The Best Memory Trick

If you have memory problems, you might not be using your brain in the right way. The solution? Learn the best memory trick used by professional memory performers.

These performers amaze us with all sorts of memory feats, such as magically remembering the exact order of the 52 cards in a deck (or even several decks!). You might assume these people have photographic memories, but you would be wrong. Most of them only have average memories.

Instead, memory performers use a technique that I will call "Visualization and Association" (V&A), or simply visualization. This is a fun memory trick that anyone who wants to have a great memory can learn. If you have trouble remembering your school work, or facts related to your job, or current events, or people’s names, or any other type of information, the solution is to learn V&A and make it a personal habit you use every day.

Even if you only have an average memory, or even a bad memory, you can still use the visualization technique to memorize things easily and well. Small children have been taught this technique, so anyone can learn it.

How the V&A Technique Works

This method takes advantage of an amazing fact about human memory: most people remember images better than verbal or written information. For example, I can easily imagine the different houses that I have lived in during my life, even though I might have a hard time remembering all the addresses and phone numbers.

Images are concrete, while raw information is often abstract. With the V&A technique, you convert the abstract information into easy-to-remember mental pictures.

These images are literally mental hooks that allow you to retrieve the information from your long-term memory.

Before I explain how to do the V&A memory technique, let me explain why it works. I have already mentioned that images are easier to remember. But it goes beyond that. Other important aspects of memory that V&A takes advantage of are concentration and repetition.

If you can’t focus, you won’t remember what you are trying to learn. The V&A process forces you to focus. Why? Because you are actively using the material. To change facts into mental images, you must focus - you have no choice. Creating mental images is a powerful way to focus the mind. This process helps create Original Awareness of the material, as it has been called by memory guru Harry Lorayne.

In addition, exposing yourself to the material over and over while creating images provides repetition, or reinforcement. If someone you meet tells you their name one time, you might or might not remember their name. But if they remind you during the conversation what their name is, you will remember their name more easily because you heard it more than once. (Most people we meet don’t help us out like that, though!) When creating your mental images, you naturally repeat the details until you get each image clear in your mind.

So the V&A technique boosts your memory for three reasons:

• Images are easier to remember than facts

• Creating images forces you to focus ("Original Awareness")

• Reviewing your images reinforces your memory of the material

By the way, V&A is not time consuming; instead, it saves time. Creating mental images does take a few moments. But if you practice a little each day, you will get very fast.

Think about this: how much time have you wasted repeating something over and over in the hope of remembering it, and then you forget it anyway? Use the V&A memory trick, and you will remember the information very well the first time. And it will stick.

A Short Example - Stratovolcanoes

Here's a quick example of this memory technique in action. There are three types of volcanoes: shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, and cinder cones. Shield volcanoes are wide and flat, with slow moving lava. Shield volcanoes are high and relatively pointed mountains that explode violently during eruptions. Cinder cones are small, form quickly, and are composed primarily of light cinders and ash.

Let's use visualization & association to memorize the shape of stratovolcanoes, so we can both easily recognize them and remember what they are called.

Good examples of stratovolcanoes are Mt. Fuji in Japan or Mt. Ranier in North America. But how can we remember that "stratovolcano" is what they are called?

The trick is to convert the sound of the word "stratovolcano" to a mental image, then connect that mental image with a mental image of Mt. Fuji, Mt. Ranier, or another similar volcanic mountain of that shape (or even just a drawing of that shape).

To me, the prefix "strato" sounds a bit like "straight oh" (like the letter O). It's not necessary to match the entire sound of the word exactly. Remember, we're just hoping to create a mental hook that we can use to retrieve the fact from memory later. Basically, we're creating an artificial reminder that will jog our memory later.

"Straight O" can be represented various ways depending on your imagination. Straight reminds me of a ruler, and the letter O could be a gigantic series of letter O's marching up the mountain.

Simply put, I now envision a steep mountain with giant O's lined up very straight going up the side. To the right is a drawing that represents "stratovolcano" ("straight-o-volcano") as I'm picturing it in my mind.

You can see that the image doesn't need to be complicated. But it does need to be clear about what is being represented. The more clearly you can visualize the image, the better the image will act as a "hook" for you to retrieve the information from memory.

That's it! The next time I want to remember what those tall, mountainous volcanoes are called, my mind will immediately recall this image of a ruler above giant O's that are going straight up the side of Mt. Ranier or Mt. Fuji. I'll think, "Lined up O's... straight O's... ah, yes - strato... stratovolcano."

Important: the larger, more incredible, sillier, or more outrageous you make the images, the better they will work as mental hooks. That's because your mind remembers the unusual far better than the ordinary.

More Complex Example with Visualization Plus Linking

Now, here's a longer example that includes linking (associating) multiple facts with each other. Let’s suppose your biochemistry teacher asks you to memorize the most common "nucleotides", chemicals that are part of everyone’s DNA.

The teacher tells you there are five types of nucleotides: adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine.

Now, how can you remember this information for the exam? If you simply repeat the names of the nucleotides over and over, you might forget one or more of them in a short time.

The V&A trick is to create mental images and associate the images together in your head. (The association part is often referred to as the Link Method.)

Here are the steps for using the V&A technique:

1. Think of easy words or phrases that sound like the hard words.

   Examples:

   nucleotide = "nuclear tide"; adenine = "add a knee"; guanine = "gong knee"; cytosine = "sight a stream"; uracil = "you’re a sill"; thymine = "thigh meat"

   The easy words don’t have to sound exactly like the hard words. The easy words act as a reminder. You will automatically remember the hard words if you recall the easy ones. Trust me on this.

2. Now, think of a simple mental image for each easy word. Silly images are fine. Actually they are better, because silly things are easier to remember.

   Try to see each image vividly in your mind.

   Examples:

   nuclear tide = nuclear bomb mushroom cloud exploding in ocean waves (not silly)
   add a knee = adding a knee to one of your legs, so that you have three knees (silly)
   gong knee = hit your knee, it sounds like a metal gong (musical instrument)
   sight a stream = a stream flowing in the distance
   you’re a sill = you are lying sideways under a big window - you are the window sill
   thigh meat = fried chicken, thigh piece

3. Now, associate the mental images to each other, in order.

   Again, make sure to imagine the mental pictures clearly. Imagine the colors, shapes, sounds, and movement in your images. This will help the pictures stick in your mind.

   nuclear tide to add a knee: connect the "tide" in your nuclear tide image with the three knees image. Perhaps imagine yourself with three knees trying to wade through the tide at the beach.

   add a knee to gong knee = the word "knee" already connects these two. So, the image of you wading three-kneed through the tide could make you think of hitting your knee making it sound like a gong.

   gong knee to sight a stream = you’ve already used "knee" in two images. To prevent confusion, tie the "gong" to the sight a stream image. Your image of hitting your knee like a gong could make you think of you seeing a distant stream with hundreds of gongs floating down river.

   sight a stream to you’re a sill = now, tie "stream" to your sill image. As a separate image, imagine yourself as a window sill, and a stream is flowing through the window getting you all wet.

   you're a sill to thigh meat = now, create a separate image associating "sill" with a fried chicken thigh. Perhaps imagine someone closing a window onto a box of fried chicken. It makes a greasy mess, and one of the chicken thighs gets smushed on the sill.

4. That’s it. Now, review it. The teacher asks you to name the five nucleotides that make up DNA. See if you can do it by recalling the images in your mind. Start with your image of "nuclear tide".

   Let’s walk through it. The teacher says "nucleotide" or you see the word written on the test, and immediately your image of a mushroom cloud in the ocean tide (nuclear tide) comes to mind. Next, "tide" should remind you of your three-kneed self wading through the tide. You have an extra knee ("add a knee"), so the first nucleotide is adenine.

   The three knees image makes you think of your "gong knee" image, so the second nucleotide is guanine. The gong knee reminds you of all the gongs floating down a distant stream in your sight ("sight a stream"), so the third nucleotide is cytosine.

   Next, the stream reminds you of the window that a stream is flowing through, with you as the window sill ("you’re a sill"), so the next nucleotide is uracil. Finally, the window sill reminds you of a window closing on a box of fried chicken, with the fried chicken thigh ("thigh meat") getting smashed = thymine.

   It’s true, it took me a few moments to type this description of what you are seeing in your mind. But the mental process is actually very fast. The images literally flash one after the other in your mind’s eye, and you instantly know the answer.

Some scientists believe we never forget anything. Nine times out of ten, the reason we can’t remember is that we can’t find the information in our brains. It’s there, we just can’t get to it. We have not made it a habit to create the mental hooks (the mental images) that we need to grab and pull out the information.

That’s what I meant at the beginning about not using your brain in the right way. If you practice the V&A memory technique, you will get very good at creating the mental hooks for anything that you want to remember.

At first, it may seem like an artificial way to remember something. But remember, Visualization & Association is what the memory performers use, and it works. It’s actually a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it. It really taps into your creativity.

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