It’s not just the mind freaks who can have a photographic memory! We’ve heard the stories about exceptional human beings who are able to recite huge volumes of data or draw intricate cityscapes after just a 5 minute helicopter ride.
So can you imagine what it would be like if you were able to develop these same abilities yourself? It would totally change your life and open up a whole new world of possibilities. Below I have outlined three techniques you can use to begin developing your photographic memory. Don’t forget, this is not something that you will necessarily master straight away, so don’t give up, just keep practicing and give your brain time to master these new skills.
The first of these techniques is calling the ‘link’ system and it is particularly good when you need to memorize long lists of data such phone numbers or a grocery list. The essence of the link system is that you visually link each item on the list to an item you already know. But you link this item in a ridiculous way, the more ridiculous the better. So if you are remembering a list of grocery items (milk, butter, bread, eggs & cheese) you would visualize the milk as still in the cow, then link it to the next item which is butter, by imagining the cow churning the butter with it’s hooves and so on. It sounds ridiculous, but your brain recalls these items because of how ridiculous they are.
The second method is the ‘peg’ system. This is where you pre-memorize a list of images with a corresponding number. So to begin with you would memorize a list of numbers 1-10 and associate each number with an image. i.e. Number 1 = Gun, Number 2 = Zoo, Number 3 = Tree, Number 4 = Door, Number 5 = Hive etc. Next if you were trying to remember a list off items (pens, pencils, eraser, notepad & laptop) you associate each item with a number. So imagine pens being fired out of a gun (Number 1), and a family of gorillas in the zoo using your pencils to clean their ears (Number 2), then a tree with eraser growing on it (Number 3) etc.
The ‘major’ system is a bit like the peg system in that you are converting a list of numbers into consonant sounds and then into words by adding vowels. This works because it is much easier to remember words than numbers, words are able to be associated with feelings and visuals.
Developing photographic memory is not too hard to master, just use these methods outlined above (and practice them consistently!) and you will be shocked by your huge improvement in your memory work.
The article above only touches on how to develop a photographic memory. For more help and resources, visit Michelle Rudge’s blog at How To Develop A Photographic Memory.