If I have a fist full of pearls and I put them on a table, chances are that they will get scattered here and there. Some of them might roll down the edge of the table and disappear. Some might remain on the table, constantly changing their
position. After five minutes, it would be difficult for me to collect all of them in my hand. But if I put all these pearls in a string and tie a knot and place it on the table, all the pearls will remain in the same place, making it easy for me to pick them up, wear them, use them, and place them back in my drawer without losing any of the pearls.
Associating information with each other is quite similar to putting pearls in a string. Initially, when I asked you to memorize the list, most of you might have been able to recall the first 2–3 words or the last few ones, but not the ones in the middle. That’s because all words were scattered in the memory like pearls on a table. But through association, we connected the first word with the second, then second with third and so on, so the information is secured in your memory. That is why even now you can recall any word from the list in the correct sequence.
That is the beauty of association.
We have been using this association technique consciously in some ways earlier also. For example, most of us must have used the famous phrase—‘My Very Educated
Mother Just Served Us Noodles’ to memorize the sequence of eight planets in our
solar system through the initials of the words (i.e. Mercury Venus Earth Mars
Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune).
Many a times we are not able to make an association of all the information required to remember. In this book you are going to learn how to associate anything you want to remember, and the wonderful part about the whole thing is that after using this system consciously for a while, you will automatically start using it as a natural process.
2. LAW OF IMAGINATION
Law of Association does not work in isolation. It works well with the Law of Imagination or Visualization.
Our human brain remembers pictures better. Whatever we see, we tend to retain
that information for a much longer period of time as compared to what we hear. This is because the nerves connecting the eyes to the brain are twenty times more powerful than the nerves that connect the ears to the brain. Has it happened that sometimes we meet someone whose face seems very familiar but we are unable to recall his/her name?
Now think again…
Has it ever happened that you remember a person’s name but do not remember his face when you meet him?
No, right? This is because a face is something we see and a name is something
we hear. Seeing something forms a permanent memory in our brain. In fact, try to
recall any memory from the past—your graduation day at college or your first
interview or your first anniversary. As you are reading this, images of those memories must have started forming in your mind because brain stores memories in the form of pictures.
not able to give me the right answer without following the complete sequence? Why? Because while recollecting you were not referring to the list. Rather when I said elephant, immediately an image (which you created while reading and visualizing
that passage) flashed into your mind and you gave the answer just by referring to that
image. That is why recollection was so fast and spontaneous.
This is the power of Imagination. Instead of visualizing, if you had just mugged up that list, you definitely would have had to go in the sequence, putting a lot of stress on your mind just to recollect the next word.
That means if I can consciously convert any information into an image, I can keep it in my memory for a much longer period of time. Just like you have memorized a list
of simple 15 words, we can remember anything, even abstract words, foreign language
or points of speech/ lectures, etc. by using the power of imagination along with association.
The key to an impressive imagination is the third law, i.e. Law of Ridiculous
Thinking.
3. LAW OF RIDICULOUS THINKING
According to this law, whatever is odd, silly, funny, outstanding, strange, weird, unusual, or ridiculous, our brain tends to register it fast and is able to retain that information for a longer period of time. Our mind is attracted to unusual and outstanding things, events, or people.
While reading the story mentioned earlier, you visualized weird things.
Have you ever seen an ant talking on a mobile? Have ever seen an elephant painting on a poster? Can you believe an umbrella can be on top of a cloud?
All these things were strange and ridiculous and that is the reason you were able to memorize them so fast.
So, if you can purposefully and deliberately make your associations funny, then you can retain it for a longer period. In a nutshell, we learn that the principle of AIR
—Association, Imagination, and Ridiculous thinking—can help us to register any information with easy, fast, and accurate recollection.