Doorlapse

Doorlapse (n.) is the moment you arrive in a room with total confidence and absolutely no reason. You got up from the sofa for something. You were sure of it. You walked down the hall with the brisk stride of a person on a mission, stepped through the kitchen door, and the mission evaporated. Now you are standing by the fruit bowl, looking at a tea towel as though it might explain itself.

The most common symptom is the raised finger. It goes up the moment the doorlapse strikes, as if the reason is on its way and simply needs a moment to catch up. Some sufferers add a small hum. Others open a drawer at random, on the theory that the drawer might know. The drawer never knows. It contains batteries, a birthday candle and a key to something nobody has owned since 2009.

There are recognised stages. First comes the arrival, full of purpose. Then the blank, which is peaceful and very brief. Then the search, in which you scan the room for clues, and then the retreat, in which you walk back to where you started. This last stage is the cruel one, because the reason is almost always waiting on the sofa, and it reappears the instant you sit down. Oh yes, the scissors. You get up again. The scissors are, of course, in the kitchen.

Doorlapse is no respecter of distance. It can happen over three steps, between a bedroom and the landing, and it strikes hardest in houses with a lot of doors. People who live in open-plan flats report fewer attacks and describe them, when they do happen, as a sort of gentle drift rather than a clean wipe. Carrying the reason in your hand is no guarantee. Many a person has walked into a room holding an empty glass and no plan for it at all.

The only proven cure is the doorlapse walk-back, performed with dignity. You return to the exact spot where the idea began, stand where you were standing, and wait. Experienced practitioners claim that sitting down in the same position improves results. Nobody has ever explained why this works, and nobody who has done it cares. They have their scissors now.

The real thing behind the word is known to psychologists as the doorway effect. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame asked volunteers to carry objects from table to table, sometimes within one room and sometimes through a doorway into another. People who passed through a doorway forgot more about what they were carrying than people who walked the same distance without one. The same happened in a virtual house on a computer screen.

The explanation is that the mind stores experience in episodes, and a doorway works like a chapter break. When you step into a new room, your brain files the previous scene away and opens a fresh one, and the plan you made on the sofa gets left in the old chapter. Walking back helps because the surroundings bring that chapter out again. So the next time a doorlapse strikes, go easy on yourself. Your memory is not failing. It is simply tidying up a little too quickly.