Here are the notes I took while reading Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas’ The Memory Book. I became interested in memorization techniques as a result of my goal to be able to fully and efficiently memorize learn piano pieces. The book is a general purpose introduction to memory systems and I highly, highly recommend it.

• In Antiquity, memory was of vital importance. Mostly for orators.
• Main memory system: loci (places). For example, each place in their own homes was associated with an idea.
• All memory is based on association.
• To remember something, you must first pay attention to it.
• Fundamental concept: Original Awareness. “Anything of which you are Originally Aware cannwithoutot be forgotten. And, applying our sstems of association will force Original Awareness.”
• Observation is essential for Original Awareness – anything to be remembered must first be observed.
• To memorize abstracts, make them concrete.
• Virtually all learning is based on memory.
• Rule: “You can remember any new piece of information if it is associted to something you already know or remember.”
• Custom memorization rules for given knowledge are limited. The systems from the book are applicable to anything. “They are only limited only to the extent that your willingness to use them is limited.”
• The systems “patternize a natural process.”
• Going beyond the loci: “it isn’t necessary to associate the thoughts of a speech, or anything else, to places – the thoughts may be associated to each other, so that one thought will remind you of the next thought. That simple idea is the basis of the Link system of memory.”
• Revised first rule: “In order to remember any new piece of information, it must be associated to something you already know or remember in some ridiculous way.” Ridiculousness forces Original Awareness.
• Create a ridiculous or exagerated association between two words or concepts. See it in your mind’s eye.
• Aristotle: “it is impossible even to think without a mental picture.”
• If there’s a gap in the sequence of words, strengthen the association with the mental image: more ridiculous, and see it in your mind’s eye.
• That’s the Link system: bind one word or concept to the next one. Then the next one with the following one.
• The Link system is used to remember things in sequence only. Candidates: speech, formula, a number with more than two digits.
• Main difficulty: making truly ridiculous pictures.
• Rules for making ridiculous images: substitution; out of proportion; exaggeration; action.
• “Your imagination needs exercise, that’s all. (…) simply trying to apply our systems will automatically give you that exercise. (…) In a short while, you’ll find that it will be the ridiculous, illogical picture that first comes to mind whenever you think of any two items.”
• Ridiculousness makes the mental picture very clear, so then it’s registered in the mind.
• “So don’t feel bad if, at first, you have to apply some effort in order to come up with those ridiculous pictures – at least, to come up with them quickly. That extra effort at first is good. It forces you to be Originally Aware.”
• “Be sure, then, to make all your pictures ridiculous ones.”
• “The art (of trained memory) is supplementing nature, and all our systems are based on this fact.”
• To remember the first item of a list, you can associate it to whatever requires you to remember it.
• “once you understand how to make an intangible tangible and meaningful, it becomes easy to remember.”
• Substite Word: use for making the abstract concrete. When a word or phrase or name is intangible, think of anything that sounds like or reminds you of the word and can be pictured.
• Examples: Minnesota: mini soda. Mississippi: Mrs. sip. Massachusetts: a mass of people who chew and sit. Maryland: Mary landing.
• “To repeat, you do have to use a bit of imagination, and the more often you form conscious associations, the easier it will become because you wil be improving your imagination as you improve your memory.”
• Make up your own associations to force Original Awareness.
• For errands, link one object to the next.
• “Probably the worst mistake you can make is to try to memorize a speech word for word.” You already know its parts.
• Deliver speeches thought for thought. “A speech is a sequence of thoughts;”
• To memorize the speech sequence, write out the speech and read it over. Then select a Key Word from each thought “that will remind you of the entire thought“. Then link the Key Words with the Link.
• For subthoughts, you can use a secondary link starting from one of the key words.
• “Most often, where memory is concerned, an entity consists of two things. Even the most complicated-seeming memory chores can usually be broken down into entities of two: a name to a face, an addres to a person or company, a price or style nuber to an item (…) Even when forming a long Link, you’re still basically working with only two items at a time.”
• Substitute words can be used for storing meanings and pronunciation of foreign words.
• “For example, you might decide to use singing (la, la) as the standard for the feminine article. Any picture that has singing in it teslls you that the item is feminine.”
• “There’s one point that should be stressed: we have yet to find the memory problem that the systems taught in this book can’t make easier to handle. You’ll see that, with a slight twist or manipulation, the systems must apply. It doesn’t mattter how difficult the problem is; in fact, the more difficult the problem, the more valuable the systems.”
• To remember names that don’t have an immediate representation (such as Baker), use substitute words.
• “The Substite Word or phrase you use needn’t contain all the exat sounds of the name; cover the main sounds or elements, and you’ll have the remainder you need. “true” memory will fill in the rest for you.”
• With practice you’ll develop standard representations. Some examples: Smith: blacksmith’s hammer; Cohen: an ice cream cone. Gordon: a garden. For the suffix -son: “a smaller version of the thing you’re picturing.”
• To remember faces, pick an outstanding feature of the face. “First impressions are usually lasting impressions”. And by focusing on what’s notable about the face, you’re “etching that face into your memory”.
• The final step is associating the Substitute Words of the name to the outstanding feature of the face. The association, as always, should be ridiculous.
• “To remember titles, come up with standards like the stethoscope”.
• For first names, Substitute Words also work. But because they’re less unique, you can develop standards quite quickly.
• Repeating “high foreheads, big noses, bushy eyebrows” are not a problem. The system still works because it triggers Original Awareness.
• “Absentmidedness is basically a memory problem.”
• “If your mind is “absent” when performing an action, there can be no observation; more important, there can be no Original Awareness.”
• The solution to absentmidedness is to “think of what you’re doing during the moment in which you’re doing it.” This can be done through association.
• For example, when you lay down something for a minute, you associate that place with the object. The association must be done in the moment.
• To remember to pick up X before leaving, associate it to Y, the last thing you see when leaving a certain place.
• “Just make an association the moment you think of wht it is you want from the refrigerator.”
• “Out of place” associations or even physical reminders trigger real memory.
• “Does last night’s picture ever come back to you, making you think you set the alarm when you actually didn’t? — Never has happened. “True” memory tells me the truth. Most important is the Original Awareness.”
• “If you’ve been applying the systems, you’ve not only improved your memory, you’ve improved your sense of imagination, concentration and observation. (…) Applying our systems will automatically sharpen your observation.”
• “But nothing worthwhile comes too easily. (…) You may feel that applying memory systems to it seems like a lot of work. Again, that’s thinking negatively. Any new art or skill seems difficult and cumbersome at first – but only at first, only until you’ve grasped the fundamentals of the skill. It is rote memory that’s really a lot of work – and usually for naught (…)”
• “So be sure to take the time to learn the basics that follow. You won’t regret it!”
• Numbers are the most difficult category to remember.
• To solve this problem, a phonetic alphabet of ten sounds, each paired to a digit.
• Ten basic consonant sounds: t & d are considered as the same because the vocal apparatus is in the same position in both. Same with f and v and ph. Same with p and b. Same with j, sh, ch and soft g. Same with s, z and soft c. Same with k, hard c and hard g.
• It is the sounds, not letters, that we’re interested in.
• Pairs:
  • 1: t/d. Think of t having one downstroke.
  • 2: n. Think of how the n has two downstrokes.
  • 3: m. Think of how the m has three downstrokes.
  • 4: r. Think of how the word “four” ends with an r.
  • 5: l. Think of how with the five fingers spreaded out, the thumb and forefinger form an l.
  • 6: j, sh, ch and soft g. Think of the similarity between 6 and a mirrored capital J.
  • 7: k, hard c, hard g. Think of how two 7s can form a capital K.
  • 8: f, v ph. Think of how an 8 and a handwritten f are both made with two loops.
  • 9: p, b. Think of how 9 and p are almost exact mirror images.
  • 0: s, z, soft c. Think of how “z” is the first sound of the word “zero”.
• A few rules:
  • Vowels have no values. So are w, h and y. If h changes the sound of the preceding consonant, then it is taken into account. And “th” is considered to be a “t”.
  • Silent letters are disregarded (such as the k in “knee”).
  • Double letters are considered as one letter. Except where the letters make different sounds, such as “accident” (k + s)
  • x depends on the word: for “fox”, x is transposable to 70. In “complexion” it would transpose to 76. q is equivalent to k.
• “It is much, much easier to remember the tangible sentence, which makes sense, than the intangible numbers.
• For most numbers, split them out in words, then use the Link for connecting the words.
• “The only problem you may have had is transposing from sounds to numbers. (…) the better you know the sounds, the faster you’ll memorize numbers.”
• In this chapter, numbers are broken in even groups of digits only for teaching purposes only.
• “if you simply say the sounds to yourself, you’ll almost automatically form a word.”
• “There’s no rule that says that you must use a noun to represent any group of digits; nor must you use only one word for a group of digits – a phrase is just as good.”
• “For a four-digit number like 4312, you might use raw mutton, ram tin, roomed in, rhyme tone, and so on.”
• “Whenever you see a zero, simply try to pluralize what comes before it. For 975, you might use buckle; if you see 9750, simply use buckles.”
• “For 27, always try to use the -ing ending”. For 4, -er. “And for 1, you can use the past tense; 9751 would be buckled.”
• “For 85, always try to use the -ful ending.”
• “If you haven’t yet mastered the phonetic alphabet, you should take the time to really absorb those ten digit-sound pairs. Playing a mental game will help you do this faster: Whenever you see a number (…) mentally transpose the digits into sounds. Whenever you see a word on a sign or billboard, transpose the consonant sounds to digits. Do this for a while, and the sounds will become second nature.”
• Two traps to avoid: transposing by letter instead of sound; and considering a double letter as two sounds instead of one.
• “Having memorized a list of items in sequence, using the Link, how would you know, say, the 8th item instantly? You wouldn’t; you’d have to go over the Link and count.”
• The Peg Words, which are based on the phonetic alphabet, solve this problem.
• The word for 1 is tie. It contains a single t/d sound.
• More Peg Words (2-10): Noah, ma, rye (“picture a loaf of rye bread or a bottlle of rye whiskey”), law, shoe, cow, ivy, bee, toes.
• “They are easy to remember because the phonetic sounds practically tell you what the words are.”
• To remember an item X on, say, the 8th position, associate X to ivy in a ridiculous way.
• “For each of these, be sure to see the picture you select; we won’t bother reminding you again.”
• The difference with the Link: to get the nth item, think of the nth Peg Word and you’ll instantly know the sixth item. And if you think of the item, you’ll immediately know its position.
• “The Peg Words are an extension of the places or “loci” idea mentioned at the beginning of the book. You’ve arrived at them slowly, step by step.” 1) simple memory aids to remember sounds of phonetic alphabet; sounds help you remember the Peg Words; and the Peg Words give you the way to remember items out of order.
• Peg Words can be name for up to any number.
• List of Peg Words: 1:tie 2:Noah 3:Ma 4:rye 5:law 6:shoe 7:cow 8:ivy 9:bee 10:toes 11:tot 12:tin 13:tomb 14:tire 15:towel 16:dish 17:tack 18:dove 19:tub 20:nose 21:net 22:nun 23:name 24:Nero 25:nail 26:notch 27:neck 28:knife 29:knob 30:mouse 31:mat 32:moon 33:mummy 34:mower 35:mule 36:match 37:mug 38:movie 39:mop 40:rose 41:rod 42:rain 43:ram 44:rower 45:roll 46:roach 47:rock 48:roof 49:rope 50:lace 51:lot 52:lion 53:loom 54:lure 55:lily 56:leach 57:log 58:lava 59:lip 60:cheese 61:sheet 62:chain 63:chum 64:cherry 65:jail 66:choo choo 67:chalk 68:chef 69:ship 70:case 71:cot 72:coin 73:comb 74:car 75:coal 76:cage 77:coke 78:cave 79:cob 80:fuzz 81:fit 82:phone 83:foam 84:fur 85:file 86:fish 87:fog 88:fife 89:fob 90:bus 91:bat 92:bone 93:bum 94:bear 95:bell 96:beach 97:book 98:puff 99:pipe 100:disease
• “Had the words been selected haphazardly, the idea would still work, but that would entail rote memory. As it is, the words all fit the pattern you’ve learned, and anything patternized is easier to remember.”
• “If you’re stuck on a word, think of the consonant sounds, then stick vowels in there until the word comes to you.”
• “After you use the words for a while, you’ll see that it’s the picture that will come to mind when you see or hear a number, not the actual word.”
• The ridiculous pictures don’t stay forever in your mind. “When the information is used a few times, you know that information – what you won’t remember are your original silly pictures! That’s one reason you can use the same Peg Words over and over again.”
• By now we’ve learned all three out of three systems of memory: the Link, the Substitute Word and the Peg. “We haven’t been able to find any memory problem that could not be solved – made easier – by applying one of these three, or one in conjunction with another.”
• “We’re assuming that if you’re interested in learning (…) any material, you basically understand what it is you’re studying. What you need are reminders.”
• “By the time you’re finished with the book, you should have all the necessary weapons to face, attack, and solve any memory problem.”
• “The ability to picture numbers via the phonetic alphabet, plus the ability to use the Substitue Word system of memory is all that’s necessary to help you remembe style numbers, prices and telephone numbers.”
• “As for exchange-name telephone numbers (…) the first word in your association must tell you both the two exchange letter and the exchange number.” The first word should start with the exchange letters, the rest should match the number. The first word can have both the exchange letters and then more info.
• “For exchanges (…) with which it is impossible to form words, make up a standard.”
• “(…) When you use two words for the last four digits, using the basic Peg Words, it may casuse a slight confusion. (…) But you can solve this minor problem by using any word but a basic Peg Word for the second word. If you make a habit of doing that, you’ll know that the basic Peg Word always comes first.”
• “Playing cards are difficult to remember because they are abstractions.” To ovecome this, “make an intangible tangible”.
• Each card of a deck should be reperseented by a concrete item.
• The section on cards is not just useful for card games, but for other possible memory problems.
• Alternative way to remember: missing/mutilated cards.
• Each card word starts with either C, H, S or D (for clubs, hearst, spades and diamonds).
• “The very next consonant word will be the sound that represents the value of the card.”
• The word “can” means 2C (c + n).
• sail: 5S; hare: 4H; dash: 6D; 4C: core; safe: 8S; deb: 9D.
• Interesting that this pattern goes beyond the phonetic alphabet and it uses spelling to indicate the suit.
• “(…) jacks, queens and kings represent a departure from the pattern (…).”
• AC:cat 2C:can 3C:comb 4C:core 5C:coal 6C:cash 7C:cake 8C:cuff 9C:cup 10C:case JC:club QC:cream KC:king
• AH:hat 2H:hen 3H:hem 4H:hare 5H:hail 6H:hash 7H:hog 8H:hoof 9H:hoop 10H:hose JH:heart QH:queen KH:hinge
• AS:suit 2S:sun 3S:sum 4S:sewer 5S:sail 6S:sash 7S:sock 8S:safe 9S:soap 10S:suds JS:spade QS:steam KS:sing
• AD:date 2D:dune 3D:dam 4D:door 5D:doll 6D:dash 7D:dock 8D:dive 9D:deb 10D:dose JD:diamond QD:dream KD:drink
• “(…) the court card words also can be pictured – so the word itself isn’t that important. It’s the picture the word creates in your mind that matters – after some use, you shouldn’t think the word but simply see the picture it creates.”
• “Once you’ve seen a picture in your mind for any word, that’s the picture that you should (and will) see each time.
• It’s possible to make words for the court cards following the pattern, but the authors prefer the listed words. For the jacks, the suit words themselves. For QH and KC, queen and king respectively.
• “The words for the remaining queens and kings each being with the vital suit letter, but then each word rhymes as closely as possible to queen and king.” Not exact rhymes, but close.
• Alternative words for court cards:
• JC: cadet, coated; JH: hothead, hated, hooted, hooded JS: steed, staid, sated; JD: dotted, doted, dead, head, dead heat, dated; QC: cotton, coedine; QH: hootin’, heatin’, hatin’, headin’; QS: satan, satin, sit in, sadden, sedan; QD: detain, deaden, dotin’; KT: cute ma, caddie me; KH: head home, high dome, hit me, high time, hide me; KS: steam, stem; KD: dead aim, tea time.
• “If you know the pattern and the phonetic sounds, the chore is half done.”
• Once the card words are memorized, a sequence of cards can be memorized with the Link.
• “Or you can use the Peg system to remember cards by number, in and out of order. This is quite an impressive memory demonstration, because you are memorizing two abstracts, numbers and cards.”
• “Knowing the Card Words makes the cards of a deck tangible and easy to picture in the mind. Once they can be pictured, they can be associated so that you can be Originally Aware of them.”
• “For any “discard” game such as gin rummy, bridge, hearts or canasta, you need the “mutilation” idea.”
• “When you hear a card called, transpose it to its Card Word and mutilate that word (the picture, really) in some way. Say the KD is called, see a spilled drink; the 4H is called, picture a hare without ears”
• You’ll get faster at this with practice because of better knowledge of the Card Words and because mutilations will also become standard.
• “This is probably the best example of pinpointed concentration and Original Awareness that we could demonstrate. That instantaneous picture of the mutilated Card Word has forced you to be aware of that particular card at that moment, as clearly as is humanly possible. (…) After you’ve mutilated the called 47 cards, all you have to do is to go over all your Card Words, entally. Any Card Word that has not been mutilated will stand out like the proverbial sore thumb!”
• Standard order for going through cards: CHSD. Or pick another one, but pick one. “Always using the same suit order will save you the time and possible confusion of possibly going over the same suit twice.”
• “To gain speed, you should first work at making the Card Words second nature (…) You’ll be forcing yourself to see each picture quickly and clearly, and that’s better than trying to think of or see each picture for too long a period.”
• Pick up the pace to get better at it.
• For some stunts or games that use multiple decks or reuse a deck, you need different types of mutilations: normal mutilation, fire/burning (“different enough so as not to cause confusion”), water/drowning, cutting by a knife and finally, associating card with yourself. “The idea is to force yourself to concentrate on each card for that one fraction of a second, and each of the above-mentioned methods will serve – yet they’re all different, and definite, enough to be distinct in your mind.” After the associating to yourself, you can go back to normal mutilation.
• The mutilation cycle can be enlarged by associating to Peg Words, one Peg Word per cycle.
• Mutilation works well in discard games for marking cards discarded by you and your opponent.
• In poker, you can use the memory systems to remember the odds.
• To remember dates and appointments, patternize date and time. Use a number for the day, the second digit represents the hour. Then map it to a Peg Word. For Wednesday at 10: mouse (0 is used to represent 10). For 11 and 12 two words need to be made. For example, Wednesday at 12 would be mitten.
• Another way to handle 11 and 12 is to consider them as 1 and 2, but without using the Peg Words.
• On a Monday morning, you would go mentally through all of Monday’s Peg Words. This will work as a “constant reminder of your appointments.”
• For the minutes, add another word. To disambiguate which is hour and which is minutes, use a word that is not a Peg Word but that fits phonetically.
• To use reminders for quarter, half and three quarters past the hour you can instead use a quarter coin, a half grapefruit and a pie with one large pie gone respectively.
• AM & PM are largely unnecessary because it’s usually clear what it is, depending on the type of appointment. But you can pick standard words for them. And only one, really; the absence of that word (for say, AM) indicates that the appointment must be PM.
• How to memorize on which dates fall the weekdays for a particular year? Memorize a twelve digit number with the dates of the first Sunday of the month for each of the twelve months. For 2021: 3774 2641 5375
• To represent dates, you can do either day + month or month + day. Days that are less than 10 can be prepended by a 0 for disambiguation.
• In this way, you can remember birthdays by associating them to persons. Can be done directly to the image of the person, or to the Substitute Word of the person’s name.
• To remember whether it is a birthday or anniversary, you can put a cake with candles on the image if it’s a birthday.
• You can use this to remember zodiac. Reminders for signs: water bearer, fishes, ram, bull, twins, crab, lion, virgin, scales, scorpion, archer, goat.
• “Now you can remember any date by changing it to a tangible picture and associating that to the person, place or event. Again, once you’ve used the memorized information a few times and it has become knowledge, the system has served its purpose – the ridiculous pictures fade away because you no longer need them.”
• “Most people don’t know the alphabet as well as they think they do. Few people know the numerical positions of the letters (…) it is interesting that people use these twe nty-six letters all their lives and still don’t know, instantly, the numerical position of, say, P or K, or M.”
• “We’re going to show you how to picture letters.”
• If you learn numerical positions of letters, you have an extra Peg Word list with length 26.
• To learn numerical positions, use the “adjective” idea: “make up a phrase that consists of two words – the first word is an adjective that begins with the letter whose position you want to know; the second is the Peg Word that tells you that position.”
• “You’re better off making up your own adjectives, because the ones you think of will be the eassier for you to remember.”
• awful tie, brave noah, cute ma, delicious rye, enraged law, fast shoe, ghostly cow, hairy ivy, itchy bee, jagged toes, kind tot, laminar tin, macabre tomb, noisy tire, orange towel, plastic dish, quality tack, rabid dove, salacious tub, tilted nose, uterine net, vivacious nun, wedded name, x-rayed nero, yellowish nail, zigzag notch
• “To visualize each letter of the alphabet (…) make up a word that sounds like the letter. This is an offshoot of the Substitute Word system.”
• List: A ape, B bean, C sea, D dean, E eel, F half/effort, G jeans, H ache/age/itch, I eye, J jay(bird), K cake/cane, L el (elevated train)/elf, M ham/hem/emperor, N hen/end, O eau (water)/old, P pea, Q cue (stick), R hour (clock)/art, S ess curve/ass, T tea, U ewe, V veal, W Waterloo (Napoleon), X eggs/exit/X-ray, Y wine, Z zebra.
• “If you know the numerical position of every letter and the alhabet word, you also have that twenty-six-word Peg List we mentioned. (…) Now you can memorize two lists of items – by number, and in and out of order – at the same time. Use the basic Peg Words for one list and the Alphabet Words for the other.”
• Picturing letters can help you remind how to spell some hard words.
• If you form a Link backwards from zebra to ape, you can recite the alphabet backwards.
• “Very young children have no trouble using their imagination and forming ridiculous pictures. They not only do it easily, they think it’s lots of fun.”
• Memory systems can be taught to kids as a game. For example, a Link of 10 items.
• For remembering items by number with a kid that’s too young to learn the phonetic alphabet, a way to teach them ten Peg Words is to do it by rhyming them with numbers: 1 run, 2 showe, 3 tree, 4 pour, 5 hive, 6 sticks, 7 heaven, 8 gate, 9 sign, 10 hen.
• “Once he has been tested on them, and knows them, he can be taught to associate (…) any item to any of these Pegs.”
• Another way to use the link: place eight items on a tray, cover them, remove the cloth for a minute or so, then cover them up again and have everyone list the items.
• “It’s amazing how well the system works with children.”
• Another game: “pairs of letters are called or written, and each pair is assigned a hiding place. For example, PN is called, and the hiding place is the fish tank (…) Tell the child to thikn of a word that begins and ends with the vital letters and then associate, in a silly way, that word (or thing) to the hiding place.”
• “Children love to win; they’ll learn just because they want to play and win.”
• “With a little thought, any game can be changed or made more challenging by using such memory systems as the Link, Substitute Words and Peg Words.”
• Young children can benefit vastly from improving their concentration and memory, at school and later socially and professionally.
• “Fundamentally, the other players use rote memory. We all go oer and over the plays throughout the year, to make sure everybody knows them. And for the Knicks, that’s maybe a total of forty plays and options.” Players often forget the plays anyway.
• Plays can be encoded by representing the players with different nouns. In football, because there are 11 players (instead of basketball’s 5), the plays are more complicated, but each player can remember his own, except for the quarterback.
• You can use fruits (or other nouns) to represent colors.
• “You should know how to handle prices now. Make up a word or phrase for the price, then associate it to the name of the stock.”
• To handle fractions change them to eights, the common denominator of stock market price fractions. “(…) make up a word that tells you the dollars – a word whose last single consonant tells you the number of eights (the fraction).” This assumes that you know the order of magnitude of the stock (294 would be 29.5, not 294).
• Or you could use a word for the dollars, followed by a Peg Word to tell the number of eights. “This method leaves you with no decisions to make.”
• For company names, you can use the Substitute Word.
• For stock symbols, “you can use a word that reminds you of the letters, or you can use the Alphabet Words.”
• “The point is that now you can picture letters. Picturing either the Alphabet Words, or a word that begins and ends with or contains the vital letters, is tantamount to picturing the letters. The same ideas can be used wherever you find it necessary to remember letters in conjunction with anything else.”
• To remember a number of representatives, you can encode it as r+number and associate it to a state. For example, if NY has 41 representatives, you can connect it to roared or reared (r+41).
• “If you’re remembering other information as well, get a word into your association or Link that tells you the two things you want to know: 1) that it’s electoral votes you’re remembering; 2) how many votes.”
• “Finding a word that starts with e and whose consonant sounds only represent 27 may be difficult if not impossible. Simply use a word like enclose (…) since you know that no state has electoral votes comprising three digits (…) you’d simply ignore the sounds that follow enc“
• “All the suggestions in this chapter have been just that – suggestions. The way you patternize any memory problem is up to you. And, usually, the method you select to handle any memory problem will be the best for you.”
• “(…) most memory problems basically break down to entities of two.”
• “It doesn’t matter how difficult the material seems to be; so long as you can come up with Substitute Words or phrases, you’ll find it esaier to remember. Where a lot of information is involved, form a Link.”
• “Every fundamental is basically a memory problem (…)”
• “People who say they “speed-read” are not really reading, they’re “idea-culling.” (…) Authorities on reading have effectively demonstrated that it is physiologically impossible to read more than 800 words a minute!”
• “(…) slow reading is usually a memory problem. Most often, it is regression that slows you down. The very slow readers are horizontal regressors.”
• “But, in our opinion, there is only one way to read better, faster and more effectively – and that is to read at your normal rate of speed and remember as you read. The goal is to be able to read any material only once, and know it! Eventually, achieving this goal will also increase your “normal” reading speed.”
• “When it comes to reading material, the point is not how fast you can get through the material, but how much of the material can get through to you.”
• For sequential facts, use the Link.
• “All you have to do is apply the systems you’ve learned to reading material.”
• “This news item is about Zambia and its railway, so you should start the Link with a “heading” picture, a Substitute thought that will remind you of Zambia. The one we used is zombie.”
• “(…) the silly pictures are formed as fast as thought.”
• “Just trying to form the associations is half the battle – you’re concentrating on the material as you never have before.”
• “The first few times you apply the systems to technical reading material, they will slow down your reading rate. On the other hand, you won’t have to spend time goi ng over the material again and again. And as you apply the system, you’ll see that you’ll eventually be reading close to your normal rate of speed – and reading the material only once.”
• For remembering the page number for a particular act or quote, associate a Key word to the Peg Word that represents the page number.
• “The Memory Graph will help you remember locations*, as well as other information.”
• The idea works by assigning letters & numbers to quadrants on a map.
• “if you can picture “C4″, make the location definite in your mind, that picture will always refer to that particular spot – the box that falls at C4. Anything associated to that box will belong at that location.”
• To remember locations, patternize them; “each word begins with the vital letter, and the very next consonant sound (any sounds that follow are disregarded) will be the sound that represents the vital number.”
• ate: A1. Car represents C4.impale represents I3. The s sound represents 10.
• Once you know the words for each quadrant, “you have a handy tool with which to solve any location memory problem. All you have to do is to superimpose the information onto the Memory Graph, then associate the vital word to the information that falls into that box, or location.”
• “Any tabular material can be placed on a Memory Graph. Any schematic problem, any location problem, can be solved this way.”
• To memorize ideograms, make a story for each of the small parts, identifying either pictures or letters in a sequence.
• For learning Morse Code: R is dot, T/D is dash. For A, (dot dash), associate rat. For B, associate terror. (in this encoding, double r’s and t’s do count). For C, torture/tartar/traitor. Once the words are listed, make the associations with the Alphabet Words. Another option is to use the adjective idea: awful rat, big terror, cruel torture, etc.
• “So you see, no information is too abstract for the systems. If the material can be written or verbalized, the systems can be applied in one form or another.”
• “You can remember any formula or equation by applying the Link and using standards to represent the things that appear regularly.”
• The Link can be used to remember directions. You need a standard for right and left.
• “If the problem is one of memory, the systems apply. They can help you remember anything you want to remember.”
• “The association would force him to think – for a moment, at that moment – about which pocket was involved.”