense memory in creating momentary reality for whatever characters they portray. They say that the technique conveniently makes available any past sensation or feeling in order play the scene in a most realistic way. It helps make their acting true-to-life.

Sense memory also develops keen awareness. It requires for all sensorial details of an experience to be grasped distinctively. Previous important events in the actor's life must be revisited, and the sensory component of the experience noted.

As sensory component of past experiences are identified, the actor then devotes countless hours of training in re-creating the experience. He practices over and over, until the re-created experience feels as real as its original or like the very first time. As he is able to recapture past experiences, they are now available to him anytime, anywhere he wants. He has now the power to call forth any real sensation as he wishes.

There can be countless other practical uses of the sense memory technique in day-to-day life. The procedure can be as helpful for ordinary people, as it is for actors. For instance, it can be used in mood therapy, where hot-headed people may simply have to recall a pleasant past experience to bring down their temper. It can be good therapy, too, for people with hypertension.

And it is not hard to imagine how sense memory could help boost the self-confidence of people suffering from chronic shyness. A shy person can mentally summon up a previous shining moment in his life to aid him in the face of any situation that tends to shake his composure. The technique can even cure his shyness problem completely, in the long run.

Likewise, overworked frontline service personnel can avail of much needed energy boost from a short sense memory procedure. It's as simple as recalling feelings of high spirits and bursting energies they had earlier in the day when they were fresh at work. The technique could enable workers to effectively add minutes or hours to their peak performance.

There are, however, certain oppositions to sense memory as a creative or therapeutic tool. Oppositors to the technique claim that repeatedly recalling past experience encourages escapist attitude. That it discourages people from earnestly working to create real, long-lasting strengths and capabilities. Some even view sense memory as self-persecution, especially among actors. Past trauma, especially emotional trauma, is a great source of energy for actors. It gives some degree of angst to their portrayal.

Especially in a dramatic scene, an experience of emotional pain often makes for a poignant performance.

But this so-called dark side of sense memory is all armchair philosophy. While we have heard of great actors who are emotionally miserable people in real life, their problem is usually caused by bloated egos as a consequence of their celebrity status. None, so far, has developed personality disorders from practicing the technique.

In fact, sense memory can bring psychological resolution of past hurts. Each time the person brings back a past trauma, he gains a little more power over it. He develops better endurance and strength to confront his ugly ghosts every time. And, after a while, he garners enough power to finally conquer them. In the end, there is total healing.

Overall, anything can be either helpful or harmful. It all depends on how we use it. There has not yet been a single reported case of injury caused by the practice of sense memory as an art technique or therapy. Actors have been using it for well over fifty years now. And all this time we have only seen beautiful outcomes.