DOMINIC O’BRIEN
Dominic O'Brien is the eight times winner of the The World Memory Championships and has a number of entries in the Guinness Book of Records including the memorisation of 54 packs of shuffled cards after just a single-sighting of each card. How does he do it? What is his system and how can it help YOU remember names, faces, telephone numbers, pass exams, learn languages, win at Trivial Pursuit and clean up at the Blackjack table? How to Develop a Perfect Memory will show you in simple language and easy stages
INTRODUCTION
I know what it is like to forget someone's name. In my time, I have forgotten appointments, telephone numbers, speeches, punch lines of jokes, directions, even whole chapters of my life. Up until recently, I was the most absentminded, forgetful person you could imagine. I once saw a cartoon of two people dancing rather awkwardly at the Amnesiacs' Annual Ball. The man was saying to the woman, 'Do I come here often?' I knew how he felt. Within the last four years, I have become the World Memory Champion. I regularly appear on television and tour the country as a celebrity 'Memory Man', rather like Leslie Welch did in the 1950s. There's no trickery in what I do - no special effects or electronic aids. I just sat down one day and decided enough was enough: I was going to train my memory
LEARNING HOW TO USE YOUR BRAIN
Imagine going out and buying the most powerful computer in the world. You stagger home with it, hoping that it will do everything for you, even write your letters. Unfortunately, there's no instruction manual and you don't know the first thing about computers. So it just sits there on the kitchen table, staring back at you. You plug it in, fiddle around with the keyboard, walk around it, kick it, remember how much money it cost. Try as you might, you can't get the stupid thing to work. It's much the same with your brain. The brain is more powerful than any computer, far better than anything money can buy. Scientists barely understand how a mere ten per cent of it works. They know, however, that it is capable of storing and recalling enormous amounts of information. If, as is now widely accepted, it contains an estimated 1012 neurons, the number of possible combinations between them (which is the way scientists think information is stored) is greater than the number of particles in the universe. For most of us, however, the memory sits up there unused, like the computer on the kitchen table. There are various ways of getting it to work, some based on theory, some on practice. What you are about to read is a method I have developed independently over the last five years
Throughout this book, you will be asked to create images for everything you want to remember. These images will come from your imagination; often bizarre, they are based on the principles of association (we are reminded of one thing by its relation to another). Don't worry that your head may become too cluttered by images. They are solely a means of making information more palatable for your memory and will fade once the data has been stored. It is essential, however, that you form your own images. I have given examples throughout the book, but they are not meant to be copied verbatim. Your own inventions will work much better for you than mine
BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE
I have a stubborn streak, which kept me going through the long hours of trial and error, and I am pleased to say that my method is all grounded in personal experience. Those techniques that didn't work were altered until they did, or thrown out. In other words, the method works, producing some remarkable results in a short space of time. The most dramatic change has been the improvement in the overall quality of my life. And it's not just the little things, like never needing to write down phone numbers or shopping lists. I can now be introduced to a hundred new people at a party and remember all their names perfectly. Imagine what that does for your social confidence. My memory has also helped me to lead a more organized life. I don't need to use a diary anymore: appointments are all stored in my head. I can give speeches and talks without referring to any notes. I can absorb and recall huge amounts of information (particularly useful if you are revising for exams or learning a new language). And I have used my memory to earn considerable amounts of money at the blackjack table.
WHAT I HAVE DONE, YOU CAN DO
Some people have asked me whether they need to be highly intelligent to have a good memory, sensing that my achievements might be based on an exceptional IQ. It's a flattering idea, but not true. Everything I have done could be equally achieved by anyone who is prepared to train their memory. I didn't excell at school. Far from it. I got eight mediocre O levels and dropped out before taking any A levels. I couldn't concentrate in class and I wasn't an avid reader. At one point, my teachers thought I was dyslexic. I was certainly no child prodigy. However, training my memory has made me more switched on, mentally alert, and observant than I ever was.
REASSURING PRECEDENTS
During the course of writing this book, I have discovered that my method bears many similarities with the classical art of memory. The Greeks, and later the Romans, possessed some of the most awesome memories the civilized world has ever seen. There are also some striking resemblances between my approach and the techniques used by a Russian named Shereshevsky but known simply as S. Born at the end of the nineteenth century he was a constant source of bewilderment and fascination for Russian psychologists. To all intents and purposes, he had a limitless memory. I can't help thinking that there must be validity in my method when such similar techniques have been developed independently of each other by people from such different cultures and times
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
No method, however, produces results unless you are prepared to put in a little time and effort. The more you practise the techniques I describe, the quicker you will become at applying them. And remember, an image or a thought that might take a paragraph to describe can be created in a nanosecond by the human brain. Have faith in your memory and see this book as your instruction manual, a way of getting it to work
