Have you ever wondered, how can you forget something that you didn't remember in the first place? Put another way, if in the first place you do remember something, how can you forget it? Original Awareness A fundamental element of trained memory is Original Awareness.
If you are originally aware of something, anything, then that piece of information can not be forgotten.
Association methods, about to be explained, force an original awareness through observation.
Anything you wish to remember must first be observed.
Association First, you should realize that you've used association all your life.
The problem is that you've usually associated subconsciously, without realizing the association for what it was.
Anything you clearly associated, even if subconsciously, is sure to have been easily remembered or recalled.
Since you had no control over your subconscious, association has been a hit-or-miss kind of thing all your life.
Here's a basic memory rule: You can remember any new piece of information if it is associated to something you already know or remember.
Very few people can easily remember the shape of Russia, Greece or any other country, except Italy that is.
That's because most people have been told that Italy is shaped like a boot.
There's our rule, the shape of a boot was something already known and the shape of Italy could not be forgotten once that association was made.
If you know how to consciously associate anything you want to remember to something you already know, you'll have a trained memory.
Many times during your life you've heard or seen something that caused you to snap your fingers and say, "Oh, that reminds me..
..
" And, usually, the thing that reminded you of something had nothing to do with what it reminded you of.
Somewhere back in your mind a weird or random association had been made.
Lets revise our memory rule: You can remember any new piece of information if it is associated to something you already know or remember in some ridiculous way.
"In some ridiculous way" is very powerful and is the key to improving memory recall.
It's this part of the memory rule that forces original awareness, which in turn forces you to concentrate and use your imagination which leads to forming a conscious association.
Imagine this.
Monday through Friday, at the same time, you drive to work, in the same car, take the same route and traffic conditions are probably the same.
You may even notice the same cars in traffic and probably listen to the same radio station.
For the rest of the day, most likely for the first few hours, you may be able to detail what actually happened on your way to work.
Will you remember the detail the next day, maybe, the next week unlikely, the next month, not a chance in hell.
Why is this so? Every trip is the same or very close to the same and the details from different days are merged and become blurry.
Now imagine this for a minute.
You're driving to work, the same car, same route etc.
you are approaching an intersection when all of a sudden you're forced to break to avoid hitting an elephant being chased by two clowns.
You will be telling this story for the rest of your life, you will never forget the day you saw an elephant being chased by two clowns whilst on your way to work.
You may forget other details surrounding the particular trip as they are insignificant.
I'm in no way suggesting that we want to remember or recall every detail regarding our boring trip to work, that's plain silly.
It's the concept as to why this is so that's important.
The elephant concept falls within the "In Some Ridiculous Way" part of the rule.
For a trained memory we need to emulate the elephant story and apply it (associate) to anything we want to remember.
That will be the subject of the next article.