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

the art of memory
I
f your mind were a room, what would it look like? For most of us, it would be
true to say that the mind resembles an attic, with well-organized and accessible
items close to the doorway, but with all sorts of treasures (including family
heirlooms and bric-a-brac) randomly piled out of reach in the shadows further
back. To look for something that has been unused for a year or two might take us
some time – and we could never be sure of finding it. However, perhaps it’s time
for a clear-out? If we can learn to make better use of the storage space available,
we might be able to retain and recall information more effectively.

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Oblivion is the dark page, whereon Memory writes her lightbeam characters,
and makes them legible.
THOMAS CARLYLE
1795–1881
A far-fetched comparison, you might think, and one that is bound to
oversimplify the complexities of the mind – which after all is one of the wonders
of human biology. Yet in fact, for practical purposes, this analogy is perfectly
accurate. If we want to understand how memory operates, we can think of
ourselves as filing a piece of information, literally, in an appropriate
compartment in the filing system. The art of storing, retaining and recalling
memories is really a matter of getting organized – sorting out our mental clutter,
so to speak – so that the next time we need to access a certain piece of
information, it is logically placed for us to find.
We have seen how the brain is divided into two hemispheres – the left
brain, which processes logic and language; and the right brain, which processes
the creative side of ourselves. Memory, in so far as it requires logical
organization, is in large measure a left-brain activity – in this respect you might
think of memory as an applied science. But memory is also an art, because the
information we receive through our senses can be made memorable through
creative use of our imagination. This combination of logical and creative thought
links the networks of the entire brain together, like bridges over a river, making
our minds more efficient at creating, storing and retrieving every kind of
memory.
The main techniques offered in this book for training and enhancing your
memory bear similarities to approaches used by the ancient Greeks (see pp.
16–
17
). During ten years of studying memory, and training my own mind, I have
boiled down the methods of the ancients to three main ingredients: imagination
(transforming new information into images that we can retain in our mind);
association (connecting these imaginative images to what we already know); and
location (anchoring these associations in our mind in the manner of the old
Greek method of loci, or “places”). The basic principles behind all these
elements are given on pp.
68–75
. Here and there in this book I also offer a range
of further methods, ranging from simple mnemonics (usually word-based) to the
visual-peg system, which may be regarded as a halfway stage to the locus
method. The latter reaches its most elaborate development in the journey
method, which I favour for the most demanding tasks of memorization –
including World Memory Championships.
Location is especially helpful when a sequence of data has to be committed

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to memory in a particular order. Combined with the other two key ingredients –
imagination and association – we have the power to remember any number of
facts we wish. Before going on to describe the principles behind each of the
three elements in more detail, it may be useful, by way of a “taster”, to give an
example of imagination and association in use.
Essentially, the most basic skill of the art of memory is to create a mental
symbol for each piece of information we wish to retain. Let us say that you want
to remember the following facts connected with historic expeditions to the South
Pole. Roald Amundsen travelled to the Pole on skis; Ernest Shackleton travelled
with dogs; Robert Falcon Scott travelled, foolishly, with ponies. First, you need
to visualize these events in mental snapshots. This is the process of engagement
– that is, turning the words into a meaning that you fully engage with in your
mind. Then you need to find a visual association that links the mode of transport
to the names that you already (perhaps vaguely) know. Roald might suggest
“rolled” – so you imagine Amundsen rolling over on his skis. Shackleton makes
you think of the dogs “shackled” to their sledges (you might additionally think
of them “earnestly” moving across the icefields); Falcon suggests the bird,
hovering above the real world – as Scott was when he chose such an unsuitable
method of transport for Antarctic conditions. Memorizing the information this
way helps you to fix in your mind not only the means of travel but also the first
names of these famous explorers (actually, in Scott’s case, the middle name, but
once that is committed to memory you will probably find the first name easier to
recall).
Once we have our images filed away in our minds, we need to make sure
that they can be retained for as long as we need them – perhaps a few days,
perhaps indefinitely. One of the most effective methods is to repeat what we
have stored – with each revision the impression on our memory becomes deeper
(see pp.
80–81
).