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Background: I actually do not know the answer to this puzzle, but can answer any questions you may have. My mom who is now deceased had this series of numbers written in her notebook, that don't seem to be phone numbers, or any other number in that realm. She was super into numerology but traditional numerology still isn't answering what it is. I also don't remember these numbers being in her journal when I last looked at it a year and a half ago. I only saw it since my cat started pawing at the journal and sniffing it and staring at me. I hadn't touched the journal in months and decided to look at it. Then I found this page, and am still mystified as to if this page has always been there. And it very clearly is in her handwriting.

General interests my mom had:

  • Numerology (her favorite book on numerology was called Star Signs by Linda Goodman)
  • Astrology
  • World religions
  • Sociology
  • US law
  • Genealogy

enter image description here

bobble
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Cain Smith
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1 Answers1

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It's likely your mother was testing her short-term memory.

I found this slideshow which features the numbers (except the fifth and seventh which are slightly wrong), in order, on a slide entitled "Let's Test Your Short Term Memory". This is part of a slideshow published by somebody called "Alison Park" around 7 years ago.

enter image description here

The same sequence also features here in the "Short Term Memory" section.

It is unclear to me if either of these form a part of some bigger body of research. The second link suggests this, being part of "Unit 7".

Stiv
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hexomino
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    She also got the fifth one wrong. – A. I. Breveleri Jan 07 '23 at 15:37
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    @A.I.Breveleri oh yes, you're right, thanks for saying. – hexomino Jan 07 '23 at 15:41
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    That would make sense. She was having strokes before she died. It wasn't normal strokes though her blood work was normal but her brain wasn't normal according to the MRI. Thanks for the help! – Cain Smith Jan 07 '23 at 16:30
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    @CainSmith Oh, your mother's actually dead and that isn't part of the puzzle. That makes this a lot less fun. Sorry for your loss. –  Jan 07 '23 at 18:53
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    Not the direction I thought it would go but memory test for someone having memory problems is an awesome find. Obviously, Sorry for OPs loss. – WernerCD Jan 07 '23 at 20:58
  • So, are the numbers in a sequence, or completely random? – Tim Jan 08 '23 at 11:48
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    It was a real puzzle in that, I couldn't figure out what the hell it was. But yes, she is actually dead. I do appreciate the help. Sorry for it being semi-depressing. – Cain Smith Jan 09 '23 at 01:58
  • I don't know who created this slideshow, but I found the same slideshow "Updated on Oct 06, 2014" https://www.slideserve.com/lot/memory – alphacapture Jan 09 '23 at 03:57
  • Based on the variety of Lot's uploads, I would guess Lot didn't originally create this either: https://www.slideserve.com/lot – alphacapture Jan 09 '23 at 04:19
  • Also, your answer mentions "Unit 7", but this seems textbook-specific. Indeed, one can find similar slideshows by searching for "Taking in and storing information" (there are some on powershow.com that I don't know the upload date of) and this is the title of section 10.1 of Kasschau's "Understanding Psychology" (though I don't know whether this book contains the sequence of numbers). – alphacapture Jan 09 '23 at 04:52
  • (Unrelated, but both of the slideshows on powershow.com are by the same user https://www.powershow.com/users/blund and have a simpler formatting, possibly autoconverted. One of them references http://www2.moundsviewschools.org which has been a redirect since early 2014, so I guess it might be older) – alphacapture Jan 09 '23 at 05:06
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    I am really sorry for your loss. It seems that her short term memory was fine. For the last number, it looks like she remembered the first digit (4) before scribbling it out. – Dmitry Kamenetsky Jan 10 '23 at 01:22