How to Develop a Photographic Memory: The Ultimate Guide

via: Unsplash / Daniel Apocada

Learning how to develop a photographic memory would do good admittedly anyone.

Imagine having the ability to think an image of anything you've seen in the by. Remember of how easy tests would have been. Honestly, it would basically be a superpower.

For some reason, I'g guessing you're reading this article because y'all're interested in developing this superpower?

While information technology is possible to develop a photographic retention, in that location is a lot of controversy surrounding the subject field, and so before nosotros dive into it, I desire to clarify a few things.

What's a Photographic Memory and Why is At that place Controversy?

The controversy surrounding photographic retention is largely due to an incorrect definition and concept of what it is.

The Dictionary (Oxford) Definition

"The ability to call back information or visual images in great detail."

The Hollywood/Junk Science Definition

"The ability to blink and shop an image of whatever you were looking at in your head (and keep it there forever)."

The controversy exists because of the Hollywood definition of the ability. While there are people who claim to be able to do this, all are thought to be fake as none of the claims have been validated.

So, if you lot're looking to turn your memory into an effortless digital camera, I can't assist yous. If yous're looking to learn the ability every bit outlined in the Oxford definition above, I got you lot. Continue reading.

What it's Not: Eidetic Memory and Superior Autobiographical Retentivity

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Controversy bated, there are a few conditions that are commonly confused with a photographic retentiveness. In that location is no mode to develop either of the following;yous have to be born with them.

Eidetic Retention

This is a condition where people are able to visualize an epitome for abrief time after it's been taken away. Information technology has been found in a very modest number of young children, and in extremely rare cases, a few adults.

If y'all're not born with an eidetic memory, you cannot develop it. If you're curious if you practice accept this type of retentivity you can have a test here.

Superior Autobiographical Retentiveness

Superior Autobiographical Memory is an extremely rare condition where people are able to remember almost every moment of their life.

A 60 Minutes reporter, Lesley Stahl, interviewed a 37 year sometime woman with the condition named Louise Owen.

In the interview, Stahl picked a random date from the past: April 21st, 1999. She and then asked Owen if she could call back what she had washed that 24-hour interval.

Her response was incredible. She was able to call up everything she had washed that day, from the concert she attended to what she ate for dinner. What's more incredible is that Owen was able to recall details from a 24-hour interval that was 19 years in the by!

Again, unless you're born with a Superior Autobiographical Retentiveness, yous'll never have it.

Of those who have the condition, many say that it's a burden. Jill Toll, the commencement person ever identified with the status, said she, "feels haunted by the never-ending stream of memories."

Then even if you lot could develop it, you probably wouldn't desire it.

4 Techniques to Get a Photographic Memory

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Alright, so we've established what a photographic retentivity is and what it isn't. Let's get to the practical stuff.

Below are four techniques to help you get a photographic retentiveness. The beginning is by far my favorite. Information technology's then effective I still utilize information technology to remember information I committed to retentivity years back.

Here are 4 techniques to get a photographic memory:

ane. The Retention Palace (or Method of Loci)

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The Memory Palace, likewise known as the Method of Loci, dates back to the Roman Empire.

Recall mnemonic devices like, "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Emerge"? The retentivity palace is a mnemonic device on steroids. Information technology is ane of the nigh powerful retentivity tactics I know.

Before nosotros jump in, a note on why it works so well. Information technology's so effective because it speaks our mind's language. What's our mind's language?

Put simply, its language is images. Want proof? Imagine something like a grocery list. When you visualize your grocery list do you lot run across the words avocado, carrots and steak or practise you see images of avocados, carrots and steaks?

This technique works and then well for two reasons:

Starting time, it converts information into a series of images.

2d, it takes these images and links them to a physical location that y'all're familiar with. These 2 combined make for i of the most powerful memory tools out at that place.

Terminal thing earlier we dive in, this technique will seem a little confusing until you read through all 5 steps.

Here's how to create your own memory palace:

one. Choose a Palace

Choice your memory palace. This is any identify that you can easily visualize. It could be your home, your school or place of work, or the route you take every morning to the coffee shop.

The key here is picking a place that you're extremely familiar with. The more details y'all can visualize virtually the place, the better the memorization will be.

To start, I would recommend using your domicile every bit your retentivity palace. This is the place that most people tin can recall and visualize the well-nigh detail about.

Once again, familiarity is key hither. Other than your home you could use:

• • Your old loftier school or college
  • A friend'south firm
  • A route that you drive every mean solar day to work
  • An old habitation
  • A coffee shop or restaurant you often become to
  • Your place of piece of work

2. Option a Road

Once you lot take your palace, it's time to choose your route.

Let's use your abode as an example. Your route could be that yous walk through the forepart door, walk into the kitchen, then into the dining room, then downwards a flight of stairs into the living room, turn around and walk up the stairs to a bedchamber.

The ameliorate you lot know this route, the better this technique volition piece of work. It is as well extremely of import to walk the aforementioned route every time.

Choose a starting signal (I like to beginning with the front door) and an ending indicate for your mental walk through your memory palace.

3. List Distinctive Details

Equally yous're probably seeing, details are integral to this technique working.

Close your eyes and mentally transport yourself to your retention palace. Visualize the starting betoken you divers above (let's use the front end door to continue things simple).

Y'all tin encounter your front door. Now visualize walking through the front door. Look slowly from the left to the right, what practice you see?

In my own home, I see a grandfather clock, a tabular array, a large mounted mirror, a large plant, and a small entry table

When you mentally walk through a room, clarify things methodically and consistently. Information technology really helps to define procedures for your mental walk. For instance, when you walk into a room, you lot ever look from left to right.

Walk through every room of your palace. Clarify each room and take note of all the unique details you see.

The more details that yous tin can visualize, the more items you'll be able to memorize equally we'll see in the next step.

4. Link

So yous know your retention palace, you know your road and you know all the details you tin can see forth your route.

Proud of y'all! Let'due south make use of it!

Take each unique particular you've listed in your memory palace and link it to something that yous want to memorize.

Yous tin can utilise this technique to memorize a ton of information, but permit'due south start with something simple like a grocery list.

Let's say one of the items on your list is carrots. Brand a link betwixt carrots and the starting point of your retentiveness palace, your front door.

The more ridiculous, exaggerated, unusual, crazy, nonsensical or strange you tin can make the link the ameliorate.

If you create a link that is ho-hum, it's wrong. Also, the more detail and information you lot can apply to the link the better. These two combined make the item much, much easier to remember.

Permit's utilise our carrot, forepart door link as an example. Mentally transport to your memory palace. Equally you walk upwardly to the front door, you see a giant orange carrot, with green hair and long orangish arms, opening the door.

That's it. Try to tell me you're not going to remember a giant carrot human being opening a door.

The procedure for memorizing your entire grocery listing is the same. Create some sort of link for each item on your list: salary, onions, eggs, etc. Be sure to differentiate things. Right after the carrot man, you don't want to have a behemothic bacon man walk out of the grandfather clock. Instead, take the hands of the clock be made of bacon.

5. Go to Your Palace

Now that the list of items you want to memorize are linked, y'all need to visit your palace.

Y'all encounter the giant carrot man opening the door, the bacon easily on the clock telling you the time. As y'all go along moving along your route, you will run into more details and will be able to recollect more information.

When yous get-go start using this technique, you should walk through your palace a few times and retrieve each item to be sure everything is well linked and memorized.

Final Thoughts

Using the retentivity palace is a skill that yous hone. The more yous employ and practice the skill the quicker and easier it will get. Don't be discouraged if it takes a long time at start.

This technique really works; I have used it myself for years. As I said above, I can nonetheless remember information from retentivity palaces I created years back.

The simply downside to the retentivity palace is that you need to get through your entire road, from start to cease, when recalling information. If the information you're looking to retrieve is at the stop of your road, you withal need to get through the entire thing to call back it. You tin sort of fast forward the walk through, but it still takes time.

The memory palace technique is great for remember things you lot want to know for a long fourth dimension. For information that changes frequently, such as a market list, I prefer the next technique.

2. The Retentivity Peg

via: Unsplash / Kelly Sikkema

The retention peg is actually quite like to the memory palace. The difference is that instead of linking data to items in a concrete location, yous use a list of numerical rhymes known as memory pegs.

A mutual starting list of these numerical rhymes retention pegs is:

ane = gun

2 = zoo

3 = tree

4 = door

5 = hive

half dozen = bricks

7= sky

eight = plate

9 = wine

10 = hen

The technique works by combining the above number rhymes with something that you want to remember. Permit'southward employ a grocery list as our example again.

You could create the following links:

Carrot: Film a gun shooting carrot bullets.

Onions: Imagine all the animals at war with each other using onion grenades as their weapon.

Bacon: Imagine a tree full of salary fruits.

Eggs: Picture show a door fabricated completely of eggs.

As you can meet, this technique is like to the memory palace in that you link something you desire to remember to a visual epitome. The departure is that y'all use a list of images that y'all've memorized to link the data.

This is both a drawback of the technique and i of its greatest advantages.

You initially take to memorize the list but you can also create an infinite number of pegs to help y'all remember things. For example this site lists i,000 pegs.

I strongly prefer this technique for things I want to remember over a short period of time. It is much easier to reuse a list of retentivity pegs than it is links in your memory palace.

3. The Military Method

If you're really interested in learning this skill, I presume you've washed some research and have come up across multiple articles that explain the war machine method.

This is the only technique I know that claims to give yous the "Hollywood" definition of a photographic memory.

The technique involves a dark room, a light, and a sheet of paper yous want to memorize. You essentially flip the low-cal on and off while looking at the canvas of paper.

The idea is that when the lights go out, you lot'll take an banner of the sheet of paper in your mind. You do this for 15 minutes each day for about month.

I decided non to add a total explanation of this technique as I was unable to conclusively determine that it works. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try the technique.

4. Amend Your Overall Retentivity

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Merely equally our bodies need food to office properly, our memory needs the following four to operate well.

Giving your retention what it needs will profoundly improve its effectiveness and will make learning techniques one-3 exponentially easier.

If you want a better retentivity, work the following 4  tips into your everyday life.

Tip 1. Sleep

More than anything else you tin can do to improve your memory, getting the right amount of slumber will have the largest touch on.

Sleep gives our brain the hazard to reboot and process the data we have in during the twenty-four hours. While we sleep, our brain sorts through the memories nosotros have, storing those that are significant and discarding those that aren't. This process is known equally memory consolidation.

The take-away point here? Always become the right amount of slumber. When you don't, you lot brain won't be able to shop memories and information effectively.

Tip 2. Meditation

Almost any strategy claiming to teach a person how to develop a photographic retention incorporates some form of meditation.

Meditation is an practise that slows down your mind's processing. When you meditate y'all're substantially training your mind.

This training volition give you more than command of your heed and your thoughts.

Setting upwardly a meditation routine will pay long-term dividends in general, but will also greatly ameliorate your memory.

Tip 3. Nutrition

A combination of proper diet and the right vitamins and herbs, can very positively bear upon your retentivity.

In the same vein as getting enough slumber, our encephalon operates best when given the right amount of what it needs. Making sure to maintain a balanced diet will positively impact overall concrete function, retentivity included.

When you cull your memory enhancing vitamins and herbs, exist sure to cull those that are backed by clinical proof.

Be cautious of supplements that seem unnatural or too good to be true. Do your research and be sure you're taking something that has been proven to exist effective.

WebMD has a great article that lists vitamins and herbs that are good for retention that y'all can read here.

Tip 4.: Practise

Along with diet and slumber, practise is some other aspect of healthy living that hugely impacts memory.

When you lot exercise you increase your rate of circulation. More apportionment means more oxygen is going to your brain. Studies show that students who ran later on studying better retained the information they studied versus those that didn't.

If you don't similar running, but you love lifting, y'all're in luck. Both aerobic exercises, such every bit running, and lifting have been shown to amend memory.

If you needed another reason to go shredded, just recall nearly improving your memory.

In Determination

Emphasize that practice is key here.

Information technology can take you months before  was effectively able to utilize techniques #1 and #2. I encourage you to try technique #3 (and I want to hear if it works) and technique #iv is a matter of making life changes.

The good things in life have work and improving your retention is no exception.

Victor Hugo wisely said, "Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant."

With this guide, and some difficult piece of work, your memory tin exist something that y'all control. Utilize these four techniques to learn how to develop a photographic retentivity and become the superman of memory.

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Source: https://www.mantelligence.com/how-to-develop-a-photographic-memory/

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