I'm reading quite an interesting novel cum history of philosophy at the moment. Im trying to recall why and what has been written but with great difficulty I always seem to forget.

How do you personally go about training your memory and recalling important things?

JDInteractive said:

The brain lends itself to melody, image and rhyme, so a popular aid to memory can be labelling each word or even each letter to said archetype.

Like if you wanted to remember that Socrates taught Plato and Plato taught Aristotle, just think SPA and attach the letters to a rhyme sung to an acronym of the letters such as Scottish Pisspot Arsehole. Maybe to the tune of Rhythm Is A Dancer.

This type of seemingly longwindied through process seems to anchor information to the brain and is the reason I passed my exams with distinction all the time playing a personal jukebox of nonsense in my brain.

I hope this helps.

Number23 said:

It does indeed and I applied a similar method when writing up my answer to an A-Level exam question on Mussolini. I guess I could apply the same to reading.

JDInteractive said:

I also found writing the answers in the cracks between my fingers and lifting one up every so often would also help me in exams.

But I only did that once.

Anyway, memory is unhealthy to the human minset. You were never happier than you were when you were without past and full of optimism for the future. It trips, hoodwinks and ties us up in nostalgia for a dreamworld reality which never existed. I don't read books anymore either. Outside perspectives are unhealthy IF I AM TO RULE THE WORLD.

I love to feel the heat of a Number 23 post.

Number23 said:

one shouldn't read books one hasn't written oneself

Number23 said:

Well that's if you subscribe to the Descartes view on why one should't read novels or use your brain. I just like to damage mine by way of hard drugs and trying to understand the female mindset.

omg I read something about that in a stoopid magazine yesterday.. it was so crap, I laughed..

LOL after having three kids I gave up trying to remember too much of anything sort term wise...its just too difficult much easier just to write everything down...now if only I could remember where I put the notepad...

I used to be able to remember ANYTHING if I just had seen it in writing - then I would see it for my inner eye. It also worked with hearing something - I could say it back word for word afterwards. Now my memory is shit but I'm still above average I'd say.

huh?

nevermind
[Edited 8/23/07 6:36am]

I think you can keep your memory from getting worse by challenging it on a regular basis, but I think it's very hard to actually make it better than it was from the start. The best thing to do is instead to identify which type of memory you have and use it to your advantage. I have a very visual memory so if someone for example tells me something important, I write it down and look at the note. Other people might have an audio memory, and if they read something they want to remember, it helps if they read it out loud, etc.

retina said:

Absolutely - my dad remembers numbers and things by associating them with years that are important in history or to him, but if I try to do that I get all But if I read the numbers I used to remember them, not so anymore though In school I used to get accused of cheating on tests cos when you get the question "please describe what happens in this story" I could quote it pretty much word for word even if it was pages long, and it took the teachers a long time to get with that and realise I wasn't cheating. I offered to take the test in the nude, that settled things.

I was going to click on this thread earlier....but I forgot.