How I memorized an entire chapter from “Moby Dick”
I have a terrible memory.
I can’t remember birthdays, I notoriously butcher movie lines, and I forget somebody’s name five secondsafter I meet them.
But by the end of this video I’m going tobe reciting an entire chapter from Moby Dick by heart, because, as it turns out,there’s a way for anybody to hack their memory.
The way that we normally try to memorize stuffis inefficient and pretty bad.
Flash cards, rote repetition, anxiously puttingyour hand on your forehead just don’t work.
That’s because as much as we’d like to,our brains don’t respond well to brute force.
What we are good at is remembering thingswhen we have a context, be it visual, emotional, or spatial.
We’re good at remembering faces, we instinctively remember what song was playingduring our first kiss, and we can effortlessly walk a few blocksto the store and get back to our house without even havingto think about it.
Why is that? Well, it turns out that the same part of ourbrain that’s thought to be involved in emotion and spatialnavigation, the hippocampus, also happens to control short-and long-term memory processing.
Now, I know what you’re thinking:If only there were a way to combine the two.
Enter: the memory palace.
A memory palace is a memorization techniquethat makes it easier to remember things by giving it a visual and spatial hook.
It combines something that humans are innatelypretty bad at with something that we’ve been doing forages.
Basically, you assign images to the contentyou want to memorize, then place them on a path in a real-life location.
Then when you retrace the path in your mind,you see the images, are able to recall the content, and all of the sudden you look like a memorygenius.
So does this actually work? Step 1: choose a location that you know reallywell to serve as your memory palace.
It seems pretty generous to deem it a palace,but for this example I chose to use my apartment.
I went around and mentally mapped out thespace, making sure I had a clear image of the layout, where the furniture was, and whether or notI needed to change my cat’s litter box, which, it turns out,I did.
Step 2: choose what you want to memorize.
You can choose anything that you want:a poem, the state capitals, the first 25 digits of pi.
Whatever.
I chose a chapter from one of my favoritebooks, Moby Dick.
Granted, it’s one of the shorter chapters,but it’s really good, and you’ve got to start somewhere, so how about everyone just play it cool, allright? I’ve read this chapter a number of times,but I don’t remember more than a few words off the topof my head.
So I know that the first line is, “I leavea white wake.
” There’s a line where he talks about a heavycrown.
And his destiny is on rails at some point.
Step 3: create a really compelling visualimage for each line or item.
What I did was take the chapter and breakit up into individual sentences, 38 in all, each one getting their own image.
So for the first line — “I leave a whiteand turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail” — I create in my mind an image of John Waters,pale and dressed in white, crying uncontrollably at somebody’s wake.
Pretty memorable image, right? You want to make all of your images as distinctiveand interesting as possible.
The weirder and more emotional that they are,the easier it will be for you to remember.
Feel free to make them vulgar or outrageous.
Nobody needs to know what’s inside yourmemory palace.
Step 4: place your images along a path throughyour memory palace.
I took the John Waters image and placed iton the first stop of my path: the landing on the stoop of myapartment.
I did this for the rest of the chapter, lineby line, until each line had a unique, weird image.
Step 5: memorize.
The thing about memory palaces is that they’renot going to help you memorize anything instantly.
You still have to go through and do the work.
And it is work.
But studies have shown that students who usememory palaces or other mnemonic techniques to study consistently and significantly outperformstudents that don’t.
It’s also proven to be a powerful learningtool for students with disabilities.
So does this actually work? I got up in front of all my co-workers tofind out.
I leave a white and turbid wake.
Pale waters, palercheeks, wherever I sail.
The envious billow sidelong swell to whelmmy track, let them, but first I pass.
Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, thewarm waves blush like wine.
The gold brow plums the blue.
The diver sun — slow dived from noon — goesdown, my soul mounts up.
Spending three or four hours everyday practicing,it only took me about four days to memorize the whole thing.
The path to my fixed purpose is laid withiron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.
Over unsounded gorges, through the rifledhearts of mountains, under torrent’s beds, unerringly I rush.
Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle,to the iron way.
So now that I know some of the secrets tomemorization, does that mean that I’m going to enter nextyear’s US Memory Championship? Um, we’ll see.
Source: Youtube
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