Introduction to Phenomenal Memory

It is fall, so everyone is starting to think about studies and also how to make their educational process pleasant and effective. Is it possible to study without Phenomenal Memory skills? Sure. Most people do. Still, the advantages of Phenomenal Memory usage for studying are amazing.

The number of visitors to our website as well as our mailing list subscribers is constantly growing. Part of the reason is that summer is over - it’s time to go back to school. Most of the visitors are just now hearing about Phenomenal Memory and our school.

Most people think that memory is the ability to repeat a sentence they have just heard or read.  Psychologists think the same about one’s ability to repeat a sequence of spoken numbers, as with “Jacobs test” (a useful, short-term memory test). Still, “to repeat” does not mean “to remember”, even though it may seem like it. We can memorize several numbers in seconds. Yet, the mechanics of a speech echo-memory and actual memory are very different. The possibilities of actual memory vary greatly from the possibilities of a speech echo-memory which enables you to repeat phrases as would a parrot.

Not everything we hear can be repeated with the use of a speech short-term memory. If a phrase is short and consists of familiar words, we can repeat it easily. For example, a compound sentence such as “It is raining today, and all people walk around with umbrellas” is very easy to repeat.

If the phrase is longer, or there are several sentences, the speech short-term memory will not be able to handle it. For example, if a phrase contains a set of numbers or the words from another language, it will be impossible to repeat.

Nevertheless, most people only use this function of their brain (a long, inertness time of a speech analyzer - up to 4 seconds), thinking that this equates to memory. 

This is how a person “memorizes” a phone number. Having heard a “two four seven three two five four,” he repeats it in his mind or aloud several times while searching for a pen and a paper. While repeating the number several times allows you to keep it in your mind for a time, it slowly fades away. You have to keep repeating it in order to have it memorized.

In the same way you can “play” a phrase in your mind forever if you have time and a will for it. Some say that, after saying a phrase 100 times, provided it is a short enough phrase, it is memorized and able to be recalled the next day.

For years, students have used exactly this kind of “memory” in their studies.  Many do not even have a clue that real memory is something completely different from the usual speech echo-memory.

GMS^® uses memory mechanisms of the brain; that is why it is so effective.

Any information consists of a combination of its simplest elements. The number of those elements is limited, while the number of their combinations is really unlimited. When we memorize a phone number, we do not memorize the digits – there is no reason to memorize because we already know them – digits from 0 through 9!

When we memorize a phone number, we memorize a sequence of digits. These are exactly the different combinations of already known numbers that are called “information.” If the combination is changed, it becomes new information. Therefore, the real meaning of memorization is an intentional fixation of the combinations of the simplest informational elements in the mind.

127-34-15

115-27-34

134-15-27

The different information above is built up from the same elements: 1, 27, 34, 15.

It is possible to fix a sequence of numbers in the mind in a form of a phrase using the latency time of a speech analyzer. GMS^® does not use this method of memorization because of its obvious disadvantage. Instead, GMS^® uses the direct recording of the connections into the brain. The connections creation process in the brain can be fully controlled.

You can find plenty of educational material on a School of Phenomenal Memory website, but it probably will be difficult grasp all at once. To follow is a synopsis of the main concepts of GMS^®, so you may see why we need it.

In spite of everything poeple say about the way our memory works, it is my opinion that the information memorization in the human mind proceeds via the visual analyzer. This works even for a blind person – the vision is substituted by hands – the second organs of sight. Touching things helps to produce quite distinctive images in a blind persons’ mind. 

The main memory principle is very simple. When you see the connected images or when you imagine them, your brain finds a connection between them very quickly.  A few seconds are enough to detect a connection.

It is exactly because of this mechanism that a person can memorize the interior of a room or orient himself on unfamiliar terrain.

When you read a book, the words form combinations of the connected images in your mind. The connections between images can be memorized very quickly, thereby making it possible to recall and reproduce the content.  The reproduction, however, is approximate – in your own words.

Human memory has four main disadvantages… and the GMS^® was developed to compensate them. 

1. Connections between images, created automatically while walking down the street or reading a book, are destroyed very quickly – in about an hour. For example, a newspaper article will be blurred in your memory more and more as time goes by until it is be completely forgotten.

2. If the perceived information does not cause images to appear in your imagination, then the brain cannot set any connections automatically. Therefore, it cannot memorize. If there are dates, numbers, and names in a text then, after reading a book, a person would not be able to recall such information. Everyone knows this from their own experience. If you want to check, try to memorize license numbers of 10 random vehicles you see on the street.

3. The human brain cannot remember the information sequence automatically. For example, it is difficult to recount a text without mixing up the paragraph sequence. Man cannot reproduce a chronological table or a list of phone numbers exactly in the order of memorization sequence – unless he knows GMS^®.

4. With natural, involuntary memorization, the mind creates images which are strongly influenced by our own body feelings. Let’s say the information is memorized under normal atmospheric pressure but, in a few days, atmospheric pressure decreases. This influences our vision functionality. Slightly different stimuli are affecting the brain. The connections, created under different stimuli, become inaccessible, and memory gaps occur.

This can be illustrated through a simple example. Let’s say you have created an S1-R1 connection. S1 is a stimulus and R is a reaction (reminiscence, which appears because of a perceived stimulus). Any external stimuli can be distorted by the perception system itself. If the eyes’ functionality changes, perception of the S1 stimulus will be substituted by perception of the S2 stimulus. If that is not connected to anything, there will be no reaction (no recall). 

That is why a small memory gaps can be explained away due to a weather change or an altering of usual eating habits. You will probably agree that, to your body, it makes a difference whether you drink pure water or coffee with sugar.

GMS^® does not substitute; it supplements your memory, allowing it to:

- keep the connections, created in mind, for a long time;

- effectively memorize seemingly un-memorizable data (data which does not cause any image appearance in the brain e.g. phone numbers, license plate numbers, terms, names, etc.);

- clearly fix information sequences: the sequence of the fun stories, text paragraphs, lists of phone numbers, historical dates, and so on;

- enjoy recall of data independent of any physical body state changes. Information will easily be remembered under normal conditions, even after alcohol consumption..

The basic memorization principle is very simple: in GMS^®, memorization occurs according to natural memory mechanisms. There is nothing artificial in the methods of GMS^®.

Please read the following sentence: “There are three roses and two oranges in a basket that is placed on a chair.” You can easily repeat this phrase. How will you repeat it? You will recall the combination of images which were created by your mind while reading the sentence. Your brain has memorized the connections between the images and, while the connections are still in your mind, you will be able to recall this picture and easily reproduce the sentence.

You may change the wording in the sentence, but the meaning – the positional order – will remain. For instance: “There are two oranges and three roses in a basket. The basket is on a chair.”

This simple example illustrates that the literal memorization of a text is senseless. It is important to construct the phrase in such a way that the initial picture (which assures the understanding) is correct.

However, what happens when you hear the following sentence: “The phone number of a dental clinic is five zero five - three zero one – two six eight nine?”

At best, some image of a dental clinic will appear for a moment in your imagination. Upon perception of the words for the phone numbers, there will be no such images in your mind vs. what you might read in a text - a book, a rope, and a shower.

Absence of images means absence of connections in the brain. We usually cannot recall a phone number even a few seconds after reading it.

What does GMS^® recommend for such cases? You have to translate the memorized information so it works with “brain language”, that is, translate it into visual images. Then, the brain will be able to create connections and memorize.

In GMS^®, a picture, where the elements of memorized information are coded into images, is called an artificial association. You only need a few seconds to create such an association. Your brain is able to create and remember hundreds and thousands of such pictures.

To make the information search effective, your memory first has to be “formatted.” A consistent system of simple images, which are very easily learned and always recalled in the same order, is created in mind.

Every created association is connected to such supporting images. Later on, browsing through the myriad support images, you are browsing through hundreds of associations, thereby extracting from them the information, e.g. phone numbers, anecdotes, books, lectures, reports, periodic table of elements, or the Constitution. Any information can be memorized.

The GMS^® supported recollection is completely different from the standard ways of memorization (from which we are not sure if something will be remembered or not). People who have learned to use GMS^® can literally browse the information in their imagination in the same way as one would browse pictures on your computer screen. The phone numbers are not recalled in usual sense of this word - they are just read from the mind. They are recorded there not as numbers, but as associations – combinations of visual images - each one with a distinct meaning.

Learning GMS^® is equivalent to learning to code information elements into visual images. It is necessary that students learn quickly how to convert syllables, names, and numbers into simple and easy-to=remember pictures.

The second stage of memorization is the formation of a skill with which to make the associations. Images must be connected according to certain rules in order to prevent them from jumbling in your mind.

The third memorization stage in GMS^® is memorization of an information sequence. There are tens of different schemes for building additional support images to which memorized information is affixed.

The fourth and the final memorization stage involves being able to save information in your mind. Any connections, created in the brain, tend to dissolve rather quickly. GMS^® teaches you how to save the created connections forever, sparing you from the throes memorization through repetition (which, as you know by now, is only as good as the frequency of repetition!).

More comprehensive, detailed information regarding memory and memorization can be found in the GMS Manual. The most important things is to understand are the mechanisms of human memory – then, the merit of our memorization methods will become obvious.

I hope that, now, it will be easier for you to guide yourself through our website materials. GMS^® is actually very simple, especially after grasping its basic principles.

An advantage of GMS^® is that, when the memorization process is under control and you feel that you are able to comprehend the subject matter, you then have more of an INTEREST towards continuing to study any subject. It becomes more interesting to learn Japanese hieroglyphs, a chemistry textbook, or legislation. It is more fun to memorize friends’ and acquaintances’ telephone numbers. It is wondrous to realize that you can sequentially reproduce an image of dozens and hundreds of telephone numbers, various codes, and passwords. It is even more amazing to realize that the majority of people are not capable of doing so, but are mostly dependent on their notebooks and notes. Furthermore, as they are unaware of it, they do not even have the desire to utilize this wonderful ability of their brain.

© School of Phenomenal Memory