When I was a child, I knew only one memory method. It was the acronym. Our science teacher told us that VIBGYOR gives the colours of the rainbow in the right order. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. Another one, H.O.M.E.S, gave us the Great Lakes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.
Acronyms are good. But can you make one for everything? No. So what do you do when the items have nothing to do with each other?
The bamboo tree and your memory
Have you heard how a bamboo tree grows? You water it every day for five years and you see nothing. Then in the fifth year, it shoots up several feet in a few weeks. Did it grow in a few weeks or in five years? In five years. It was building roots deep inside all that time.
Memory training is the same. Acronyms and stories are the watering stage. The results come a little later, but they come because of the work you put in now.
The link, or chain, method
A link is simply joining one thought to the next by telling a story. Before books, many great texts were passed from one generation to the next in this way.
In my book I give a list of sixteen items. Mountain, ice, tree, bike, and so on. If you try to learn it by basic association, nothing works, because a mountain has no reason to be number one. So I turn it into a story.
A mountain has ice on top and trees on the side. Coming down the mountain is a bike, ridden by Shah Rukh Khan. He has a glass of water in one hand and a sword in the other. At the bottom, he crashes into a TV set and lands on a bed. He bounces off the bed onto a guitar, and off the guitar into a ship.
The ship lands in Delhi, where Pranab Mukherjee is waiting. He wears a brown hat and black boots. He hands over a cheque for one lakh rupees and the keys to a brand new BMW. Shah Rukh Khan drives the car back to the mountain.
Read it again slowly and see each scene. You now hold sixteen items in order, and the last one even takes you back to the first.
Say it out loud and move your hands
In my sessions I make people repeat each line of the story after me. And I use my body. I hold out my hands as if I am carrying a glass of water. I bounce as if I am on the guitar. I act like the minister and hold out the cheque and the keys.
This is not for fun alone. When you speak, move and see together, you fix the pictures in more than one way. Try it with your own children at home. They will do it better than you.
Make your pictures easier to keep
The book lists simple ways to make an image stronger. Use these when you build your own story.
- Use pleasant, positive pictures. The brain often blocks out unpleasant ones.
- Exaggerate the size of the important parts.
- Use humour. Funny or strange things are easier to remember than normal ones.
- Add colour, sound, smell, taste, touch and feeling.
- Put in movement. Things that move, crash and fall are easier to keep.
- Give similar pictures different backgrounds, so they do not get mixed up.
The picture must also clearly relate to the thing you want to remember. A funny picture that has no link to the item will only confuse you later.
Your turn
Here are twenty five words from the book. Phone, cupboard, book, TV set, cup, plate, dog, fridge, can, helmet, wallpaper, leaves, sweater, suitcase, cake, lemon, bicycle, handkerchief, tea, programme, tape recorder, tap, wall socket, window pane and sugar.
Do not write them again and again. Tell yourself one story that goes from the first to the last. Use people you know. Your uncle on a bicycle, your mother pouring tea. Then write the list without looking. Check how many you got. Then do the story again with louder pictures.
This is one idea from my book Memory Power.
