Improve your Memory with Memory Systems
The Best is that it’s Funny!
What would you say if I told you to remember the first 10 000 digits of Pi in one month. You would probably say at first it’s impossible, and let’s admit it’s possible, it should be terribly boring.
Well, you’re wrong! It’s possible, and it can even be a funny process thanks to memory systems.
What Do we Remember Best
What if I tell you to remember the number 93814941984193221 now? You can’t do it I guess. And if I tell you to remember the sentence “a flying cat drinking a bottle of wine”? Easy, right?
A basic concept to undertand is that we remember better things when they have a meaning. A random number doesn’t have any meaning. A random sentence doesn’t have any meaning too. However, an english sentence has a meaning.
Memorizing sentences work, but doing it just like this it isn’t effective. I will introduce you the “SEE” principle.
The SEE Principle
- Senses
- Exaggeration
- Energize
These 3 things can be used to remember anything easily.
Senses: There are only five ways to get anything into your brain, and that is through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. When you utilize your senses you experience more of life and you remember more.
It works with any of your senses. For example, when you’ve read the example sentence of the flying cat before, you could have visualized it in your mind to remember it. Another example, when we go to some places with a specific smell, we tend to remember it better.
Exaggeration: We remember better uncommon things. What is easier to remember: an apple or an apple the size of a building? A cat or a flying cat dressed like Superman?
Energize: It’s easier to remember things when there is action. For example, a cat drinking a bottle of wine creates more feelings in your imagination than a standing cat.
What is a Memory System
A memory system is a method turning things to remember into meaningful and fun things to make them more memorable.
In general, this is how it is done when working with memory systems:
- You have a something to remember.
- If it’s abstract, you turn it into something meaningful.
- If it’s not, you place it into a memory system.
- You remember it using the SEE principle.
Let’s say you want to remember the names of all the presidents of the USA. For the example, I’ll just take 5: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.
Obviously, you can try to repeat their names mechanically until you can remember them. Another way to do it is to try to create a play featuring them. It’s just an example of a memory system, there are tons of others.
In this case, this could be:
“A guy is washing a tin, then there’s a zoom on its Adam’s apple, then his wife comes with her son, finally they dance together the madison and Marilyn Monroe comes on stage dancing with them.”
The example is not very good (I’m not a natural english speaker so it’s hard for me to do this in a foreign language), but I guess you’ve understood the principle.
- A guy washing a tin: Washington
- Adam’s apple: Adams
- With her son: Jefferson
- The madison: Madison
- Marilyn Monroe: Monroe
So now, instead of remembering a list of words, you have to remember a play. It’s funnier, and more effective because it’s meaningful. Combining it with the SEE principle, the play will be very easy to remember.
Remembering Abstract Things
Names of presidents aren’t abstract. On the other hand, numbers, like 23891304 or pi, are abstract. You may wonder how we can use them with memory systems.
Well, a thing we can do is trying to turn them into something meaningful. For example, words. To do this we have to find a code.
An example of a code I’ve read in “Unlimited Memory” by Kevin Horsley is:
- 0 is the S, Z or C sound: S sounds like the hissing of a wheel
- 1 represents the T or D sound
- 2 is the N sound
- 3 is the M sound
- 4 is the R sound
- 5 is the L sound
- 6 is the J, Sh, soft Ch or soft G sound
- 7 is the K, C sound
- 8 is the F or V sound
- 9 is the B or P sound
To remember the code easily, we can associate it with images. For example, 1 represents the T sound as this number has the shame shape as a T. 2 is the N sound as it has the same shape when flipped by 90°. Etc…
We can add some letters used to use as fillers or blanks: a, e, i, o, u, w, h, y.
Using this, if I want to remember the number 1310, I just have to convert it into words.
- 1 = T or D
- 3 = M
- 1 = T or D
- 0 = S, Z, or C
Filling these sounds with our fillers, we can build the word “TOMATOES”. So instead of remembering 1310, you can remember the word tomatoes, then convert it back to a number.
Obviously it’s a lot of work at first to remember this code, but if you know it well, you can convert numbers to words in a few seconds, and get the number from the words in a few seconds too. It has to become an automatism.
Final Note
Now you know what are memory systems, and you can create your owns to try to remember things!
There are some memory systems already existing, like the Car system, the Body system, or the system to remember a deck of cards using people, but I won’t talk about them today. Maybe in another story, so be sure to follow me if you don’t want to miss it out!
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