Mesmerizing Insights on Memorization

2012 January

You are about to realize that the the brain doesn't recognize the second "the" –source unknown.

If you see this for the first time, you will be shocked, just as I did, and wondered how on earth you did not catch it. This fascinating phenomenon does not have anything to do with our intelligence. Rather, it is due to the way our most precious survival mechanism, the brain, is designed. The brain is extremely good at what it does because it is capable of instantly recognizing what is important and relevant. This feature has helped us rise to the crown of creation. On the other hand, the brain completely ignores the expected, the typical, and all the other things that it thinks unimportant, such as the article “the” in the above example. In other words, it can fixate its focus on one thing, but it does so at the expense of the irrelevant rest. This fact has been exploited for many years in the field of magic. As a magician, I have witnessed this phenomenon for many years and presented “impossible” moments in the minds of my audience. On the more practical side, this insight can also shed light on the process of memorization. In this essay, I will share how I came to unlock a memorization giant within myself and lessons I learned from memorizing list of random objects, deck of cards, and things I don’t want to forget.

I used to be extremely bad at remembering stuff. I couldn’t remember the direction to the restaurant my friends and I visited more than five times. I hated it when I couldn’t recall someone’s name after five minutes of the encounter. The worst one, which happened more often than I hoped, was finding myself in the middle of the parking lot at a mall, hopelessly murmuring to myself, “where the hell…is…my… car.” Although I never thought I had severely impaired memory, sometimes it gave me such illusion. Years of obliviousness forced me to accept that it was just who I was, a guy who cannot remember small things. There was nothing I could do. Or so I thought.

Two years ago, my misconception about memorization was totally destroyed by the gentleman I met at a conference. Although he was almost 20 years older than I, he and I shared the similar interests, so we got instantly connected and had interesting discussions whenever there was a break. At some point during the break, our conversation led to the topic of learning and memory, and suddenly he made an interesting offer. He claimed to me that he could memorize a list of 20 random objects within seconds. “No way” I said. Although I had an impression that he was intelligent, he did not come across as genius. But he insisted. Doubtful about his untested, self-proclaimed ability, I scribbled down the most random things I could think of at that moment and gave it to him. After scanning through the list, he closed his eyes and proceeded to recite the entire list. “The first one is Magnesium, the second one is Randomized Clinical Trial, the third one is a ruler…” Without a pause, he successfully and proudly fulfilled his quest without making a mistake. WOW, was I dumfounded. “I am not done. I can do it backwards,” he continued and completely destroyed my initial doubt. I felt I was witnessing a sage before my eyes.

 To calm down my amazement, the gentleman graciously taught me the mechanisms behind his feat. It turns out that he was using a “system” that allowed him to exploit the visual parts of his brain to the fullest. That system, which later I found out, is called “Peg” systems. The idea is simple. First, you need to have a set of images that can represent numbers. For example, the number one can be represented by a tree since the way a tree stands looks like the Roman numeral, one. Glove can represent the number five because it has five rooms for fingers. You get the idea. By converting abstract numbers to visual images, which is also known as “pegs”, you can make meaningful associations between numbers and the objects you are trying to memorize. For example, if I were to try to memorize magnesium from a list, and if it’s the first item, I need to associate a tree with magnesium. How? I can conjure up an image where my friend Miguel(Mg, a symbol for Magnesium) is clinging on to the tree(1) like a koala. Although the image is nonsensical and ridiculous, it is also too novel, lively, and shocking for my brain to forget. With this method, you can memorize the list of objects as many as your pegs, both forward and backwards, cold.

I was captivated by the fact that such a system existed. Since then, I immersed myself into the world of memorization. I devoured the books, forums, and blogs related to memorization. I learned about the systems established by world memory champions such as Dominic O’Brien and Harry Lorayne. Although methods themselves were ingenious, what was even more fascinating about all these memory champions was that they were not super human beings; they simply figured out the efficient way to trick their brains into memorizing enormous amount of information. And I was forced to accept their claims because I began to be able to do things I once thought was impossible. Although I am nowhere near those world memory champions, I reached to the point where I could trick my friends into thinking that I had a special gift.  

The two key lessons I learned from memorization techniques have changed my life. First, you only remember what you try to remember. Once I learned about how memorization works, I realized how bad I was at paying attention to things around me. Just as missing that “the” above, our brain filters so many things in our lives that are considered “ordinary.” So unless we give special attention, we are bound to forget many things in our lives. The reason I could not remember directions was that I did not bother to pay tiny bit of attention to the street names I turned. The reason I forgot someone’s name so quickly was that I let it go in one ear and out the other. Had I bothered to remember the landmarks around where I parked, I would’ve had saved enormous amount of time finding my car. It will indeed fry my brain if I attempt to focus on all the things around me, but paying attention to how I pay attention to things helped me immensely in many areas of my life.

 Second lesson I learned is the power of visualization and imagination. Brain loves novelty, unexpectedness, and surprise. That is why we effortlessly remember hilarious moments, obscene scenes, and shocking events. Sadly, brain does not work at its best when it should such as studying. However, we can certainly use our imagination to simulate the environment conducible for learning for our brain. In other words, we can trick our brains so that it can absorb information better. I used ne application when I studied for GRE. Remembering thousands of GRE words might have been nightmare if I employed traditional rote memorization. Instead, my friends and I came up with memorable images and mnemonics for many words difficult to memorize. Some of the images were nonsensical, but they successfully did their job embedding information into our brain. Once unpleasant toil, the whole process of memorizing words became creative endeavor.

It is still widely believed an individual’s memorization skills are related to his/her genetic capacity. Studies continue to reveal such is further from the truth. Instead, it has to do with how you tweak your attention and imagination. I was fortunate enough to personally experience that, and so can you.