Quantum Memory Power Read online

  Keep thinking all the time. Go back again to the first stage. You should be able to get all these now. In 1991, what was it? You see some lambs: The Silence of the Lambs. Next stage, Unforgiven. Next, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty. Did you get all those?

  Now if anybody asks you, “What won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1995?” you can say, “That was Braveheart.”

  “What was before that, in 1994?” Just think back through your journey: Forrest Gump. “How about 1996?” It has to be The English Patient.

  If you had to memorize that list using traditional methods, like repeating it over and over again, how long do you think that would take? Using quantum memory power techniques, you’ve done it in just a couple of minutes, so now you’re a film buff.

  12

  The Secret to Remembering Dates

  In this chapter, I’m going to teach you how to be a walking calendar. If someone gives me their date of birth, I can give them the day of the week they were born in seconds. For example, the 10th of August 1957 was a Saturday, and the 10th of August 2057 will be a Friday, and I’ll be exactly 100 years old, should I be so lucky.

  For instance, someone might say, “I was born on April 7, 1961.” I’d say, “That’s a Friday.”

  “My kid was born on June 27, 1991.” That was a Thursday. Being able to tell the day of the week is not just a great party trick, but it’s also a great way of settling arguments. “No, you couldn’t have been on the optician that day, because that was a Sunday.”

  Whenever I hear dates in history, I often wonder if the corresponding day of the week had any influence on its occurrence. For example, remember that fateful day on December 8, 1980, when John Lennon was murdered. I know immediately that it was a Monday. I wonder if Mark David Chapman, his killer, had the Monday blues.

  Do you remember the moon landing on July 20, 1969? I can remember as a kid. I was about 11 years old, staying up all night with my mother watching it. Now I can remember that it was a Sunday, but I could also work it out through my system.

  How about some more famous date? If you’re old enough, you can probably remember what you were doing on November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot. I know immediately that it was a Friday.

  By the end of this chapter, you’ll be able to work these calculations out for yourself, because I’m going to let you into a secret that psychic mind performers and magicians would rather I didn’t reveal. The skill involves about 75 percent memory and 25 percent math. What takes several sentences for me to explain could be calculated by your brain in a second—with a little bit of practice, of course.

  Before I give you this method, just bear in mind the example of a pianist. Watch a pianist at work, sight-reading a score. Do you think he really has time to convert what he sees on a score and translate it into notes on a piano? No, he doesn’t. He just knows where his fingers should go. It’s automatic after a while, and it’s a bit like watching somebody typing. If you’ve never seen it before, you’d have thought it was impossible. How can your brain work out something so quickly?

  What I’m about to explain is a lot easier than that. It’s a lot less involved than trying to learn sight-reading from scratch. It might sound a bit complicated, but it isn’t really. So how do I do this? How do I do it so quickly?

  You can do it too. I’m going to give you a few examples, and I’m going to talk broadly about how it’s possible. I have a series of codes, so that every year to me represents a single-digit code. When I hear the year 1957, I immediately think of the code 1. If it’s 1963, that’s 1 as well; 1953, I get the code 3; 1999, the code 4. I’m going to tell you how to memorize those codes in a minute.

  The next thing you need is a separate code for each month. When I hear February, I immediately think of the code 4. December is 6. April is 0.

  The third thing is, you have to know a symbol for each day of the week. That’s simple. Sunday is always the first day of the week, so Monday is 2, Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4, and so on. I end with Saturday.

  With this particular technique, I just cancel out anything that’s divisible by 7. On this basis, Saturday should be 7, but I’m going to call it 0. It’s divisible by 7, and that works with the date as well. So if you have the 7th of the month, you call that 0. If it’s the 22nd, you take away the multiples of 7—3 7s—and that leaves you with 1.

  Let me go through this step by step. Let’s take that date again, my birthday, August 10, 1957. The code for August is 3, so keep that in mind: 3. Now we take the date: the 10th. Take away the 7, and that leaves 3. Now we have August 3, and the date, 3. One more code coming up.

  For 1957, the code is 1. You add those 3 together: 3 plus 3 is 6, plus the 1 is 7. What do you do? You cancel out the 7, so we’re left with 0. What is 0? It’s Saturday.

  You must always remember that what takes me several sentences to describe can be worked out by your brain in seconds. Of course, you need a bit of practice. You need to learn the codes.

  MONTH CODES

  Let’s start off with the month codes, and this will act as a little exercise for you. There are only 12 codes to learn, starting with January and going right through to December.

  January is 1, so how can you find a link between January and 1? That’s an easy one. It’s the first month, so the code is 1.

  Let’s go on to February, which is 4. Think of the Fab 4, the Beatles: Fab 4, Feb. 4.

  For March, think of an army marching forward, because the code for March is also 4. Use images; use your imagination.

  The code for April is 0. For that, I imagine April showers, and I can see hailstones the size of footballs. Remember the number shape for 0 is a football. Just visualize that now.

  What about May? I may think of May, or I may not. It’s a twofold choice, and the code for May is 2.

  The code for June is 5. How would you find a link between June and 5? I think of a friend of mine called June drawing her curtains. Remember the number shape for 5 is a curtain hook. Maybe you know somebody called June. Just imagine her at home pulling her curtains, and you’ll always remember that the code for June is 5. It’s best to use your own associations. You could think of June Cleaver from the old TV show Leave It to Beaver. Imagine her pulling the curtains.

  The code for July is 0. Again, use the number shape. Imagine somebody you know called Julie kicking a football.

  Now we move on to August. The code for August is 3. How would you find a connection between August and 3? I think of the star sign Leo, which has 3 letters. Does that make sense? August 3, Leo 3.

  We can use something similar with September. I think of September—the fall, leaves falling, and leaves has 6 letters, so September is 6. September, leaves, 6.

  We’re nearly there. October makes me think of an octopus. The code is 1. How do you connect octopus with a candle, which is the number shape for 1? Picture an octopus carrying a candle.

  November is 4. What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear November? I think of a novice, a Franciscan friar. The number shape for 4 is a sailboat, so just imagine a novice on the serene sea. Perhaps he’s reading a Bible, and he’s in a sailboat drifting out to sea. November, novice, sailboat, 4.

  I’m going to leave the last one up to you. The code for December is 6. See if you can find a connection between December and 6.

  Now for the test. I’m going to go back through those months, and I want you to give the code.

  January: the clue is, it’s the first month, 1.

  For February, think of the Beatles, the Fab 4.

  March, an army marching forward. March is 4.

  April—April showers, hailstones the size of footballs, so April is 0.

  May, may or may not—a twofold choice. May is 2.

  June: who was that woman? What was she doing? She was drawing the curtains, and the number shape for 5, that’s it: curtain hook. June is 5.

  July, or Julie. What was Julie doing? Kicking a football, so 0 is the number code for July.

  What was the association for August? The star sign Leo. Leo has 3 letters, so it’s 3.

  September is the beginning of the fall. Falling leaves, and leaves has how many letters? 6.

  For October, we thought of what? An octopus carrying a candle: number shape 1.

  For November, what was that serene scene? The novice in the sailboat: 4.

  I don’t know what you were thinking of, but the number for December is 6.

  Now that you have the month codes, let’s go back to that date again: August 10, 1957. If I give you the code for 1957, it’s 1. You should be able to work it out for yourself now. August 10, take away the 7, and that leaves 3. What is the code for August? 3, so 3 plus 3 plus 1 gives us Saturday. It’ll become clearer later on.

  YEAR CODES

  Now we come to the year codes. As I said, every pair of digits from 00 to 99 is a person to me. When I hear 57, I think of my friend, Theresa. Now I know the number code is 1, but how do I do that?

  I want you to imagine this. It’s your birthday. You’re walking up your drive, you’re just about to go in the front door, and you’re thinking, “What should I do tonight? Maybe I’ll invite some friends around for drinks and have an early night.”

  As you open the door, an almighty cheer reverberates around the house. Little did you know that your best friend has organized a huge party for you. He’s invited 100 guests, so as the light goes on, you see your friends and family, but as you look around, you notice famous people, sports personalities, politicians, royalty, even people from the past.

  Of course, you can’t fit 100 guests into one room, so your friend has designated various rooms for groups of people. In fact, he’s designated 7 areas, incl
uding the yard, so the yard is one area, and he has various people in little cliques. You know how people gather in cliques. Some gather in the kitchen, some in the sitting room.

  This is how you learn the year codes. You imagine all 100 year codes being split up into 7 areas. Let me give you an example.

  The area in the garden we’ll call the code area of 0. Now, there you have characters like Omar Sharif, the cartoon character Olive Oyl, and Benny Hill. If you link those back to numbers, you have Omar Sharif, OS being 06. Remember the Dominic system? What would Olive Oyl be? 00. It has to be OO, 00. Benny Hill (or Bob Hope): BH. He has to be 28.

  What’s happening in your bedroom? You have Alfred Hitchcock there, along with Neil Armstrong and Sean Connery.

  If this were your own house, and you had 100 famous people there, do you think that after the party you’d be able to remember where everybody was situated? Of course you would, because you’d want to keep an eye on them. You’d want to make sure that they have drinks and that they’re not up to no good.

  Splitting your own house up into 7 areas is a really fun way of exercising your brain. It’s also an extremely useful, beneficial, and practical technique to have.

  HOW IT WORKS

  To demonstrate how this works, we’re going to take a few of those guests and put them in the yard. Think about your own yard, and form a little journey of seven stages around it. At each stage, you’re going to imagine seeing some famous characters, and they’re going to be kicking a football to one another. Remember, the number shape for 0 is football, and that’s why we have it in the yard. That will give you the number code for each of the following years.

  When you have 7 stages, I’m going to feed you the images of famous people or cartoon characters. Try to picture these characters.

  First one: Olive Oyl, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness. Imagine him drinking Guinness: Alec Guinness. Bing Crosby, Benny Hill, Celine Dion, and Duke Ellington.

  Can you picture those characters in your yard? Try to get them to interact with each other. They’re kicking a football around. That will remind you that the code is 0.

  If you think about those characters, you can work back to the year dates. Olive Oyl will be OO, 00: 1900. Omar Sharif is going to be 06, 1906. Alec Guinness, AG, will be 1917. Bing Crosby, 1923;

  Benny Hill, 1928: Celine Dion, CD, 1934; and Duke Ellington, 1945.

  We take any one of those dates, and now we’re going to work out the day of the week together. May: what’s the code for May? It’s 2. Keep this in your head. May 3, so now you had 2 plus 3, and you have 5: 1906. Who is 06? It has to be Omar Sharif. He’s in the garden. The code is 0, so you’re still on 5. What’s the fifth day of the week? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

  As I said before, it takes a while to learn this, and it takes a while to explain it, but with a bit of practice, you’ll be able to do it in seconds.

  A TEST

  Here’s another one for you. When people give me dates, I try to get them to give me the year first, so I have the code. Let’s say the first year you get is 1900, so you’re looking at OO, 00, which is Olive Oyl. We can discount the year now, because we know she’s in the garden, and the code is 0, so now we just get straight on to the actual date itself. August 3: 3 plus 3 is 6. What does that give us? Friday.

  One more for you. We’ll do it the other way around. December: code 6, December 21. Remember you cast out the 7s, so with 21 divided by 7, you’re left with 0. December is 6; Then there’s 1906. Now you think, who is 06? That’s Omar Sharif; he’s in the garden, 0, so we’re still on 6. It has to be Friday, the sixth day of the week.

  As I said, take a bit of time to learn this process. Go over it, and it should all make sense. If you want to get really clever, you can do this for almost any century you like. You can go backwards or forwards. All you have to do is learn another set of codes for the centuries.

  Now a word on the leap year. There is going to be a slight adjustment for any date that comes in January or February. A leap year is any year that’s divisible by 4. So 1944 is an obvious one, as is 1972, so when you get a leap year, have a look at the guidebook. It’s a very simple, slight adjustment. Let us suppose the date you are asked about is a leap year and falls between 1 January and 29 February. In this case (and no other), simply subtract 1 from your final total. If the date falls within a leap year, but is outside January or February, simply carry out the calculation as before.

  This is a great skill to have, and you can have a lot of fun with it. You’ll be known as a walking calendar. If you think it’s rather difficult, my mother, who is 83, can do it. She’s not as fast as I am, but she always gets it right.

  In the next chapter, we’re going to look at ways of developing the photographic side of your memory. We’re also going to be looking at ways of remembering directions.

  13

  A Frame of Reference

  In this chapter, we’re going to look at how you can develop your powers of photographic memory. In fact, most of us already possess a degree of photographic memory.

  My father told me a story about when he was 10. He was sitting on a train with his parents, traveling across Ireland from Dublin, and he decided to try and capture that moment. He just took in all the information. He studied the expressions on his parents’ faces as well as their clothes. He looked around at the decor of the train, noted that special musty smell that only trains give off, and looked at the scenery outside as well.

  “That’s it,” he said. “I’m going to keep that memory in my mind for life.” He said he could still remember it to that day. I thought it was such a lovely, elegant idea that I decided to do it myself in the exact instant my father told me the story.

  Guess where we were sitting? I was age 12, and we were also sitting on a train traveling across Ireland from Dublin.

  Maybe you have a moment like that in your lifetime. Perhaps you can remember walking up the aisle at your wedding, or your first day at school. How many details can you recall?

  If we can remember information in detail, like a specific framed moment in our past, why shouldn’t we able to memorize the contents of a newspaper or a magazine?

  I regularly give presentations, and I do the usual things. I talk about memory training, and then we get on to memorizing a number. I recall everybody’s names, and we do a deck of cards. But I think the one thing that baffles most people is when I get that day’s newspaper out and memorize it. I’ll ask somebody to give me any page; say they choose page 67. I’ll say, “On that particular page, there’s probably an advert, and it’s all about PCs,” and then I’ll reel off the specifications, the price, and the telephone number for more information.

  Somebody else will shout out another page, and I’ll say, “There’s a picture there of six people,” and then I’ll recall their names. Maybe there’s a car in the background, so I’ll reel off the number on the license plate.

  This goes on for a bit, and eventually somebody will pick out the financial section. I’ll say, “No problem. Somebody call out a company.”

  They’ll say, “How about CJ Holdings?”

  “That went up 67.75 cents. Another.”

  “Tech Back stock,” or whatever it is.

  I’ll say, “Yes, that went down, I think that was $12.50.” At the end of this (if I’m paid enough money), I’ll actually remember the exact price: it moved down, say $10 to $3.53.

  How do I do that? If you apply the techniques that I’m about to give you, you can do this too. It’s not that difficult.

  A quick revision. What are the three golden keys of memory? Association, location, and imagination. Just think of Muhammad Ali, ALI, “The Greatest,” because these are the greatest components for converting a poor memory into a mammoth memory.

  A JOURNEY THROUGH THE NEWSPAPER

  This is what I normally do. The first thing, as always, is to get myself a location. I usually choose one out in the open air.

  Do you remember when we did a shopping list? I got you to go on a journey around your house. The areas there were probably a little confined. That’s fine, because you’re only looking at doing one object in one room, but when you’re looking at a newspaper, you need a wide expanse. So the journey I want you to choose now is a favorite walk, such as a walk through the park.