Other than how fast – even instantaneous – associations can be, what your free association on a strawberry and Proust’s novel teach us, in particular, is that making associations is not a simple, one-dimensional thing. First, your emotions come into play. Probably before you remember the details of any episode from your past, you remember how you felt about it. For example, do you remember the day you learned to ride a bicycle? When I think about this, the first thing that comes back to me is the feeling of elation – and slight panic – when I realized I was responsible for staying upright all by myself. Once your emotions have brought the event alive again, then come the senses. Smell has strong links with memory: the olfactory bulb (the hub of the sense of smell) and parts of the brain associated with memory and learning have a close physiological connection. So you might first remember the scents that were around you as you pedalled off. Or perhaps it’s sound that comes back first – you might remember the wind whooshing through your ears. Alternatively, think how a piece of music can make a memory more vivid (often it triggers more emotional feedback). Or perhaps it’s the sights around you that come flooding back – you may have a sharp image of how the scene around you looked, especially if there was something particularly bright, vivid or unusual in it.
When I train students to allow their minds to associate freely, I ask them to think about not the first time they rode a bike, but their first day at school. Try it now. You might have a vague recollection of the walk up to the building and maybe a mental glimpse of the teacher who welcomed you, but I bet the first vivid thing you remember is how you felt. I remember feeling excited but apprehensive. I sort of wanted to go, but overwhelmingly I didn’t want to leave the security of home. I also remember that once I was there, on that first day at least, I was happy. I remember laughing a lot with my new friends. Then come my sensual memories. I remember the smell of the tarmac in the playground (a smell that still reminds me of that first day), the sound of the bell that called us in for our first lessons, and even the taste of school milk – it seemed thicker and more creamy than milk from home. I remember the ice-cold feel of the milk bottle and the exact blue of the thin straw that we used to pierce the shiny milk-bottle top and drink through.
If you can hone your natural ability to make connections and bring alive episodes from your past by using your emotions and senses, as well as logic and creativity, you make it easier for your brain to memorize new information in an instantly vivid, memorable way. In addition, you get used to the sense of letting your brain make the fastest connections and trusting them. Instant association is an important aspect of memory training, because first associations will prove to be the most reliable. I shall come back to this point again and again over the course of this book.
Words evoke memories. Look at each of the following words to see what flashes from the past they bring up for you. You need only glance at each word for a second or two. Try not to edit what you remember, just allow your first associations to happen. Then, let the images, thoughts, emotions and senses resurface in as much detail as possible – it may take moments, or it may take several minutes – and then move on to the next word. The aim of this exercise is merely to get you used to free-associating and letting not only images but also emotions and sensations flood back. Although this doesn’t feel like it’s going to make a memory champion of you, trust me – the better and more practised you are at this kind of free association, the more accomplished you’ll become at memorizing.
KITTEN
RAINBOW
TOY
BIRTHDAY
ICE CREAM
SNOW
CHURCH
CUSHION
SAND
TOE NAIL
The exercise on the previous page will help you to get into the habit of recapturing not only events, but the thoughts, sensations and emotions that go with them. You also need to feel comfortable with the speed with which a memory or memories can come alive.
When I do this exercise – and other exercises like it – I travel back and forth through my life. I find myself in different locations, with different people, feeling different emotions and hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting different things. The reminiscences come so thick and fast it’s like being on a rollercoaster, zipping this way and that way through my personal history. I hope it felt at least a bit like this for you, too.
Words evoke memories, and whenever I hear the word “cot”, I find myself transported to my earliest memory of all. I must have been aged about two and I was shaking the bars of my cot, enjoying the feeling of bouncing up and down with an endless stream of energy. I can even remember my mother telling me she thought I was limbering up my muscles, like a boxer on the edge of the boxing ring. It constantly amazes me how much, how far back, can be triggered in the brain if it is left unhindered, to roam free into its deepest recesses.