You Can Learn to Remember: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

charting your progress
The memory techniques in this book are best used as part of a conscious
program of memory training. You might try using the visual-peg system or
the journey method to memorize random data, monitoring your progress
(testing yourself) as you go. In the early stages of memory improvement,
this is likely to be hard work. Giving yourself quantifiable goals for your
memory training helps you to track the progress of your powers of retention

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and, more importantly, helps you to retain your enthusiasm. Many of the
exercises in this book provide self-tests, but don’t do them just once – mod
ify them, keep practising them. You will see improvements beginning to
show in your records sooner than you may think. And the increased motiva
tion this brings will almost certainly spur you on to even greater success.
the art of imagination
A
ccording to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322
BCE
),
imagination and memory are inexorably linked, because they belong to the same
part of the soul. Whether or not we believe in the soul’s existence, it is natural
for us to accept that imagination and memory go hand in hand. Like memory,
imagination uses both sides of the brain. We employ our imagination as a kind of
symbolic converter, transforming the linear, systematic information that is
processed by our left brain into vivid, creative information to which our right
brain responds.
At a practical level, it is important for us to recognize that imagination is a
key factor in the regular operation of memory, and an aspect on which we need
to concentrate if we are trying to make our memory more efficient. Advanced
memory techniques, as we shall see, require us to stretch our imagination to
lengths that the rational, logical part of the brain might initially find somewhat
alien.
Look back over experiences that you criticized at the time as forgettable –
perhaps a biography that did not hold your concentration or a radio talk during
which you fell asleep. When we complain that something is forgettable, often
what we are really saying is that the experience was unexciting – it failed to fire
our imagination. Looked at another way, if something is to be memorable, it
hugely helps for it to be imaginative.
Effective use of memory requires us to enliven even potentially mundane
pieces of information – a set of numbers, a shopping list, a sequence of street
directions. The first step in achieving this transformation is mental imaging – we
literally picture the real thing (the number 56, a carton of cranberry juice, a left
turn by the city clock) in our mind. Then we take the realistic mental image and,
using visualization, we turn it into something that is experienced in a number of
different aspects. While holding in our mind a clear picture of how the thing
looks, we might imagine at the same time how it stimulates the other senses.

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Does it have a smell? Can we taste it? What does it feel like to touch? How does
it sound? However, even conjuring up a sensual experience is not usually enough
to make the item memorable, so we need to give it a new dimension – we need
to use our imagination. This means stepping into a world of infinite possibilities,
where exciting and memorable impressions are soon brought into being. So if,
for example, we want to remember to buy oranges, we might visualize them
blazing in the sky like miniature suns. Or if a can of tuna is on our shopping list,
we might imagine the can with fins, swimming in a shoal with its fellow fishes.
Conferring movement and life on inanimate objects, or making humans or
animals behave or change shape in unlikely ways, will help to fix an impression
in your mind. The more surreal the image, the more retrievable it is likely to be.
The purpose of such image-making is to embellish the item that you want to
store, in order to invest it with enhanced interior presence. We may not
immediately remember the item, but in theory we will remember the scenario
that we have created for it – or even the act of creating the scenario.
We all know that imagination is the quality that distinguishes the creative
artist, and reflecting on this might make us feel a little awkward at first in
aspiring to be imaginative ourselves. Yet in fact our imagination comes into play
every time we look forward to an expedition, an evening out or a vacation (we
imagine what it will be like), or conjure up a visual image as a friend relates an
amusing story. In our own inner theatre of the mind, nothing lies beyond our
capability. How will I be able to come up with such odd and unexpected
transformations, you might ask yourself? All it takes is confidence –
underpinned by faith in the imagination as a main thoroughfare toward an
enhanced memory. Experiment – you may be surprised how quickly this way of
thinking becomes second nature.
Like our memory, our imagination becomes more agile with use. It becomes
increasingly easy to weave aspects of daily life into vivid and surreal
transformations. As we observe this development in ourselves, we should take
heart – imaginative invention of this kind is the key to many of the specific
memory techniques described in the next chapter.