Quantum Memory Power Read online

  Here’s the technique: Start by mentally returning to a location that conjures up a number of varied, incidental recollections, like your old school or an old friend’s house or a town you left long ago. Choose a specific starting point. It might be a flagpole on the playground, a chapel pew, a tree hut, or a friend’s kitchen.

  Look around you. Think of the technique you used for remembering a picture. Throw yourself into the picture. Climb inside the frame. What little incidents do you remember? How old were you then? What friends did you have at the time? What were the typical noises? Traffic, trains, children playing?

  Try to recall individual sounds, characteristics of particular objects, maybe the slam of a front door, a squeaky window, a creaky floorboard, or a water pipe that always shuddered. Perhaps you can recall the characteristic noises of places where you worked—a forklift, sliding doors, a photocopier, the now obsolete typewriter, or some sort of factory machinery.

  Talking of factory machinery, I’m still haunted by the inimitable sounds of a heavy-duty shredding machine many years ago. For too long, my ears were subjected to the sound of splicing, ripping, and tearing as this monster relentlessly pulverized millions of square feet of photographic waste and negative film. All that noise for a few, small, silent bars of silver that were the end product. Even so, as I conjure up those unpleasant sounds from the past, I’m compensated by a flood of associated memories from that chapter of my life.

  Happy associations are people, places, music, parties, and voices. See if you can recall voices, even their timbre. If you’re using your old school or workplace as a location, try to remember catch phrases used by teachers and pupils or employers and workmates. Isolate particular events that took place. No matter how trivial they seem now, they obviously meant something to you then. As always, use all your senses.

  Can you recall the smell of a damp, musty room or the aroma of your garden? What about the smooth feel of a polished walnut table or a rough texture of a brick wall—the one you used to run your hands along on the way to school?

  You could slip an old record on a turntable to get yourself in the mood—maybe an old Beatles album or a Chopin classic. Music can act as a very powerful tool for remembering your past. It can propel you back to a distant time, with all the emotions, thoughts, and feelings that suddenly and uncannily return to you.

  ASSOCIATION

  Association is at the heart of time travel. One memory sparks off another, so after a while an overall picture begins to emerge, not just of the layout of a place, but also of your state of mind. Were you happy, optimistic, in love, depressed, or just naive?

  The more deeply you reflect, the more memories will be triggered off. Experiences completely forgotten will come flooding back. Eventually, if you work hard at it, you’ll have the same problem as I have. I never run out of memories.

  Try to make this a daily routine. Spend a little time every day reflecting on the same area of your past until you feel you’ve exhausted every avenue of retrieval. It’s possible you never will. Every time you return to the scene, you’ll be starting with a clearer, more comprehensive picture. It’s a bit like assembling a jigsaw puzzle: each detail adds something to the overall picture.

  Here are some other benefits. Time travel borders on self-hypnosis, but it comes with no health warnings, and you won’t need the click of someone’s fingers to wake you. When I relax in my sauna of early childhood memories, I adopt the same frame of mind I had all those years ago: carefree, innocent, untroubled. Only then do I realize how much my expectations and opinions have changed.

  Time travel has many other benefits. One common symptom of people who don’t know how to use their memories is a failure to recall dreams. It’s nonsense to say that we don’t dream. We all dream every night. It’s the brain’s way of filing the thoughts it had during the day. By exercising your memory regularly, you’ll begin to recall more and more dreams. You might even have more wild and untamed dreams.

  Finally, you may wish to use the findings of your archeological dig for the journey method. When I memorized 40 decks of cards, I needed 40 separate journeys. Many of them were taken from my childhood.

  Just as athletes train to get into the zone, so you should try to be aware of setting your brain to the desired frequencies for learning and memory. Practice relaxation, and imagine slowing down your brain waves. High-frequency brain waves are reserved for excitement and the fun fair.

  If you want to be an Einstein, then slow down just a little. If you’re feeling stressed and the pressure is on, then practice the relaxation exercises I’ve given above. You’ll find it easier to create images and recall old memories. Have fun traveling back in time. Your memories are important. They define you. Isn’t it worth revisiting the best parts of your life?

  17

  Card Memorization

  At this point we’re going to turn up the degree of difficulty. If you’re getting on well with this book and finding the tests and exercises easy, then watch out. The final tests in these sessions are as tough as they get.

  If you’ve been successful in memorizing 10 objects in sequence, then there’s nothing to stop you from memorizing 50 or more objects. It’s just that the speed needs to catch up a little bit. That will follow when you practice.

  If you’re able to memorize 50 objects in sequence, then a 100-digit number should be no problem to you because you have a newly trained memory. All it takes is confidence, organization, the will, and the desire to succeed, and of course, a bit of imagination.

  What I’m trying to get at is you’re probably already a memory champion. Perhaps you’re a potential World Memory Champion. If you are, you’re going to have to learn how to memorize a deck of cards.

  Perhaps you like to play card games like bridge, whist, poker, or blackjack. Maybe you’d like to memorize a pack of cards, or you’re just curious to know how it’s done. Whatever you may think, card memorizing is, I believe, once of the most elegant exercises for fine-tuning your memory.

  A few years ago at the World Memory Championships, I won the event for memorizing the most decks of cards in 1 hour, and that was 18½ decks, or 962 playing cards. The strange thing is that in 1987, I couldn’t string more than about 5 or 6 playing cards together.

  The technique I use is being implemented by most of my major competitors. I don’t know any major rival that doesn’t use some form of journey method to memorize playing cards. Certainly all of them translate the cards into symbolic images. As far as I know, none of the top memorizers memorize by brute force memory. It just doesn’t happen. They have to use some sort of strategy. I think the most efficient way to memorize a deck of cards is as follows.

  I have a deck right here. I’ll give them a quick shuffle. Now I’m just going to file through the deck here. As I thumb through the cards, they jump out at me. I have the jack of hearts here. That’s my Uncle Jim. The ace of diamonds, that’s John Cleese from Monty Python. The 9 of clubs: golfer Nick Faldo. The 7 of spades is a friend of mine called Terry, and the 6 of spades is my girlfriend. It goes on and on like that.

  It’s become automatic for me. I really don’t have to work at it anymore, but I did originally. How did I arrive at these characters? I started off by looking at the court cards. I picked out the jacks, kings, queens, and I started looking at their faces. I thought, “Well, the king reminds me of a friend of mine. He’s a bit rotund.” Then I saw vague resemblances to old girlfriends, uncles, friends, and famous people.

  I suggest you get out a deck of cards and do the same thing. Just work on the court cards to begin with: the kings, the jacks, the queens, all 12 of them, and see whom they remind you of. I tend to stick to the same pack of cards, just as a golfer sticks to his favorite putter or a tennis player likes to play with a certain weighted racket.

  Keep going through the deck until you recognize the cards as people. Once you’ve done that, start to look at other cards. Do any of those cards trigger a particular person? For me, the 7 of hearts is James Bond, 007 heartthrob. How about the 10 of spades? Again, that’s Dudley Moore, because he was in the film 10. How about 6? It’s sort of a sexy sounding card. Who is your 6 of hearts?

  Let your creative mind supply you with associations. If you really can’t find a link between the card and a familiar face, then help is at hand. You can always resort to the Dominic system. I’ve enabled you to translate the suits into letters in the following way.

  For clubs, take the first letter, C. Clubs is C, diamonds is D, hearts is H, and spades is S. Fairly straightforward. Now you can get initials of famous people or friends. Remember the code for the Dominic system? 1 is A, 2 is B, 3 is C, and so on. So what would the 2 of clubs translate to? Think about it. BC: Bing Crosby. How about the 2 of hearts? That could give you BH: Benny Hill or Bob Hope.

  What about the 4 of clubs? That gives you DC, David Copperfield, the magician. How about the 3 of spades? CS, Claudia Schiffer. That could be an interesting combination, the 4 of clubs and the 3 of spades.

  For the 9 of diamonds, here’s a good one: ND, Neil Diamond. The 3 of hearts, CH, actor Charlton Heston. Before you even attempt to memorize a deck of cards, you have to learn the language first. When you deal a card, you should see a person, to the point where it becomes automatic.

  Think about typists. Does a professional typist have to look down at the keyboard? No. His or her fingers know exactly where to go, just like those of a pianist. It’s the same thing with cards. When you see a 3 of spades, you see Claudia Schiffer; 9 of diamonds, Neil Diamond; 2 of hearts, Benny Hill.

  To reinforce the image, give that person a prop and an action. Jim, my uncle, the jack of hearts, is always reading The Times newspaper. The 9 of clubs is Nick Faldo, who’s always swinging his golf club. Any chance he gets
, he’ll practice his swing, being the perfectionist he is.

  This is very useful because you want your characters and actions to be versatile. You want them to fit in in any situation, any location. Faldo, the 9 of clubs, must be allowed to swing his club anywhere he likes, just as Jim must read his paper wherever he wants.

  Take the example of the ace of diamonds, which for me is always John Cleese. I’m not exactly sure how I arrived at this. It may be because the ace looks tall. Anyway, I have the image of John Cleese sitting behind a news desk.

  If you’ve ever watched the old Monty Python sketches, occasionally Cleese would be behind his desk in all sorts of different locations. His favorite catch line was, “And now for something completely different.” He could be on the top or even the side of a cliff, but I think my favorite one was when they put the desk in the sea. It was floating in the sea, and he was dressed up to the nines as a typical newscaster with a tie on, saying, “And now for something completely different.”

  You can see how useful these persons and their actions and props can be, because you can put them absolutely anywhere. The 3 of spades is Claudia Schiffer. She’s always striding a catwalk, with her hands on her hips. The 4 of clubs, David Copperfield, is always pulling a rabbit out of a hat or flying. What about the 2 of clubs, Bing Crosby? He’s always decorating a Christmas tree and singing “White Christmas.”

  Do you see what’s happening here? The characters are becoming animated. You’ve breathed life into the cards, and now you have something you can work with.

  A JOURNEY OF 52 STAGES

  You know what’s coming up. You’re going to form a journey of 52 stages. Once you see a person every time a card comes up, and you have your journey of 52 stages sorted out, all you have to do is put the two together.

  Don’t run before you can walk. Start with half a deck or even with 10 playing cards. Use a journey of 10 stages, and imagine bumping into 10 famous royal, political people, whatever it is, doing what they do best.

  For example, here’s a typical short journey for you. The first stage of the journey is the front gate of my old school. I’m there standing at the front gate, and now I deal the first card. It’s the 2 of clubs, Bing Crosby. He’s decorating a Christmas tree. Got that?

  Now I go to the second stage of my journey, and I’m looking at playing fields on my right, because something is going to happen there. I deal the next card. It’s the 9 of clubs. Immediately I think of Nick Faldo practicing his golf swing.

  Now I go to the third stage of my journey, and I’m in a corridor in my school. Next card: 3 of spades. That’s Claudia Schiffer. She’s striding up and down the corridor, giving the schoolboys a treat.

  Next one, fourth stage, I’m in the chemistry lab. What do I see now? The 4 of clubs. That’s David Copperfield. He’s flying around the lab.

  Go to the fifth stage. I’m in the library. Deal the fifth card, and it’s the 9 of diamonds. Who’s that? It’s Neil Diamond. He’s sitting on a rock, singing, “Love on the Rocks.” Nobody in the library can concentrate or study. He’s about to be thrown out.

  You see what’s happening. You just go on and on, attaching cards as people to the various locations along your journey.

  A quick recap. Go back to the first stage, outside the gate. Who’s there decorating a tree? Bing Crosby: 2 of clubs. Second stage, to my right I see Nick Faldo: 9 of clubs.

  Go into the corridor. Who’s that? Claudia Schiffer. It has to be the 3 of spades. Go to the fourth stage, into the chemistry lab: 4 of clubs. It has to be David Copperfield. Fifth stage: Neil Diamond.

  Notice that I’m not making a story. I’m merely connecting each character to a stage along a journey, so I don’t have to connect Bing Crosby to Nick Faldo. They’re not even within earshot. They’re just connected to the background. I’m not making a story, but I am making a logical connection; I’m using reason. It may be bizarre to have Neil Diamond singing in the library, but it’s possible. What are the consequences? What are the chances of Claudia Schiffer striding up and down the corridor of my old school? Highly unlikely, but what if? What are the consequences?

  You’re probably thinking, “Yes, but I could never get down to 30 seconds. There’s so much to do.” Yet my very first deck took me 26 minutes, and I made about 25 errors, and that’s after I had associations for all the cards. You could easily get down to 5 minutes or lower. If you can, you’re probably about one in a million.

  To recap: learn the language. To begin with, pull out the court cards. Whom do the illustrations remind you of? Do any of the cards, like the 7 of hearts, prompt or trigger a person? Use the Dominic system to translate cards into initials of famous people or family or a friend. Give each character an associated prop, an action. Nick Faldo has golf clubs. David Copperfield is always performing magic.

  Before you attempt to memorize a deck, deal through it until you can recognize each card as a person performing their unique action.

  To memorize a deck of 52 cards, you need a mental journey of 52 stages or stops. Get to know the journey inside out. Remember, the journey preserves the order of the information you’re about to absorb. Put it all together. Shuffle the deck, and slowly deal out each card as you post them to stages that follow the sequence of your journey.

  Animate the scenes. Use color, logic, exaggeration, humor, sex. Use all your senses. Use all your cortical skills. Remember the ideal conditions. Relax, slow down your brain waves. The mere act of mentally seeing these imagined scenes will encourage brain wave control and balance.

  Make sure you time your very first deck. It’s a great feeling to have mastered your first deck. It doesn’t matter if it takes you an hour. You can rest assured that the next time you’ll dramatically cut down that time. In the space of 3 months, I went from 26 minutes and 25 errors to 70 seconds with no errors.

  USEFUL TIPS

  Here are some useful tips. Make sure the journey is solid. Always get yourself in position before you deal a card. You’re already in the bedroom in the first stage, ready for the first card. If you find it difficult to imagine at the outset, try closing your eyes as soon as each card is dealt. Remember, with your eyes shut, you promote alpha and theta waves and you’re blocking out distractions. It’s easier to concentrate and visualize.

  Another tip: imagine that the area is quiet initially. If you’re in a town, float through it, and imagine it’s a ghost town. All the inhabitants have disappeared. The ghost town is about to be brought to life by the characters who are about to materialize through your imagination. A Roman author writing 2,000 years ago had exactly the same advice: “It is better to form one’s memory loci in a deserted and solitary place, for crowds of passing people tend to weaken the impressions.”

  Although you might think you simply don’t know enough locations to store all the information you need, your imagination will ensure that you never run out, because as the ancient author says, “Even a person who thinks that he does not possess enough sufficiently good loci can remedy this, for thought can embrace any region whatsoever, and in it and at will, construct the setting of some place.”

  This author was saying that you can use imaginary settings. You could create an infinite number of imaginary places in your mind to house your mnemonic images. The Greeks employed a healthy mixture of fictitious places as well as real ones, and they often combined the two. For example, if there aren’t enough rooms in your house to make a route that’s long enough, you could always create an extra floor or dig out a basement. Anything is possible, and of course you don’t need to apply for a permit.

  A word on visualization: Believe it or not, I don’t see an image in immaculate detail. I cannot reproduce perfect internal images. I suspect I do when I’m dreaming, but not when I’m memorizing. Anyway, I don’t need that much detail for the image to stick in my mind.

  Think about this. If I said to you now, “Don’t look around, but Nelson Mandela is standing behind you,” you have enough of an internal image to picture him. You don’t need a faithfully reproduced image; you know he’s standing there. Just a few reminders: that characteristic voice, that pleasant face, a flash of gray hair here and there. That’s all you need to know that Nelson Mandela is standing there behind you. Of course, that’s where logic kicks in. What the hell is he doing there anyway?