Story Stones to Memory Stones: Activating Imaginative thought for Reminiscence

Storytelling has been around since humans have been on this earth. From visual expression through cave paintings, to historical oral traditions, passed on from generation to generation, it is a part of our collective unconscious. Knowing this fact, did not preclude me from being surprised, which I will tell you about momentarily.

Story stones are stones with predrawn images, that have been used to help stimulate the imagination and storytelling of children. They may have different faces with emotional expressions, along with objects and themes such as a house, a rainbow, a person, a tree, a book, etc. Picking from the stones, the child then composes his or her story. They have been used in therapeutic milieus, to stimulate the sharing of a traumatic event, and other issues difficult to discuss. As an activity director at a long-term care facility, with a diverse population, I am challenged to find meaningful activities for many participants. I happened to have some smooth stones I had collected from Presque Isle on Lake Erie, near where I live. I have painted on stones myself just for my own therapeutic activity. So I thought I would try encouraging the residents to paint on stones expressing their visual memory.  I usually try to create an example for 
each new artistic activity.

My fake memory was about a neighbor and best friend that moved away when I was a child. I don’t know why I chose a fake sad memory, but I did. So I’m thinking that I unfairly biased the outcome, nonetheless, I am still pleased with the results from the residents. I find most of them have no artistic background or much experience using their imagination, much less expressing it. When I began to speak of symbolism as a means to telling the story, I thought I had lost them, particularly given some of the results. But when they told their stories, I knew that they understood the gist.

One resident drew three different fruits on three different stones and reminisced about a fruit stand she had visited. The next one shared a memory of a fishing for trout. Yet another resident spoke of her favorite pet dog. The next person, said the lines on the rocks represented a language from a Native American tribe. Several of the residents remembered their husbands through his military service and love of deer hunting. Another resident created four stones to represent her daughter and her grandchildren. Yet another, thinking in a future tense, imagined what her new home would be like when she moved to more independent living. The next two are the surprises. When I shared that the resident may outline the image first with a permanent marker and she started to outline the periphery of the stone itself, I thought I had lost her. But when she painted the images, though not recognizable to us, represented her mother’s perfume bottle and a chair. She remembered when she was a child, climbing on a chair to get to her mother’s perfume on the dresser. The next example of surprise understanding, came from a resident who painted one stone green and one stone yellow. This resident loves watching TV, especially oldies and cartoons. The yellow stone represents the gold rush in Bonanza and the green stone represents Yogi bear’s tie.

Attention span is short in many cases, so reminiscing longer than 15 minutes is rare. Using the stones gave them tangible witness to their story, stimulated further discussion and gave them a keepsake, to relive those memories if they wished.