How to Develop a Perfect Memory (2 page)

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 well-known 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.

3

WHAT'S

IN A NAME?

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.'

ROMEO AND JULIET, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

NAMES AND FACES

Shakespeare might have been right about roses, but we all know how

embarrassing it can be to forget someone's name. People are flattered when you remember it, but insulted when you don't. You might as well tell them,

'You have made no impression on me at all. You don't exist in my world. You are completely forgettable.'

I speak from painful experience. For the first thirty years of my life, I forgot people's names with spectacular enthusiasm. In the early days, I used to wade in with clumsy approximations, near misses that still make me squirm today.

Then I switched tactics and started to call people 'there'. 'Hello, there,' I would say, smiling weakly, as old friends came up to me at parties. Worse still, they would invariably ask me to introduce them to people I had only just met.

Mercifully I no longer fear introductions. Remembering people's names is such a simple skill, and yet it has changed my life. It could change yours if you are prepared to practise a little. I am more confident in social situations, at parties, at business meetings. It has even made me wealthier, or at least it should have done...

I was once asked to recall everyone's name at a dinner party in Mayfair, London. The hostess wanted me to memorize the first and surnames of all her guests, the majority of whom I had never set eyes on before. There were just over a hundred people in total, and they were seated at various tables around the room.

A wealthy businessman sitting on my right didn't believe that this was possible. He had never met me before, but he had heard that I was a professional card-counter - someone who wins at blackjack by relying on mathematics

rather than luck. Laughing at the prospect of memorizing over one hundred names, he offered to stake me £50,000 to play the blackjack tables in Las Vegas if I could pull off the stunt.