Thought Blocking: How to Get Your Train of Thought Back

Thought blocking can feel alarming.

One moment you know exactly what you want to say. Then your mind goes blank, you lose your train of thought, or a familiar name suddenly refuses to appear.

If this keeps happening to you, there are two important things to understand.

First, “thought blocking” has a specific clinical meaning.

However, people also use the phrase more casually when they experience ordinary memory and retrieval problems.

Second, forgetting something temporarily does not automatically mean your memory has failed.

As someone who has spent decades studying, practicing and teaching memory techniques, I prefer to treat these experiences as opportunities.

They can teach you something about how your memory works.

More importantly, they can reveal which memory techniques might help you encode and retrieve information more reliably in the future.

I’ll show you what I mean, including exactly what I do when a name or title gets stuck.

Ready?

Let’s dive in.

What Is Thought Blocking?

In clinical contexts, thought blocking has a more specific meaning than simply forgetting someone’s name.

The NCBI definition of thought blocking describes a sudden cessation of the thinking process. A person may report that their mind has gone blank and become silent or confused about what happened.

Thought disorder can occur with conditions such as schizophrenia. The National Institute of Mental Health discussion of schizophrenia, for example, notes that people experiencing thought disorder may stop speaking in the middle of a thought.

That’s different from occasionally forgetting:

• A person’s name
• The title of a book or movie
• A particular word
• What you were about to say
• Your place while giving a speech

Those experiences can involve ordinary problems with attention, encoding or retrieval.

This distinction matters because I’m a memory teacher, not a psychiatrist. What follows is about dealing with everyday memory blocks and learning from them.

When Thought Blocking May Need Medical Attention

If you’re concerned about changes in your thinking or speech, please discuss them with an appropriate healthcare professional.

Sudden difficulty speaking can also be a sign of stroke, particularly when it appears with facial drooping, weakness in an arm or other neurological symptoms. Healthdirect explains the FAST warning signs of stroke and what to do if they appear.

Assuming you’re dealing with the ordinary experience of losing your train of thought, however, let’s look at memory itself.

Losing Your Train of Thought Isn’t Always a Memory Failure

When my memory temporarily fails to produce something I want, I don’t treat the experience as a failure.

Instead, I treat it as information. And I ask questions like:

• What disappeared?
• How well did I pay attention when I first encountered it?
• Did I ever actively recall it before?
• What eventually triggered the information to return?
• Could a mnemonic association have helped?

Questions like these matter because forgetting can happen for different reasons.

Sometimes the information was never strongly encoded in the first place. In other cases, you know perfectly well that the information is in memory, but you cannot retrieve it at that particular moment.

Harry Lorayne often emphasized that memory begins with attention. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him over the years, which I discuss in my tribute to Harry Lorayne and his memory techniques.

If you never paid sufficient attention in the first place, no retrieval trick can magically recover information that never entered memory properly.

But when the information really is there?

That’s where cueing gets interesting.

What I Do When a Name or Title Won’t Come Back

One of my favorite techniques for dealing with this kind of memory block is extremely simple.

I run the alphabet.

Literally.

I start with A and continue through B, C, D and the remaining letters until something triggers the information I’m trying to retrieve.

This works best for me with names and titles. I’ve also used it for vocabulary, although I find it less reliable for that purpose.

A Recent Example With Jamie Kreiner

Just the other day, I wanted to remember the name Jamie Kreiner, author of The Wandering Mind.

The name wasn’t coming.

Rather than immediately reaching for a device, I started running through the alphabet.

Eventually, the phonological cue helped bring her name back.

I estimate that this technique works for me around 60% of the time. That’s only my personal estimate, not a scientific success rate.

Still, I’ve used the technique often enough to keep it in my memory toolkit.

Why the Alphabet Can Act as a Memory Cue

I think of the alphabet as a phonological trigger.

After all, you’ve spent years reading, writing and speaking with these sounds. Running through them gives memory an established series of cues to work with.

This approach may work better for some people than others. I’m certainly not claiming that science has established running A-Z as a universal cure for blocked recall.

My inspiration comes partly from the older tradition of using structured cueing systems, including the Memory Wheel techniques associated with Ramon Llull.

The underlying principle interests me because you’re doing something other than randomly grasping for the missing information.

You’re systematically changing the cue.

Don’t Force a Blocked Thought Forever

Although I like the alphabet technique, I don’t keep hammering away when it fails.

Pushing harder can increase frustration.

Instead, I’ll usually let the issue go for a while.

Sometimes the answer comes back later on its own. Other times I’ll practice retrieving it again simply to keep my memory sharp.

Either way, there’s no reason to turn a temporary retrieval problem into a battle.

Why I Don’t Always Look Things Up Immediately

Modern technology makes it incredibly easy to end every memory challenge within seconds.

Can’t remember an author’s name?

Google it.

Forgot the title of a movie?

Ask your phone.

Personally, I often resist that impulse.

I’m not delaying because I’m running an experiment. I simply want to give my memory time to work.

Sometimes I’ll wait for quite a while before looking something up. I’ve even allowed 24 hours or more to pass.

That’s not a prescription everyone needs to follow.

For me, it’s partly about delayed gratification.

Instantly outsourcing every retrieval problem risks training us to expect immediate gratification whenever memory hesitates. I’d rather give my own memory another opportunity first.

Of course, eventually looking something up is perfectly reasonable.

The point is not to become anti-technology.

It’s to avoid automatically replacing every moment of temporary uncertainty with a search box.

What to Do When Your Mind Goes Blank While Speaking

Names and book titles are one thing.

Losing your train of thought during a conversation, podcast or presentation can feel much more uncomfortable.

Fortunately, a pause often feels much longer to you than it does to everyone else.

I’ve had my mind go blank during podcast interviews. When that happens, I’m willing to say something like:

“I’m very sorry, but I’ve just lost track of something I wanted to say. It’ll probably come back to me in a second.”

Then I continue.

Trying to hide every pause can make the situation worse.

And your internal experience of a pause can differ dramatically from how other people perceive it.

Often, the best solution is simply acknowledging the issue. And then move on.

How a Memory Palace Helped Me Recover During a Speech

I’ve experienced a more dramatic version of thought blocking while giving a prepared speech.

During rehearsal, people had laughed at a joke exactly where I expected them to.

Then I delivered the actual talk.

The intended joke didn’t land the same way.

Instead, the audience laughed at something I hadn’t expected to be funny.

For a brief moment, I had that classic “deer caught in the headlights” feeling.

But I knew the speech using a Memory Palace.

That mattered.

I didn’t simply “see the next station” and mechanically continue. Rather, I had a deep awareness of where I was within the speech and how to enter the material again.

The way I teach the Memory Palace technique lets you deliberately establish access points throughout longer pieces of information.

As a result, you don’t necessarily need to start from the beginning every time you want to retrieve a later part.

Why I Practice With Shakespeare

I demonstrate this ability with a passage from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

Because of how I laid out the Memory Palace, I can begin at specific lines instead of reciting everything that came before them first.

I can also move through the material in different orders.

Mnemonists often demonstrate this kind of skill using lists of arbitrary words.

That’s fine.

However, I prefer using meaningful information like Shakespeare. If I’m going to put serious effort into training memory, I’d rather gain something substantial from the practice.

You can see exactly how I approached the Shakespeare passage in my Anthony Hopkins memory case study.

Memory Palaces Won’t Guarantee You’ll Never Go Blank

Let’s be clear about something.

I’m not aware of any memory technique that can guarantee you’ll never go blank again.

That’s not how I think about Memory Palaces.

The deeper value comes from using them to help usher information into long-term memory.

During the learning process, your mnemonic images also provide cues when you need a nudge.

Most importantly, I use the Memory Palace as a spaced repetition device through a process I call Recall Rehearsal.

Rather than merely exposing yourself to information again and again, you actively call it back.

You can retrieve material forwards, backwards and from different starting points.

That practice creates much greater familiarity with what you’ve learned.

If you’re new to this entire approach, my guide to memory techniques will help you understand the main tools involved.

Train Your Memory With Material Worth Remembering

If losing your train of thought bothers you, regular memory practice can help you become much more familiar with retrieval itself.

You don’t have to start by memorizing decks of cards or lists of random words.

In fact, I suggest starting with meaningful material.

You might begin with:

• A short poem
• A few lines of song lyrics
• A favorite quotation
• A short speech
• A meaningful passage you want to know for life

Poetry works particularly well because you can start small. My tutorial on how to memorize poetry shows you the process in detail.

If music suits your fancy more, you can also memorize song lyrics using many of the same principles.

Once you’re comfortable with shorter material, try something longer.

Learning how to memorize a speech gives you an especially useful way to practice structured recall while developing a practical communication skill.

How Often Should You Practice?

There are no magic numbers.

I sometimes suggest four sessions per week because it’s a realistic goal for many people.

For example, you might complete two sessions during the workweek and two more during the weekend.

Nothing mystical happens at session number four.

The important thing is to set some kind of goal and practice enough for the techniques to become familiar.

Without sufficient practice, we can’t reasonably expect results.

Stop Treating Every Pause as a Problem

There’s another issue worth considering.

Our media culture increasingly removes pauses from human communication.

Editors cut silences from podcasts and videos. Meanwhile, many people consume audio and video at 2x speed or faster.

I increasingly prefer the opposite.

Natural pauses don’t bother me.

Nor do I think faster consumption automatically produces better learning.

If anything, I suspect memory has been harmed by a culture of mass consumption that often receives little reflection.

People can experience the pleasure of consuming information and perhaps even the pleasure of feeling that they’ve learned something.

Yet consumption alone doesn’t necessarily create meaningful knowledge.

Taking notes changes the relationship.

So does deliberately recalling what you’ve learned.

Memorizing meaningful material changes it even further because you’re required to engage with information rather than merely let it flow past you.

That’s one reason I don’t want every pause edited out of my life.

Sometimes the spaces are where thinking happens.

Make Memory Your Friend, Not Your Enemy

Thought blocking and temporary memory lapses can be frustrating.

But frustration doesn’t have to be the final word.

When a name disappears, notice what eventually brings it back.

If you lose your train of thought, consider whether poor attention, weak encoding or temporary retrieval difficulty played a role.

When an alphabetic cue works, pay attention to that too.

Then practice.

Study your memory instead of fighting with it.

For me, this reflective process is rewarding in its own right.

Memory becomes much more interesting when its flaws stop looking like enemies and start becoming opportunities to understand how remembering actually works.

You’re also more likely to improve when you approach the process with curiosity rather than frustration.

Someone who becomes good at memory isn’t someone who never forgets.

They’re someone who studies and practices memory techniques diligently.

If you’d like help getting that practice underway, my free Memory Improvement Kit walks you through the core techniques:

Use the exercises to memorize something meaningful.

Then give your memory the chance to surprise you.

Enjoy your memory training experiences!