Page 167 - How to Develop A SUPER-POWER MEMORY

The Importance of Memory 171
fault with such systems, as far as I'm concerned—they
won't work. I do not believe that you can remember logical
associations anywhere as well, or as easily, as ridiculous ones.
Some of the old systems taught the student to correlate
two objects when he wanted to remember one in conjunc-
tion with the other. A correlation meant to link the two
objects by means of other words which either sounded alike,
meant the same, were the exact opposites or were brought
to mind somehow or other. This happens to be an excel-
lent imagination exercise, so let me explain it to you. If you
wanted to remember "pencil" and light "bulb" for some
reason; you might reason this way:—
pencil—lead—heavy—light—bulb.
Do you see the process? Pencil would naturally make you
think of lead; the mineral lead is very heavy; the opposite of
heavy is light; and light logically leads you to bulb.
How would you correlate "diamond" to "cigarette"?
Well, here's one way: diamond—ring—smoke ring—smoke
—cigarette. Actually, you can correlate any two objects to
each other; even the most unlikely things. Of course, it's
much easier to remember "pencil" and "bulb" by making
an association of yourself writing with a light bulb instead
of a pencil; or, throwing a switch, and a pencil lights instead
of a bulb. As far as "diamond" and "cigarette" is concerned,
if you "saw" yourself smoking a diamond instead of a ciga-
rette, you'd certainly recall it with more facility than by
making a correlation. I mention the correlations only be-
cause it is a good imagination exercise, and because you
might have some fun trying it with your friends. The idea,
of course, is to use as few words as possible in order to corre-
late any two items.
Correlations are a fairly current idea for memory training,
but as I've already told you, memory systems go back as far
as early Greek civilization. I believe it was Simonides, the