Your problem with memorizing is that you don't grok imagination

By the end of this article, you’ll learn how to memorize the following three cards with one image. What image you ask? Donald Duck moshes with phones.

Images are memorable

Imagine the scene “Donald Duck moshes with phones”. Think of human-sized phones raging to a deafining beat-drop with an overwhelmed Donald Duck. You’ll be able to remember this image for quite some time.

Imagination does not simply mean forming images in your head, though. You should use all your senses and spatial awareness. Use sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Introduce movement; use exaggeration, humor, sex, anything you like so that your imagination can work. Remember that you never have to share your images. Make them as crazy as it’s benefitial to you.

In general, this entire article is based on the follwoing building blocks.

1. Association
2. Location
3. Imagination

Taking your imagination on a journey

You now have a powerful tool to remember an individual bit of information. To memorize larger chunks of information, we need a method to link multiple images together.

Linking Technique

The simplest method for this would be the Linking Technique. Try to memorize these words:

Dog, Tree, Pizza, Computer, Sunshine, Ocean

An easy way to do this is to take two neighboring words in the list and link them together using an imaginative image.

First, imagine a dog frantically digging at the base of a tree, with dirt flying everywhere. Now, picture that tree with pizza slices hanging from its branches instead of leaves. Next, see a computer with pizza crumbs all over the keyboard and a half-eaten slice balancing on the monitor. The computer screen is glowing with actual sunshine so bright it’s blinding. Finally, imagine rays of sunshine beaming down onto a vast, sparkling ocean.

Each image connects only to the images directly before and after it, forming a chain of associations. To recall the list, you simply remember the first image and follow the links.

For really long chains of information, this will become quite annoying. Luckily, there is a more powerful tool at your disposal.

Memory Palace (Method of Loci)

The method of loci is a technique for memorizing information by placing a mnemonic image for each item to be remembered at a point along an imaginary journey. The information can then be recalled in a specific order by mentally walking the same route through the imaginary journey and converting the mnemonic images back into the facts that they represent. Loci is the plural for of the Latin word, locus, meaning place or location. ¹

Think of a location you know very well, for example your childhood home. This will be your mind palace. (The location doesn’t have to be real as long as you can imagine it well.)

Imagine you are floating through the house, looking at all the familiar quirks of your home. Note places where you are going to put images. If you run out of rooms, you can split the rooms into smaller places following your gaze through the room. Or, you can go into the yard, etc.

Most importantly, follow these rules.

• You should always follow the same journey through your mind palace.
• Imagine the place as quiet to begin with. Your images are going to bring it to life.

Now, you can put all the images from the word list into places in your memory palace. To recall them, just walk through your palace. Close your eyes if it helps.

Visualizing numbers

Numbers are hard since they are not very visually striking. To make use of our new found superpower, let’s turn them into images.

If you like, you could associate a fixed image with each number directly. I am going to take a more round-about way by first associating numbers with sounds, and then constructing images using those sounds. This way, if you are ever stuck, you can re-derive an image from first principles.

Digits are just sounds

A popular number-to-sound mapping is called the Major System. Here is my slight adaption of the Major System.

Digit	Consonants	Mnemonic
0	s, z, soft c	z is the first letter of zero. The other letters have a similar sound.
1	t, d	d & t have one downstroke and sound similar (some people include th here)
2	n	n looks something like 2 on its side and has 2 downstrokes
3	m	M looks like a 3 on its side and has three downstrokes
4	r	4 and R are almost mirror images of each other, R is the last letter of “fouR”
5	l	L is the Roman Numeral for 50
6	sh, soft ch, j, soft g, zh	g looks like an upside-down 6, cursive j looks kind of like a 6
7	k, hard c, hard g, q, qu	capital K looks like two sevens stuck together
8	f, v, (th)	cursive f looks like 8, v is a vocalize f (some people include th here)
9	p, b	P looks like a mirror-image of 9. b sounds similar look like a rotated 9
Ignored	Vowel sounds, w,h,y	These sounds are ignored in the traditional Major System

Building some images

These will be the building blocks for memorizing long sequences of numbers. You can think of them as the indivisible pieces of information that make up your memory journey.

Here are some of the peronal images that I use…

• 1 turns into the image Yoda. d for 1 since the sound y and the vowels are ignored.
• 3 turns into Mew. m for 3 since w and the vowels are ignored.

Encoding bigger numbers into one image, will let you remember longer chains of digits at the cost of having to memorize a larger set of “vocabulary” beforehand. For example, if you memorize images for the numbers 00-99 instead of just 0-9, you can now encode 4 digits in 2 images instead of 4. Some people go as far as to learn images for 000-999.

In all likelihood you will be content with learning images for numbers 00-99. Especially, if you make use of one of Computer Science’s favorite tools: a compression algorithm.

Encoding lots of information

A popular system for compressing lots of digits into one image is the Person-Action-Object (PAO) system.

The PAO system works by assigning each two-digit number (00-99) a specific Person, Action, and Object. This way, you can encode six digits (three two-digit numbers) into a single memorable scene:

1. The first two digits (00-99) determine the Person who is performing an action.
2. The second two digits determine the Action being performed.
3. The third two digits determine the Object being acted upon.

So if you want to remember 243862, you would break it into 24-38-62:

• 24 might be Nero (Person)
• 38 might be Mopping (Action)
• 62 might be Chain (Object)

Your image would be “Nero mopping with a chain.” Make it vivid: Nero frantically mopping the Colosseum floor with a giant, clanking chain, sweat pouring down his face.

A PAO system is very personal since you need to be the one remembering all the connections. So, sharing my entire PAO system here would be useless. Instead, I’ll share some excerpts here:

Number	Person	Action	Object
36	Michael Jordan	Mosh	Match
51	Larry David	Light	Lid
82	Thanos	Fanning	Phone

Thus, the number 825136 becomes “Thanos lighting a match.” But remember to make the image memorable! Maybe the match is so big, Thanos cannot pick it up and is using all infinity stones to create a fire strong enough to light the match.

Remembering Cards

There are many ways to create associations between the cards and memorable images. I’ll just present the one I use.

We can encode each card as a number from 00 to 99 ². This let’s us reuse the associations we’ve created in our PAO system for cards! First let’s assign each suit a number.

Suit Number	Suit Name	Reasoning
1	Spades ♠	Spade has one tip.
2	Hearts ♥	Heart has two halves.
3	Clubs ♣	Club has three leaves.
4	Diamonds ♦	Diamond has four corners.

We will also have to assign some numbers to the face cards Jack, Queen, King. We will give each one of them a

Face Number	Card	Reasoning
6	Jack	Jack starts with J sound.
7	King	King starts with K sound.
8	Queen	Cliche “female form” is hourglass 8.

To convert a card to a number…

• Read numbered cards (Ace to 10) as “Number of Suit”.
  • 4♥ is read as “4 of hearts” and corresponds to the number 42.
  • 7♣ is read as “7 of clubs” and corresponds to the number 73.
  • A♦ is read as “Ace of diamonds” and corresponds to the number 14. Ace is counted as the number 1.
  • 10♠ is read as “Ten of spades” and corresponds to the number 01. Ten is counted as the number 0.
• Read face cards as “Suit Face”.
  • K♠ is read as “Spade King” and corresponds to the number 17.
  • Q♦ is read as “Diamond Queen” and corresponds to the number 48.

Try it yourself

Remember the sentence from the beginning of the article?

Donald Duck moshes (with) phones.

Try decoding it into the 3 cards I showed at the beginning. Click on each card to reveal the answer.

Rediscovering imagination

All the time you’re doing this, you’re oiling the memory machine. You’re exercising creativity. You’re allowing your imagination to do what it’s best at doing: being highly inventive. You’re freeing up the mechanism by which memory works—association—and it’s starting to get faster. Not only are you exercising your memory so that it becomes more efficient in many ways, you’re also becoming smarter, because you’re gaining knowledge. Associations are starting to become automatic. Sometimes it’s so fast that you don’t even know how you’ve come up with one. — Dominic O’Brien.

If you become exhausted doing all of this, don’t worry. You are exercising a muscle you haven’t flexed since you were a child. You will get better with practice.

For less specialized memorization I recommend building these habits:

• Pay attention
• Get interested
• Make connections
• Practice and renew

Footnotes

1. Art Of Memory ↩

2. Encoding as numbers. ↩