Whether you know it or not, you can remember - with the exception of the 15 or 20 people in the world with absolute recall of every part of their lives - even if you think think you cannot.
This is the lesson that Joshua Foer, a science writer and journalist, took away with him when he looked at the world memory championships not long ago.
An engaging writer, who believes in becoming involved with his subjects and stories, Foer, who won an Amazon 2010 "Best Books of the Month" Award, looked the wide range of people competing in this amazing competition.
There was one competitor whose memory was so poor that he could not remember beyond the last instant of his life while another competitor was able to memorize complex theorems and mathematical problems, even though the contestant doesn't understand anything about math himself.
Then, there was one of the champions who was able to memorize the exact order of a 1528-digit integer.
The deeper he looked the more Foer wanted to find out how the process worked because, as he noted in one part of his well-written work, he had trouble remembering where he left his car keys and then wondered how many of us have the same problem. It turns out that there are more people out there with this issue than you may think and Foer works with the champions, using their techniques to not only learn where he left his car keys, but other things such as the things like: Brains find it easier to use visual cues than lists; Brains can be trained to take the visual cues they have been given and can then be trained to turn those visual cues into usable lists.
For example, Foer, learning the tricks of the trade from the masters, was able to learn long lists by using a method he called POA - person, object, action. In other words, he was able to remember the layout of deck of cards or actions by associating each individual card or action with a person, perhaps the presenter or a child, or associating the list with an object, an auto or item like a specific clock, for example. Finally, here was the action, where he was able to associate a piece of a long list with a specific action.
In other words, if the item he wanted to remember was the first of a series of actions, he would associate the item in the list with that action. Other people use mnemonics to do the same thing or providing tricks for every day items you hardly think about so that they remain with you all of the time, such as the location of your house keys or your car keys.
There are many, varied training techniques and Foer's engaging style not only shows people master the many issues they have in remembering long lists. It was this type of perseverance and memory management that enabled a contestant to memorize more than 1500 numbers in a row - without knowing them beforehand - and then repeat the list exactly.
The mind is a fascinating science. Some says that we don't use a-tenth of our conscious minds and from the way Foer writes, it is possible. If you want to learn how the masters do it in a delightful, quite readable style, then you will enjoy Foer's work and exactly how he remembers where his keys are.
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