Have you ever wished you could develop a potent memory that would cause you to never ever again need to write anything down? Have you ever been amazed by those guys on TV who could instantly memorize a room full of people that they’d just met? Can you imagine how cool you’d look to a room full of your friends when you stand up to give a speech with absolutely no note-cards whatsoever? Well, after you read this article and put these techniques into practice you’ll be able to easily develop such incredibly powerful mental skills you’ll not only have useful strategies but a set of wildly entertaining party skills. Ready?
The basic method is to learn a technique called pegging. This is a wild form of association. Association is when you immediately link two ideas or words together. Like for example, when you think of the word baseball, you might immediately think of glove, or bat, or stadium. That is an association. Technically it’s because inside your brain there’s a strong neural connection between those two words. The idea behind pegging is to create a strong association between something that you already know well, to that which you want to remember.
Normally, these associations take time and effort. Like spelling. Many words don’t follow any normal spelling rules, like psychology, for example. The only way to remember to spell it without thinking is to write it over and over. Similarly, unless you can count really fast in your head, the only way to remember that 12 x 12 = 144 is to repeat the equation enough times so that you can create a strong neural connection.
However, pegging is an easier, quicker, and much more fun way to do this. Here are the simple steps:
Step 1: Create a list of items that you already know inside and out. For example, five things that are almost alwasy in your bedroom. (Like your bed for example.)
Step 2: Create an itemized list of the things you want to remember. Points in a speech, items at the grocery store, steps of the Kreb cycle, anything will work.
Step 3: Create a fantastically crazy cartoonish action and sensory filled picture containing any item from Steps 1 and 2 from above. It helps to involved yourself in this action cartoon picture. And if you are comfortable with it, add in the two secret ingredients (more on these later.)
For example, let’s say you are going to the store, and you need to buy eggs. You choose an item from your bedroom, let’s say your bed. So then you need to create a fantastical mind movie starring the eggs and your beds. How about this: You are really tired, and you walk into your bedroom and collapse on your bed. Only somebody has put about a thousand eggs under your sheets, and all the runny egg stuff oozes out all over you, in your hair, under your clothes, inside your socks, between your toes. Or how about this: You come home, tired liked before, only this time you go to collapse on our bed, but you realize too late that your bed has magically changed into a giant egg, complete with sheets and covers and bed spread. As you collapse on your bed/egg it naturally breaks, but only partially and you find yourself inside a giant egg with all the bedsheets soaked in egg goo, and wrapped around you. Make sure to really feel the egg goo in your mind as you create this picture. It sounds complicated, but it really only takes a couple seconds.
So after you easily create this image, when you go to the store, and think of your bed, the egg image will instantly pop into your head. You peg things to items in your bedroom, your bathroom, your car, any landmarks between your place and the closest 7-11, anything will work.
After you practice for a while, you’ll naturally become extremely proficient. I once gave a demonstration in front of a speech class I was taking. People were amazed. When you do this, especially at parties or happy hours, people will think that you are a genius. Which, actually, you are as you start to use these mind development techniques that many others, like you, have learned.
And the secret ingredients? Sex and pain. Yep. If you involved sex and pain in your picture, it will be impossible NOT to remember it. Just make sure to keep the sex and the pain involving yourself (and the eggs and the bed in the above examples.) Be as graphic and creative as possible, but make sure not to let anybody peek inside your head while you are doing this, because they might think you are a little weird. And be sure that after you do this at parties and impress your friends with your new super powerful memory techniques, not to tell them about the sex and the pain part. You might be walking home.
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