[Craig]

Before I go on with what I suspect will be a very long-winded, exhausting post, I'll kick off by saying I have a terrible memory. It isn't so much that I forget things altogether (though I do that a lot too), rather I'll remember a day or date and for the life of my I can't recall why it's significant - is it somebody's birthday? Have I got plans? Did I cancel them? Appointment, deadline, meeting? Fortunately, I don't have many deadlines because I work full-time in elderly care, so the only real deadline I have are frequent checks to make sure everybody's at least breathing and to make sure I go home on time. I've recently started a diploma through work, but even that is dictated by own motivation. I can work at any pace I wish.

In an age of technology, memory has taken the bench. Thanks to calendars, computers, personal organisers and phones, we don't need to remember a telephone number or an appointment. When I was a kid I knew many of my friends' phone numbers. Now? I'm hard pressed if I know my own mobile phone number off by heart. I don't need to, and I don't feel guilty for not remembering because that's what these things are there for, right? I'm already concerned enough with my brain turning to mush, so I read as much as I can. I'll read in the quiet lulls at work, I'll read on the train and I'll read whenever I get a free 10 minutes and really want to finish a couple of chapters. I have a shelf full of books that I can't remember even reading, or what they were about. Even reading the blurb draws a blank.

This leads me to a book I bought a couple of weeks ago, and I only just got around to reading it the weekend just gone. It's called "Moonwalking With Einstein" by journalist Josh Foer. In it, he describes his fascination with memory experts, who can seemingly store masses of data and information in their head for as long as they wish. He tells the story of how he attended a championship where people memorise entire decks of cards, thousands of digits of Pi and hundreds of names/faces. He grew more and more interested and learns some of the tricks taught by big names in the game, ultimately inspiring him to train for the championship. It's a great read and has actually changed the way I think about memory and how it isn't this one static thing that fails me from time to time. It's actually a fluid, adaptable, complex phenomenon which shifts information and changes perception to improve what it takes in. Even if you've got a terrible memory like me, you'd be surprised at what you can recall. I can recite lyrics from entire albums, quotes, routes, words and names, but when it comes to where I've left my keys or sandwich, I'm sorry but I can't help you.

The most intriguing bit of it is something called a "memory palace", which I'd like to invite you to try. It's a form of mnemonic memory. Essentially, a memory palace is where one can store obscure lists and information that would be otherwise difficult to remember. You have to start with a familiar place, so naturally people pick the house they grew up in. Because we know the routes to hundreds of places (you'd be surprised just how many) you can literally store thousands of pieces of information.

Say like I present to you this. It's a shopping list, and it's essentially adapted from the book:
• Peanut butter
• Cottage cheese
• Two bottles of wine
• Orange shorts
• Iceberg lettuce
• Bread
• Bath bombs
• Baby sweetcorn
• Tickets to see Kanye West
• A pogo stick

I tried to mix common with obscure, just to demonstrate different techniques.

Don't worry, I won't keep you long.

Basically, you start at your path, just before your front door. First on the list is peanut butter, so imagine yourself standing there with the peanut butter and you're really going to town on it - you're digging a spoon in, you're shoving it in, spilling it all down yourself and just generally being a scruffy sod. If you don't like peanut butter, good, it reinforces the memory of it. Make sure you can smell it and taste it in your mind's eye. By the end of all this, it's most likely going to be blood shot.

As you approach your front door, you hear giggling. You open the door to find Madonna bathing in a wading pool of cottage cheese and she's having a whale of a time. She's splashing around and just loving it, even playfully flicking some at you invitingly. Move on to the wine, and into your front room or whichever room you come to first. You see two wine bottles chatting away, drinking a glass of their own produce and chuckling in a sophisticated manner. You really need to burn these into your head.

You can even combine two, such as the last two - Kanye West tickets and pogo stick. Think of him on a pogo stick, or complaining about parking tickets on his limo, or both. The more obscure the image, the more it's going to stick. If you have a dirty mind, you're going to have a better time creating vulgar, interesting and otherwise obvious images that stick with you far more than the word does. You may be able to remember the list as it is, word for word, and that's fine. Some people can. The point is you can do this with so much more, and potentially remember hundreds of items.

There's other techniques such as how to remember phone numbers (the Major System invented by Johann Winkelmann) and entire decks of cards. Some of it is useless, and are nothing more than party tricks, but some are indeed practical and will change the way you remember things.

Right, now that I've said all that, how good is your memory? Do you use mnemonics? Can you remember half of what I said on that list?*

I'm always interested in how other people are and how they think, so I'd be interested to know if you've got a good memory or not.

*don't actually tell me, I don't care.

[Xcommunicated]

I've read books on improving memory and they talked about making ridiculous imagery and associations in your mind much like the ones you used for your example list. I've also read of ways to remember numbers by associating each of the 10 single digits in the decimal system with its own specific consonant sound. The specific sounds can be combined to form words for multi-digit numbers. These words can be strung together making ridiculous associations between them to remember a long string of numbers.

Pretty nifty stuff, but when it comes to more applied and specific subjects like learning human anatomy, understanding the Latin roots is going to help the most. Applying memory tricks still can help though. For example, when prodding around in the forearm muscles of a cadaver, you may remember extensor carpi radialis but forget that there are both a longus and brevis muscle, then you're left wondering if it's the flexor carpi radialis or the extensor carpi radialis that has the longus and brevis. Applying memory tricks helped me clear up confusions like that.


But yeah, I'm typically sh*t at remembering where I set something down as well.

[Slamman]

Association is a very effective memory tool, but I write a lot down in notebooks, even info I garner online, I can't expect to remember things in my head, if you have a photographic memory, you will do well in life, but it won't mean you're necessarily smart.

Then, just wait till Alzheimers and dimentia set in!! Oh, fun times ahead

[SagaciousKJB]

I've got my own system for memory. Just can't remember how it works...

[Robinski]

When I see a long-ish OP I scan through the post first to see what I'm getting in to. I saw this:

QUOTE

As you approach your front door, you hear giggling. You open the door to find Madonna bathing in a wading pool of cottage cheese and she's having a whale of a time.

and immediately went to read through the entire thing.

As for memory, I'm probably much the same as most of our generation. I can tell you some random fact about a video game from the nineties, draw you a perfect map of all the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer levels and sing the entire theme tune to Friends without batting an eyelid. But quiz me about my uni class schedule, that I'm still part of, and I haven't got a clue.

The thing I hate most about memory is not being able to remember if you did something that you do every day. For example, every god damn day I get to the end of my garden slab-of-concrete path and have to turn around to make sure I locked the door. And I have. Every time. But I can never remember if I actually did it or not, because it's reflex, and I might be remembering doing it yesterday.

[Craig]

QUOTE (Slamman @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 13:35)

...if you have a photographic memory... Then, just wait till Alzheimers and dimentia set in!! Oh, fun times ahead

There's no such thing as photographic memory from what I've read. Not even savants have that level of recall, it's more to do with association and relation. There are rare cases of people remembering everything against the will, and just assuming that's how everyone else is too. I find things like that interesting.

QUOTE (Robinski)

The thing I hate most about memory is not being able to remember if you did something that you do every day. For example, every god damn day I get to the end of my garden slab-of-concrete path and have to turn around to make sure I locked the door. And I have. Every time. But I can never remember if I actually did it or not, because it's reflex, and I might be remembering doing it yesterday.

It's as if your brain is paving over it. It isn't important and is just part of your routine, which your brain handles well. It's only when you take over and the thought process kicks in.

QUOTE (Xcommunicated)

I've also read of ways to remember numbers by associating each of the 10 single digits in the decimal system with its own specific consonant sound. The specific sounds can be combined to form words for multi-digit numbers. These words can be strung together making ridiculous associations between them to remember a long string of numbers.

Now this sounds interesting. Can you give me a few examples?

[SIKKS66]

Derren Brown wrote about this in his book Tricks of the Mind. It works but you have to work at it.

I use the whole list thing as a party trick

Edit: I believe Brown talks about that number trick too. Might want to give it a read if it interests you. He writes about it in a very introductory matter and suggests further reading if you're interested in finding out more.

This post has been edited by SIKKS66 on Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 18:28

[NaidRaida]

Amazing are those guys who are autistic. I saw one, you can show him a picture of a whole city for five seconds and then he draw it with every detail. And I mean every, like he took a picture in his head.

[Cursed]

I've seen this technique on TV several times. My memory isn't brilliant but it's especially bad when it comes to films. I've seen the Harry Potter films several times and still can't remember what happened in any detail. I can remember things like car number plates, my own phone number and long router codes quite easily though.

[Craig]

I may have to read that Derren Brown book. I kept seeing it, picking it up, murmuring and then putting it back. If it's about things like this as well as other things to try, I'm sold.

As for those that can recall entire cities from a helicopter ride and then draw them, I believe that has something to do with how the brain stores information. There's connections lacking between the right side and left side, essentially meaning (without trawling through mumbo jumbo I don't fully understand) the brain can't "lose" memories like we can. It's as close to photographic as you're going to get.

[GTA_stu]

QUOTE (Robinski @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 17:54)

For example, every god damn day I get to the end of my garden slab-of-concrete path and have to turn around to make sure I locked the door. And I have. Every time. But I can never remember if I actually did it or not

I find a good technique for this is physically saying out loud "I locked the door, I locked the door, I locked the door" and it works pretty good. You look like a nutcase if someone happens to be walking by as you do it though.

I've always had a good memory, which is weird because nobody else in my family does. I hardly ever lose anything, and I can remember oodles and oodles of pointless trivia, plus I hardly ever had to revise for tests and I'd ace them. But things are a bit harder in uni and I sure as hell have to revise now.

[Sup3rman]

My memory is very crap too. Thing is, i remeber everything i want to remember and things i research myself and dont even want to remember..things like cars, titanic stuff and others. But schoolstuff just slips my mind, because i dont like it and dont really want to maybe remember.

[Robinski]

QUOTE (GTA_stu @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 18:42)

QUOTE (Robinski @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 17:54) For example, every god damn day I get to the end of my garden slab-of-concrete path and have to turn around to make sure I locked the door. And I have. Every time. But I can never remember if I actually did it or not I find a good technique for this is physically saying out loud "I locked the door, I locked the door, I locked the door" and it works pretty good. You look like a nutcase if someone happens to be walking by as you do it though.

Ah but then you get in the routine of doing that. I've done that before where I said to myself (in my head) that I've locked the door, then thought to myself that it might be the walking out the garden gate that triggers that, rather than the locking the door. Or maybe you're just saying it to yourself because it's the routine and memory-wise it's no longer linked to actually locking the door, and eventually you go through the whole process of self doubt so much that you're not even sure if you really know what your name is any more.

[GTA_stu]

Ah but I only ever say it after I've locked it and then checked it, and so far I've never left it unlocked. As long as you obey the system 100% you'll be fine. As soon as you allow that lack of concentration and forget even 1 small minor step to the system, then you've had it.

[vertical limit]

Read this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Have-Amazing-M...g/dp/1907486976

I still haven't read it because I have a lot on my plate at the moment. But I will eventually.

[El Zilcho]

QUOTE (vertical limit @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 20:45)

Read this. http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Have-Amazing-M...g/dp/1907486976 I still haven't read it because I have a lot on my plate at the moment. But I will eventually.

You can't really recommend something until you've actually read it. It doesn't work that way

[vertical limit]

QUOTE (El Zilcho @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 19:49)

QUOTE (vertical limit @ Thursday, Apr 19 2012, 20:45) Read this. http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Have-Amazing-M...g/dp/1907486976 I still haven't read it because I have a lot on my plate at the moment. But I will eventually. You can't really recommend something until you've actually read it. It doesn't work that way

Do you actually doubt that this book isn't good enough?

[SIKKS66]

I'd say go read the Derren Brown one instead since it's full of his childhood anecdotes and atheist rants.

[Sean_R_LFC]

I am lucky (some say) enough to have a photographic memory some memories I wish weren't so vivid but it helps

Oh and the first post nearly sent me green, I'm so stoned atm

[AlexGTAGamer]

When it comes to remembering a name I always tend to try and associate that persons name with either the name of someone else I can easily remember, or even to brands/objects/cities/landmarks etc.

One notable one for me would be Glenn Miller. I couldn't remember his name for a long time, so I sat down and thought it out like this:

Glenn Miller

Glenn - Glen Quagmire from Family Guy shares the first name.
Miller - Sounds like Müller, as in Müller yogurt.

It's just simple, stupid things like that that I use to remember.