How to train your memory to remember names at lightening speed – part 2
I my last post, I gave you same exercise on memorization and recall. How well did you do? Today I want to introduce to you a simple method that you can use to memorize names or items so that you can easily recall them.
Alexander smith once said: “A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor”
This method will train your memory to associate the names purely based on mental pictures or images. To help you easily recall the pictures we must make them as ridiculous as can be possible. What do I mean by that? I want you to think of the word ridiculous here to mean illogical rather than logical. Let this be like child play or almost like a game.
The ten names were:
Carpet, paper, bottle, bed, fish, chair, window, telephone, cigarette, nail
Now let’s begin, get the image of the first word in your mind, “carpet”. do you have one at home or in the office or your favorite pub? I want you to see that one in your mind for a split second.
You now know or remember item “carpet’, the next item or word is “paper”. Please pay close attention here. This is the most important step to understand, please associate carpet to paper ridiculously. I want you see yourself writing on a carpet made of paper or walking on a carpet made of paper and feeling it crinkle under your feet.
Please it is a must to see this ridiculous picture in you mind for a split second by closing your eyes. Once that is done stop thinking about it and move on to the next item. Now you remember “paper” which you have to link or associate to “bottle”. See yourself writing on a gigantic bottle instead of paper or a bottle pouring out paper instead of a liquid. Picture this in your mind’s eye for a split second.
Let’s recap; we have linked carpet to paper and paper to bottle. Our next item is “bed”. Make a ridiculous association between bottle and bed. Picture yourself sleeping on a large bottle instead of a bed or see your self inhale from a bed instead of a bottle.
Note that we are linking the previous item to the next or present. Bed is the previous item and fish is the next item. See a gigantic fish sleeping on a bed in your mind’s eye.
Next is fish and chair. See a big fish sitting on a chair.
Chair and Window – see yourself sitting on sharp pieces of glass and feeling the pain or violently throwing chairs through a closed window.
Window and Telephone – see yourself answering a phone but when you put it on you ear it is not a phone but a window you are holding or your window as a large telephone dial.
Telephone and cigarette – you are smoking a telephone instead of a cigarette or millions cigarette flying out of the telephone handset upon picking it.
Cigarette and Nail – see yourself smoking a nail or hitting a lit cigarette into the wall instead of a nail.
That is all. If you saw this picture in you mind’s eye, you will remember the ten items in sequence from “carpet” to ‘nail” easily.
Exercise;
1. Using the same kind of ridiculous associations, please memorize the following words or items and recall them in sequence.
Typewriter, shoe, microphone, pen, television set, plate, donut, car, coffee pot and brick
2. Combine this list and the previous list, to form twenty words and memorize and recall the list in sequence.
I know we are logical humans and have been taught to think logically and yet I am telling you to make illogical or ridiculous picture. This may be a challenge. It was for me at first but with some practice illogical picture will be the first think that comes to your mind.
To help you a long the way use the following simple rules:
1. Picture your items out of proportion – i.e. too large. Remember the word gigantic!
2. picture your items in motion/action whenever possible
3. exaggerate the amount of items – millions of cigarettes
4. Substitute your items – i.e. picture one item instead of another. Smoking a nail instead of a cigarette
That is all for now, sorry it was a bit long. Keep practicing this for the next week. Try a new list of items daily and see you memory develop in front of your own eyes easily and effortlessly.
Kind regards,
