In this series i will try to help you get info on how to best use your brain/mind......i will cover topics such as ,how to remember speeches,directions,how to create a mental diary etc......we'll start of with a simple list....this can be a shopping list,to do list,process list...for those times when there is nothing to write with or on...read on..and give feedback on topics you would like featured .thank you.
HOW TO REMEMBER THE CONTENTS OF A SIMPLE LIST
A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
A list of ten items, whatever they are, should not present a challenge to our
memory, and yet it does. Take a simple shopping list, for example. Try
memorizing the following, without writing any of it down, within one minute.
• fish • football
• margarine • ladder
• chess set • clock
• milk • tape measure
• light bulb • dog bowl
Most people can remember somewhere between four and seven items. And
there was I announcing in the introduction that you have an amazing memory.
It wasn't an idle boast. By the end of this chapter, you should be able to
remember any ten items perfectly in order, even backwards in under one
minute. To prove my point, try doing the following two simple exercises.
REMEMBERING THE FORGETTABLE
Think back over what you have done so far today. What time did you get up?
What was on the radio or television? Can you remember your journey into
work? What mood were you in when you arrived? Did you go anywhere on
foot, or in a car? Who did you meet?
Frustrating, isn't it? Your memory has no problem at all recalling these
everyday, mundane experiences (ironically, the forgettable things in life) and
yet it can't recall a simple shopping list when required. If you were to take this
exercise a stage further and write down everything you could remember about
today, however trivial or tedious, you would be amazed at the hundreds of
memories that came flooding back.
Some things are undoubtedly easier to remember than others, events that
involve travel, for example. When I think back over a day, or perhaps a holiday,
the most vivid memories are associated with a journey. Perhaps I was on a
train, or walking through the park, or on a coach; I can remember what
happened at certain points along the way. A journey gives structure to the otherwise
ramshackle collection of memories in your head; it helps you to keep
them in order, like a filing cabinet.
REMEMBERING THE SUBLIME
If, like me, you found the first exercise a little depressing, revealing more
about the ordinariness of your life than about your memory, you should enjoy
this experiment. Try to imagine a day. Exaggerate and distort your normal
routine...
Wake up in an enormous, feathersoft bed to the sound of birdsong; a beautiful
lover is lying asleep beside you; pull back the curtains to reveal sunsoaked
hills rolling down to a sparkling sea. An enormous schooner is at
anchor in the bay, its fresh, white linen sails flapping in the Mediterranean
breeze. Breakfast has been made; the post comes and, for once, you decide
to open the envelope saying 'You have won a £1 million.' You have! etc, etc.
Your dream day might be quite different from mine, of course. But if you were
to put this book down and I were to ask you in an hour's time to recall the fruits
of your wild imagination, you should be able to remember everything you
dreamt up.
Imagined events are almost as easy to recall as real ones, particularly
if they are exaggerated and pleasurable. (No one likes to remember a
bad dream.) This is because the imagination and memory are both concerned
with the forming of mental images.
Returning from the sublime to the ridiculous, you are now in a position to
remember the ten items on our shopping list, armed with the results of these
two experiments. Keep an open mind as you read the following few
paragraphs.
THE METHOD
To remember the list, 'place' each item of shopping at individual stages along a
familiar journey - it might be around your house, down to the shops, or a bus
route.
For these singularly boring items to become memorable, you are going to
have to exaggerate them, creating bizarre mental images at each stage of the
journey. Imagine an enormous, gulping fish flapping around your bedroom, for
example, covering the duvet with slimy scales. Or picture a bath full of
margarine, every time you turn on the taps, more warm margarine comes oozing
out!
This is the basis of my entire memory system:
THE KEY TO A PERFECT MEMORY IS YOUR IMAGINATION.
Later on, when you need to remember the list, you are going to 'walk' around
the journey, moving from stage to stage and recalling each object as you go.
The journey provides order, linking items together. Your imagination makes
each one memorable.
THE JOURNEY
Choose a familiar journey. A simple route around your house is as good as any.
If there are ten items to remember, the journey must consist of ten stages. Give
it a logical starting point, places along the way and a finishing point. Now learn
it. Once you have committed this to memory, you can use it for remembering
ten phone numbers, ten people, ten appointments, ten of anything, over and
over again.
YOUR MAP:
Stage 1: your bedroom Stage 6: kitchen
Stage 2: bathroom Stage 7: front door
Stage 3: spare room Stage 8: front garden
Stage 4: stairs Stage 9: road
Stage 5: lounge Stage 10: house opposite
At each stage on the map, close your eyes and visualize your own home. For
the purposes of demonstration, I have chosen a simple two-up, two-down
house. If you live in a flat or bungalow, replace the stairs with a corridor or
another room. Whatever rooms you use, make sure the journey has a logical
direction. For instance, I would not walk from my bedroom through the front
garden to get to the bathroom. The sequence must be obvious. It then becomes
much easier to preserve the natural order of the list you intend to memorize.
If you are having difficulty, try to imagine yourself floating through your
house, visualizing as much of the layout at each stage as you can. Practise this
a few times. When you can remember the journey without having to look at
your map, you are ready to attempt the shopping list itself. This time, I hope,
with markedly different results.
That shopping list again:
Item 1: fish Item 6: football
Item 2: margarine Item 7: ladder
Item 3: chess set Item 8: clock
Item 4: milk Item 9: tape
Item 5: light bulb Item 10: dog bowl
BIZARRE IMAGES
Using your imagination, you are going to repeat the journey, but this time
'placing' each object at the corresponding stage. The intention, remember, is to
create a series of bizarre mental images, so out of the ordinary that you can't
help remembering them. Have you ever seen chess pieces standing six feet
high and shouting at each other, in your spare room? And what are all those
hundreds of smashed milk bottles doing on the stairs?
Make the scenes as unusual as possible. Use all your senses; taste, touch,
smell, hear and see everything. The more senses you can bring to bear, the
more memorable the image will be. (For instance, if we want to remember a
word on a page, we often say it out aloud.) Movement is also important, and
so is sex.
Don't be embarrassed by your own creativity. There are no rules when it
comes to exploring your imagination. You are the only member of the audience.
Shock yourself! You will remember the scene more vividly. The more
wild and exaggerated, the easier it will be to remember. Let your imagination
run riot; it is the only thing limiting your memory.
PLACING THE OBJECTS
To show you what I mean, here is how I would memorize the list:
Stage 1:
I wake up in my bedroom to find that I am holding a fishing rod. At the end
of the line is a huge slimy fish flapping frantically at the foot of my bed.
I use all my senses: I see the rod arcing, I hear the spool clicking, I feel the pull
of the line, I smell the foul, fishy odour, I touch its scales.
Stage 2:
I go to the bathroom to take a shower. Instead of hot water, a thick margarine
oozes from the shower head and drips all over me.
I feel the warm, sticky texture and see the bright, fluorescent yellow colour.
Stage 3:
I walk into the spare room and discover a giant chess set. Like something out
of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the pieces are coming alive.
I can hear them shouting obscenities at each other, insulting each other's king
and queen.
Stage 4:
The staircase is cluttered with hundreds of milk bottles, some of them, half
empty, even broken. The milkman is standing at the bottom of the stairs,
apologizing for the mess.
I pick my way down the stairs, smelling the stench of decaying milk. I hear the
noise of crunching glass, and the squelch of curdled milk underfoot. What was
the milkman doing there in the first place? The more mental 'hooks' and associations
you gather, the greater your chances of recalling the item
.
Stage 5:
I open the lounge door. Instead of seeing the lightbulb dangling
unobtrusively from the ceiling, it is sprouting from out of the floor, huge and
growing bigger by the minute.
I walk around it, feel the heat its enormous filament is generating, raise my
hands to protect my eyes from the glare. The bulb explodes and shatters into a
million myriad pieces. A sudden violent experience is always memorable. It is
important, however, to vary the scenes; overuse or repetition of a particular
dramatic effect will only confuse you.
Stage 6:
A football match is in progress in the kitchen. Crockery and ornaments lie
smashed on the floor.
The referee's whistle is shrill. Keep your surroundings as normal as possible. It
might be in disarray but it's still the same room. When you come to remember
a different list, the journey itself will still be the same - familiar and reliable.
Stage 7:
Someone has left a ladder leaning against my front door. I can't avoid
knocking it over.
My front door is not a room, but it is another stage on the route. I try to gauge
my reaction and timing. How quickly do I grab the rungs, or do I jump out of
the way? I hear the clatter of the metal as it crashes to the ground.
Stage 8:
A large grandfather clock is ticking away in my front garden, its hands
whizzing around backwards.
I am now outside. What is the weather like? Is it raining? If so, it will damage
the clock. I walk up to it, round it, see my face reflected in the glass. What time
is it? I've never heard such loud ticking.
Stage 9:
A tape measure is stretched out on the road as far as the eye can see.
I press the release mechanism and listen to the shuffle of metal as the tape
begins winding back into the spool at an ever increasing rate. I see the end
bobbing up and down as it catches against lumps in the road. I am frightened in
case it whips past and cuts me.
Stage 10:
My opposite neighbour has placed a huge, unsightly bowl in his garden.
'Dog' is written in garish red letters around the side. The bowl itself is yellow
and is so large that it completely obscures his house. Dog food is spilling over
the lip; great clods of jellied meat are landing in the street all around me.
REVIEWING THE JOURNEY
Once you have created the ten images of your own at ten stages around your
house (try not to use my images or stages), you are ready to remember the list
by walking around the journey, starting with your bedroom. Review each
image. Don't try to recall the object word immediately. You will only get into a
panic and confirm your worst suspicions about your memory. There is no rush.
Put down this book and move calmly and logically from room to room in your
mind.
What is happening in your bedroom? You can hear a clicking sound...the
fishing rod...something slimy: a fish. You go to the bathroom, where you shower
every morning...the shower...something yellow oozing out of the head: margarine.
And so on.
TROUBLE SHOOTING
I am confident that you will remember all ten items. If, however, your mind
went a complete blank at any stage, it means that the image you created was
not sufficiently stimulating. In which case, return to the list and change the
scene. Instead of the ladder falling at stage 7, for example, imagine climbing
up a very tall ladder and looking down at the tiny front door. It is windy up
there; you are swaying around a lot and feeling giddy. The simple rule of
thumb is that your brain, much like a computer (only better), can only 'output'
what you've 'input'.
Don't forget, you are exercising your imagination in a new way. Like any
underused muscle, it is bound to feel a bit stiff for the first few times. With
practice, you will find yourself making images and associations at speed and
with little effort.
SUCCESS
Using a combination of bizarre images and the familiar routine of a wellknown
journey, you have stimulated your brain to remember ten random items.
You have done more than that, though. Inadvertently, you have repeated them
in exact order. Not really necessary for a shopping list, but very useful when it
comes to remembering a sequence, something we will come to later.
For now, content yourself with the knowledge that you can start at any stage
on the list and recall the items before and after it. Take the clock in the garden,
for instance, you know the ladder by the door must come before it, and the tape
measure in the street after it. The familiar journey has done all the work for
you. It has kept everything in its own logical order.
Don't be alarmed or put off by the seemingly elaborate or long-winded
nature of the method. With practice, your brain responds more quickly to creating
images on request. It can visualize objects in an instant (images that
might take a paragraph to describe); you just have to learn how to train and
control it. Before long, you will find yourself 'running' around the route, recalling the objects as you go.
There is also no danger that your head will become too cluttered with all
these strange images. The next time you want to remember another list, the
new images will erase the old ones. It is just like recording on a video tape.
The journey, of course, always remains the same.
It is comforting to know that you are merely developing the way in which
the brain already works, rather than teaching it a new method. It is generally
accepted that we remember things by association. If you are walking down the
street and see a car covered in flowers and ribbons, for example, an image of
your own wedding might flash across your brain. This, in turn, reminds you of
your husband or wife, and you recall, with horror, that it is your anniversary
tomorrow and you haven't done anything about it.
I will now show you an easy way to reinforce these associative images. I
know this all seems strange to begin with, but remember: your memory is limited
only by your imagination.
A NOTE ON 'LINKING'
I have shown you how to remember ten items on a shopping list by placing
them along a familiar journey. Using image, colour, smell, feeling, emotion,
taste, and movement, you were able to recall the wilder fruits of your imagination
and, in turn, the relevant, mundane item.
This method is adequate for remembering a simple list; sometimes, however,
further reinforcement of the images is required, which is where the 'link
method' can be used. At each stage on the journey, try giving yourself a taste of
what is to follow.
For example, on our original shopping list, the first item was fish; the second,
margarine. I remembered the fish by imagining one flapping around at my
feet, hooked onto the end of my line. This time, I imagine the fish basted in
margarine because I am about to cook it. Or perhaps it flaps its way over to the
bedroom door, where a thick yellow liquid is seeping through by the floor.
The linked image should merely serve as a reminder of the next item on the
list. Be careful not to confuse the two items. The focal point remains the fish
and the bedroom.
At stage 2 of the journey, the bathroom, I imagine margarine dripping from
the showerhead. This time, using the link method, I see the vague image of
chess pieces moving around through the steamed-up glass door. And so on.
Try to make similar links for the rest of the list. The clock hands could be a
couple of rulers; the tape measure might be a dog lead. As it begins to recoil, a
large dog comes bounding up the road.
Once you feel confident about linking ten simple items, you will be able to
extend your journeys and the number of things you can memorize. When I
remember a pack of cards, for example, I use a journey with fifty-two stages
rather than ten. Sounds daunting? As long as you choose a journey you are
familiar with, nothing could be easier.
please try it and let me know how it goes...remember the secret is in
practise,practice,practice
