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

making a memory chain
EXERCISE TEN
Use this exercise to train your mind to make effective links. The skills you
acquire will help you get the most out of the story method.

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1. Use this list of words: butter, crocodile, telephone, petrol, scissors, trousers,
snow, cat, piano, suitcase. Think of a link to take you from butter to crocodile.
Don’t forget to use part-words if you find it easier (it may be more memorable to
think of a slab of butter on a fragile piece of crockery, than butter being eaten by
a crocodile; see
p.100
).
2. Once you have made the first link, think about the context in which you have
placed it. What is the setting? If you linked butter with crockery, you might
imagine the scene in the kitchen. By keeping the location the same for the rest of
the items, the links will be more memorable through the common bond of place.
3. Continue linking the words, one to the next. If one thing seems difficult to
visualize in context, think about the details of the scene. For example, “snow”
might be represented by a postcard on a kitchen noticeboard showing a
snowcapped mountain; or the freezer compartment of your refrigerator might be
filled with icy “snow”.
4. Once you have finished forming the links, wait half an hour. Then, without
looking at this page, try to recall all the items using the links you made. Note
them down on a piece of paper, and then uncover the page to see how many you
got right.
This example is word-based, but equally we could follow an image-based
system – where the items that we want to remember are given symbolic, visual
form. For example, say we want to remember the signs of the zodiac, in their
celestial order. First, we would look at the signs and their symbols because the
symbols are immediately more memorable (and more visual) than the names
(Aries the ram, Taurus the bull, Gemini the twins, and so on). Then, we would
begin to formulate a story beginning with the image of a ram. Remember that the
best stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, and are full of suspense and
action. Try to be as creative as you can; tell the tale out loud to an imaginary
audience if it helps, use pace and tone to enliven the story. We might imagine
that we are standing in a field that stretches as far as the eye can see. Suddenly
over the horizon comes a ram, running at top speed toward us. Just as we are
about to run out of the way, we hear the thunderous rhythm of hooves and realize
that the ram is running in order to escape the charge of a bull. As the bull comes
over the horizon, the steamy breath from its nostrils puffing angrily into the air,
we see that sitting on top of it, two small figures – twins – are screaming for help
... and so on.
Now try the exercise on
p.99
(to help you form links in a list of
unconnected items) and the one opposite (connected items).

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