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Looking to improve your memory?
How about in a way that makes you more visual so you can memorize more information faster and with greater accuracy?
And in a way that makes you more creative at the same time?
You would?
Great. Then this may be the most important post you ever read.
Here’s why:
I’m going to give you two simple ways to become more visually creative so you can use your imagination to memorize anything.
Of course, you’ll need to use a Memory Palace. Ideally you’ve already created several.
If not, you can listen to previous episodes of the Magnetic Memory Method podcast for help.
Suggested episodes include How to Find Memory Palaces and movie and How to Enhance Your Memory With Virtual Memory Palaces.
There’s also a full memory improvement course designed for mature adults interesting in improving memory in all areas of life.
But for now, here’s …
How To Improve Your Memory By Legally Stealing Information That Already Exists Using Direct Analogy
The first way to become more visually creative involves creating “direct analogies.”
To use direct analogy, you need only follow five fun steps.
1. Identify an issue or problem.
For people interested in using memory techniques for accelerated learning, this step should present no problems.
Chances are that you need to memorize:
- Facts for school
- Mathematical equations and other number-based information (link to math book)
- Information about historical figures
- Professional terminology in fields like medicine or law (am links)
- Music
- Names and faces
- Poetry and speeches
- Learning foreign language vocabulary and grammar rules
And this list is just for starters. Pilots, teachers, restaurant staff, police officers and a whole host of other people need memory techniques to make them better professionals.
The more specific you are about the problem you need to solve, the more dedicated you can be about shaping memory techniques as your go-to solution.
2. Find similar problems.
You might think it’s crazy to leap from your problem to other problems that only tangentially relate, but trust me. This second step is critical for developing your visual imagination. We’ll explore this point more completely in the next section.
3. Explore the analogy.
Once you’ve picked an example, dive in and start charting out the territory.
For example, doctors need to memorize a lot of terminology relating to the body, diseases, medicines and the instruments of their trade. Precisely how to get that large variety of terms and definitions into long term memory can be hard to visualize.
A similar problem that might come to mind could involve computer programmers. They need to teach computers to store terminology and make it accessible to users with intuitive ease.
You could then create a picture in your imagination of a doctor programming his mind as if it were a computer. Maybe he’s opened his skull and attached some wiring to his brain. And maybe the wires run into a keyboard so he can type the words and definitions, sending them exactly where they need to go.
Every Cell In Your Brain Has The Power To Help You Create Powerful Memories
By finding an analogy, you help yourself create an image. It’s great exercise and simply achieved.
To take another example, you could think of a painter who needs to place shapes and colors in just the right places. For example, you could see a doctor painting terminology onto a patient.
Or you could think about how novelists observe people in cafes to create portraits of them in prose. How could you use the needs of a doctor to create a visual analogy for comparison with the observation process of a novelist?
Whatever you choose for this part of the exercise, see the computer programmer-doctor or the painter-doctor or the writer-doctor in your mind. Focus intensely on creating that visual image.
If you can’t see a picture using your mind’s eye, take a few seconds to write out a description in words. Or access your other senses. What would it feel like to paint terminology on to a canvas, for example?
Whatever you do, don’t overthink the exercise. Just get started. You’ll learn by doing.
4. Repeat the process and prime yourself for better results
Now that you’ve found and explored an analogy, it’s time to start all over. Do it again. Just do it again.
And up the ante. Here’s how:
Keep giving your mind material that will make you more creative. To become more visual, use the material as a kind of “paint” to spread on the canvas of your mind. Or, if you don’t feel particularly visual, combine mind mapping with the method of loci so you can experience the process visually using pen and paper.
In sum, you need to feed your mind the materials that make up paint.
The good news is that filling your paint factory with raw materials is easy and fun. You can:
- Read novels and poetry
- Look at art
- Go to a museum
- Watch movies
- Sit in a park and study nature
- Blind contour drawing
Why engage in any of these activities?
The Springtime Of Your Imagination Is Just Waiting To Explode With Insane Growth
Because when you feed your mind with images, you’re giving yourself more material to process than you consciously realize.
Think of your unconscious mind as a kind of Grand Central Station. Except in this station, only one train comes and goes.
The doors to this Grand Central Station are your eyes, ears, sense of touch, smell, etc.
Every piece of information you encounter enters Grand Central Station. If the individual bits of information were people, they would be bustling around and bumping shoulders.
Some of them would be pregnant, some may even be giving birth. Some would have already had children and be pushing baby carriages. Some would be flirting and some would be pickpockets.
Yet other people would be police. Perhaps there are some Secret Service agents lurking around in your Grand Central Station too.
The Agents Of Forgetfulness Are Even More Evil Than You Think!
These are the agents of judgment and disapproval. They try to stop babies from being born. They prevent babies growing up, and worse, from getting on the train at any age.
If there is an upside, it’s that they sometimes stop the pickpockets from thieving booty from unsuspecting passengers.
But it’s mostly downside. These agents will stop at nothing to prevent certain people from getting on the train of your conscious mind. Usually, they hinder the most important people that you need to be the most creative at the most important times.
But even with all these agents around, every once in a while, the train of your unconscious mind pulls into the station. Sometimes it stays for awhile. Other times it’s just a short stop. Sometimes it picks up a ton of passengers. Sometimes very few, perhaps even none.
And when it rolls in, there may be few thoughts and perceptions still on the train. But many have left, getting off at various stations along the tracks of your life. This emptiness means that your train is usually in desperate need of new passengers if it’s going to travel anywhere.
Thus, the more information you get into your Grand Central Station, the more of that information can get onto the train of your conscious mind and then step out exactly where you need it in life.
Never Let A Good Idea Stand Alone
And the more information you’ve got milling around, the more the people in the Grand Central Station can work together to overcome the police and secret agents so they can board the train in the first place.
And the more people on the train – yes, even the pickpockets – the more these people can interact with another and arrive at the right places when you need them. And the more interactions you have on the train, the more these people will be able to spot the pickpockets and shake out their plunder.
And should a police officer or Secret Agent ever make it onto the train, the others will have no problem exposing them and turning them out with the thieves.
In sum, to be more visually creative, you’ve got to feed your mind visual information so that you can create more analogies.
And if you don’t believe me, just think about what I’ve just done. The picture I’ve given you of the unconscious mind as a train station and the conscious mind as a train is an analogy.
It’s a powerful one too.
Like King Lear Said:
Nothing Can Come Of Nothing
But it didn’t come out of nowhere, even though it felt like it had as I was writing it just now.
As I sit and write out this part of the podcast, I become aware of the movies and series I’ve been watching over the past few days.
In an episode of Prison Break, for example, Michael Scofield and his brother are in a train station. A fellow escapee – an expert pickpocket – has recently died. There are cops everywhere and secret agents are chasing them.
Plus, I’ve been reading a John Grisham novel. It features a bus station in it. And I had recently watched Jackie Brown, which involves crowds milling in an airport and a shopping mall.
It’s clear to me now that these viewing experiences have influenced what seemed to be a spontaneously produced analogy. But it wasn’t spontaneously produced. It’s the result of the mixture churning in my unconscious mind, tapping into a certain amount of implicit memory, and then getting pumped out into my conscious mind.
And it every element has filtered through my studies of Freud from years ago. Freud, who talked about the “police” who stand between the conscious and unconscious mind. The repressive gatekeepers who prevent our powers of creativity from helping us create the lives we want.
So there are reasons why my unconscious mind is brimming with info. I feed it every day. I read novels, I look at art, I watch movies, I play music and sing.
Like Wyndham Lewis said:
If You’re Going To Be An Island, Might As Well Be A Volcanic Island!
And when I need analogies to help me teach or memorize new information, I never have to stretch. The volcano of raw material raging within never fails to spurt out material that I shape and form into rock hard analogies that do the trick.
And the force of the blast is so hot and so strong, no police officer or Secret Agent standing between my unconscious mind can survive the heat of the blast, let alone prevent it. Not even the strongest declarative memory powers could stop it.
And the good news is that you can develop these superpowers of creativity too.
You now have the keys to unlocking your visual memory. You now know how to use direct analogies to become more visually imaginative. You now know how to fuel your Grand Central Station. You know how to fill up that train with all the best ideas. You know how to deliver whatever you need at any time, any place and under any conditions.
But let’s not stop with direct analogies.
Keep reading so you can remember even more using personal analogies. And if you like, sign up for my FREE Memory Improvement Course:
As usual, very stimulating …… and productive.
Thanks for stopping by, Sandy. I’m glad you found use for the podcast. Please let me know if ever there is something specific you’d like me to address. 🙂