Page 269 - Use Your Memory

USE YOUR MEMORY
following way: once again you use Key Memory Words and the
Link System. For example, if the material to be remembered is
poetry, a few Major Key Words will help your mind 'fill in' the
remaining word-gaps. If the material to be remembered is part oi
a script, once again the Key Memory Image Words and Link
Systems prove essential. The basic subdivisions of a long speech
can be strung together with Key-Word ease, and cues from
speaker to speaker can be handled far more effectively if you
imaginatively mnemonicise the quantum leap between the pre-
vious speaker's last word and your next word. It is lack of the use ol
these mnemonic techniques that often causes chaos on the stage,
especially those long silences and breaks in continuity that occur
when one performer forgets his last word or another forgets his
first. Acting troupes can save as much as 50 per cent of their time,
and thus enormously reduce stress and increase enjoyment and
efficiency, by applying the Basic Memory Principles to the theatri-
cal works in which they are involved.
Articles
You may need to remember the content of articles on a short-term
or long-term basis, and the systems for remembering each are
different. If you have to attend a meeting or make a brief resume of
an article you have only recently read, you can remember it almost
totally, and at the same time can astound your listeners, by
remembering the pages to which you are referring. The method is
simple: take one, two or three Key Memory Image Words from
each page of the article and slot them on to one of your basic Peg
Memory Systems. If there is only one Key Memory Image Word
per page, you will know that when you are down to Key Memory
Image Word number five in your system, you are referring to the
fifth page of the article, whereas if there are two ideas per page and
you are at Memory Word seven, you will know you are at the top of
page four.
For the memorisation of an article over a long period of time, it
will be necessary for you to choose more than two or three Key
Memory Image Words per page and to use a more permanent Peg
System in conjunction with the review programme as outlined in
chapter 25.
Books
It is possible to memorise, in detail, an entire book! You simply
apply the memory techniques for articles to each page of the book
you wish to remember. This is easily done using the Major and