4Memory

“Memory is the mother of all wisdom.”

— Aeschylus (525–456BCE)

ORDINARY OR EXTRAORDINARY?

Before 1987 I believed that people who performed prodigious feats of memory must have been born with a special “gift”. I thought that their brains were, in some way, wired up very differently from the rest of us. They were, in my view, the select few who, by some freak of nature, were lucky enough to be bestowed with this extra facility not available to just anyone.

As long ago as May 1974, Bhanddanta Vicittabi Vumsa of Rangoon, Burma, set an impressive memory record by reciting 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts. A similarly unbelievable record was set by twenty-six-year-old Gon Yangling of China, who memorised more than 15,000 telephone numbers. Having spent years studying memory development, I am no longer bewildered and confused when hearing reports like this because I now understand how it is possible to train the memory to perform such great feats. Rather than assuming that there must be a physiological difference in these people (the only exceptions are the rare cases of people with a photographic memory), I now believe that what separates the average memory from one capable of storing the data held within a telephone directory can be summed up in three simple words: desire and technique.

DESIRE AND TECHNIQUE

It surely follows, as for most things in life, that the degree to which a person excels in whatever they do is directly proportional to their degree of desire. The finest sportsmen and sportswomen all share one thing in common – a burning will to succeed, driven by an unyielding passion for their particular sport. If the need, want, determination and love are great enough, then acquiring and applying the necessary technique becomes a joy, not a task.

The same holds true for studying. While you may find the thought of having a love affair with physics out of the question, by at least getting interested in particular aspects of the subject you can definitely make the process of learning more enjoyable. But how do we create this desire for something? Where does it come from?

Enthusiasm for a sport is usually motivated by inspiration. The dream of becoming a world-class footballer may stem from the sight of Wayne Rooney stylishly thundering a ball into the net. An addiction to tennis might be triggered by a single, memorable backhand passing shot unleashed by Venus Williams.

Whether it prompts inspiration, fascination, curiosity or emulation, somewhere along the line an initial impression is made that stays permanently with us, spurring us on and driving our will to succeed.

In my case, the long chain of cause and effect culminating in the writing of this book was instigated by the sight of Creighton Carvello memorising a pack of playing cards on television. The fascination was in seeing somebody achieve the seemingly impossible – the memorisation of fifty-two ostensibly unconnected bits of information in less than three minutes, using nothing more than the power of the mind. The curiosity came in trying to figure out how on earth he did it.

So there you have it. The inspiration had made its impact and I was hooked for life!

JOGGING THE BRAIN

On reflection, my initial ambitions now seem somewhat limited. All I was concerned with was beating Creighton’s time and getting myself into the record books.

I hadn’t realised that what I was about to embark on, over the coming weeks and months, was an object lesson in accelerated learning. I thought that at the end of my period of memory training, a tiny part of my brain would have acquired a new skill: that, and only that, of memorising packs of playing cards.

Nobody told me about the wider implications of training my memory:

1Deeper concentration

2Longer-term retention

3Clearer thinking

4Greater self-confidence

5Wider observation

In short, I was unwittingly exercising my brain the way an athlete exercises his or her body. It’s like deciding that because you can’t fit comfortably into your clothes any more, it’s time to lose weight. But after six weeks of regular daily exercise, it’s not just your clothes that look and feel good on you; your body does too.

And what about all the other benefits, like better circulation, a healthier complexion, a guilt-free appetite, and generally feeling more active?

For the past couple of decades we have been concentrating solely on the body beautiful. Joining a gym and regularly working out seem to be increasing priorities in many people’s lives. But why do we continue to settle for just a fit body when we can get our brains in shape as well?

Although the brain is an organ, it can be treated in much the same way as any muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Conversely, the saying “Use it or lose it” is an apt warning for a lazy mind.

One of the most enjoyable ways of exercising the body is to take up a sport or group activity. The competitive angle diverts your attention away from the arduous, mundane side of exercise and focuses it on winning. Surely, then, this is an equally effective incentive for mental exercise?

Head-to-head games such as chess, bridge and Scrabble and group games involving problem-solving, lateral thinking or strategy are all excellent ways of challenging and stimulating thought processes. Chess is an especially fine mind sport, as it sharpens a wide range of cortical skills: logic in forward planning (if I do A, then B, C, D or E happens), sequence, memory and imaginative, spatial and overview skills. There’s no excuse these days: if you can’t find an opponent and don’t have time to join a club, you can always buy a computer program or play online. This way you’ll get a game whenever you want but, unless you’re a Grand Master, it won’t be a pushover.

If you enjoy group work and pooling ideas, why not set up or join a Use Your Head club? These clubs, to whom I occasionally lecture, are aimed at anyone who wishes to learn how to get the most out of their brains and have been emerging in increasing numbers at schools and universities.

The rise of the “mentathlete”

Memory itself has been growing rapidly as a mind sport ever since the first World Memory Championships took place at the Athenaeum, the famous London club, in 1991. Now held annually, this competition takes place in venues around the world. As the event grows in stature, so does the interest of the world’s press and the amount of sponsorship it attracts. And with the increase in the value of the prizes, so too has the strength of the competition grown, as more memory stars, or “mentathletes”, have begun filtering through from different parts of the globe, eager to make a name for themselves and snatch a memorable payday.

The Championships are the flagship event of the World Memory Sports Council, which currently has branches in eight countries, spanning the globe from China to Canada, the UK and the USA. If the power of the memory intrigues you – as it did me all those years ago and still does today – check out the World Memory Sports Council website (www.worldmemorychampionship.com). The UK branch of the Memory Sports Council, set up in 2005, regulates the mind sport of memory in the UK. So why not become a member and gain official recognition of your status as a mentathlete? The Council can also put you in touch with local and regional memory clubs.

And international mind sports don’t stop there. The annual Mind Sports Olympiad – an Olympics for thinking games – offers another forum for the world’s mentathletes. Competitors play each other at chess, backgammon, Scrabble and other strategy-based games, competing for gold, silver and bronze medals. The Mind Sports Olympiad website (www.msoworld.com) offers the opportunity to test your skills online and find out about local and regional mind sports clubs.

So memory has plenty going for it. It is an art form, a sport, a method of mental exercise and a cortical tuning fork, and if practised regularly will deliver the key to learning how to learn and, ultimately how to pass exams.

HOW GOOD IS YOUR MEMORY?

As a control test, spend no more than two minutes trying to memorise the following list of twenty items in order.

1Diamond

2Brain

3Hairbrush

4Fire

5Horse

6Window

7Gondola

8Baby

9Treasure

10Doctor

11Cook

12Desk

13Faint

14Carpet

15Planet

16Dragon

17Book

18Violin

19Lawnmower

20Shadow

Now, write down as many of the words as you can remember, in the same order that they appeared. Then compare your score with the following:

20	Perfect
16–19	Excellent
11–15	Very good
7–10	Good
3–6	Average
0–2	Try a softer drink

If you achieved only an average score, don’t worry. By the end of this book you won’t be far off making a perfect score. The reason we have difficulty in trying to memorise a list of random words is that there is no obvious connection between them. So we try to rely either on “brute force” memory or by repeating the words over and over again in the hope that there will be some verbal, rhythmical recollection – “Diamond … diamond, brain … diamond, brain, hairbrush” and so on. Unfortunately, as these words are neither rhythmical nor rhyming, using a verbal method of memory will always be an uphill struggle. The most effective method is one that uses imagination and association.