The Aspen Grove

Personal Memory Method

Note Planted:
8 min read

The Big Idea

A collection of notes as my personal memory method evolves.

Related Notes: Core Memory Principles Memorizing the Psalms Memory, the Things We Keep with Us Jack and the Magic Cellar

References: 1—Index- Memory and Remembering - Loose Resources

Books and Articles: Learn the Art of Memory A. Magnetic Memory Method Mini Class Unlock Your Amazing Memory Verbatim Memory Tool for Memorizing Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

Overall Approach to Any Subject

  • Start with an anchor (like the book of Psalms or a specific goal surrounding it like memorizing the whole thing)
  • Then find the overall shape and syntax
    • Shape is the big picture overall sketch of something.
    • Syntax is the small picture nitty gritty details of a thing.
    • Then you can work from both angles to kind of inch your way toward the middle to have a fuller understanding of the thing.

Common Things We Want to Memorize

  • Numbers - Phone numbers or other significant numbers
  • Words - Vocabulary, spelling, or foreign language words
  • Phrases/Sentences/Longer Quotations - Bible verses, speeches and presentations, etc.
  • Concepts - abstract ideas, facts (Trivia night anyone?), etc.
  • Stories - Personal, Biblical, or Historical

Helpful Practices

  • Write things out by hand
  • Say things out loud
  • Draw images and associations

Memory Tools

General Tools

Associative Imagery (Picturing things to help it stick)

  • Pictures stick far better in memory than words, numbers, or phrases alone. Trying to come up with an image association
  • E.S.C.A.P.E a boring image
    • Add Exaggeration, Silliness, Color, Action, People, Emotion to an image to help it stick better and be more memorable.
    • In other words, make it interesting and your mind will hold onto it - From Unlock Your Amazing Memory
    • Additional things to help make things more memorable engage as many senses as possible - Sounds, Physical sensations, taste, smells, hand motions, music
    • texture making things tactile and vivid important for making things stick and pop when remembering

Chunking

Spaced Repetition

Alphabet, Number, and other Peg List Systems

Rhyming, meaning, alphabet and look-alike peg systems: - Peg Systems overview

Note

I have found that peg systems are not very fun or memorable on their own but when paired with other methods can help add that little pop to make things easier to remember and work with in your mind.

  • Number Peg System
    • I basically use the first section of a PAO system for a person to create a peg list from 00 to the end line of a text/section.
    • I use the major system to narrow the letters sounds used for the peg and give it some structure. Then I think of a person or character that uses those letters.
      • 01 - major system sounds S and T - Stew (a bunny I know well)
      • 02 - major system sounds S and N - Sandy (someone I used to work with)
    • Make sure they are people you can picture well. Characters work well for this also as long as you can easily picture them in your mind (I.e. micky mouse, etc. ).

Acronyms

Memory Palace

A good introduction to what a memory Palace is and how to use it: A. Magnetic Memory Method Mini Class

Story Method

Tools for Numbers

  • Major Method
  • PAO System
    • Create a Person, action and Object for each number 00-99
    • Then you can combine a person, action, and object as a way to get a 6 digit (or three pairs of two numbers) into a single image.
    • I do not use a full PAO system because it is mostly designed for memorizing long numbers or decks of cards quickly. For text memorization it is not immediately helpful without modification.
    • PAO System Overview

Tools for Sentences/Longer quotes and big projects

  • Picture Patterns System
    • Built off of the idea of placing words at the edges or corners of simple shapes as a way to hold on to them in memory.
    • Simple shapes are easy to draw so you are not wasting time trying to draw a picture in a notebook or for a review card.
    • Each shape holds as many words as line strokes needed to draw it.
      • Circle - 1 word
      • Half Circle - 2 words
      • Triangle - 3 words
      • Square or Rectangle - 4 words
      • Star - 5 words
    • With these shapes you can then split up a line or sentence into up to three simple shapes.
      • Save O God, for the godly one is gone.
      • Splits into triangle, square, and half circle
    • Now is where the magic happens. Stack the shapes and imagine what kind of object, animal, or “thing” you can make with those shapes.
      • For the line above I made a boat with a triangle roof, a square window and a half circle hull.
    • Restrict yourself to only putting the shaped together from top to bottom, or left to right so that you can easily remember which shape comes first. That way you won’t get mixed up later.

Psalm Specific Considerations

  • Paratactic text - Each line like an ornament - from Saleska’s commentary
    • This has influenced my development of the Picture pattern system.
  • Parallelism - doubled lines - how can I use that in the memory process
  • Enveloping - how can I use that as kind of a big start and end to something
  • Chiasm - how can that help set up the structure of a psalm in my mind.
  • Acrostics - actually use the peg system that is in the psalm itself. Need to think through how I can use these other structures to help develop a system

Level 1 - Words and Lines

As a basic rule we are going to make one dynamic image for each line of text we are memorizing.

  1. Use the number peg system. Create a number peg list (I usually do this as I go but you can do them all up front if you want). This helps create a hook for each line to hang on.
    1. Whole Psalm as an object
      1. I hide the object in every line image as a kind of easter egg in the image to help me remember where it belongs. That way if I am working with a later section of a psalm I can still remember which Psalm I am in.
        1. Psalm 3 - Mustache
        2. Psalm 12 - Tin
    2. Line number as person or Character
      1. This is the first line of Psalm 17: Hear a just cause, O Lord, attend to my cry!
      2. Line number 01 - Stew the bunny
  2. Use Sentence Sketch system to make an item that encodes the length of the line.
    1. Example: Hear a just cause, O Lord, attend to my cry!
    2. I broke this line into a rectangle, half circle and rectangle.
    3. Since it kind of sounds like a courtroom scene, I imagine the first rectangle as a long handle, with the half circle as a gavel head, and the last rectangle as the fancy knob on the top of the gavel.
    4. Line sketch item - court gavel.
  3. It is helpful to also put something in the image that helps you find the first word or phrase of a line. As well as any tricky transitions or harder to remember words.
    1. For the example line I imagine a big letter H and A to help remember the first part of the subclauses.
  4. Put it all together. I imagine Stew the bunny sitting behind a desk furiously hammering a gavel with one of those colonial wigs on. On the left side of the desk is the big letter A and the right side has the big letter H.
  5. To decode the image I just think of the gavel and can follow along the outline of each shape. If I am missing a word or mix things up it becomes clear because the shapes do not match smoothly. Usually that is enough to snap back the original words.
  6. If a section/phrase or word are hard to remember, you can keep strengthening the image with the ESCAPE principle. You can even break a single word into syllables if you need more ways to hook it into your mind.
  7. Level 1 is enough to get a text into your head. For me this is the base line of memorization but is not always as easy to jump around a text as I would like.

Level 2 - Section, Chapters and Whole Psalms

Image off of chapter or Psalm number

image for superscription or any metadata

group line images into sections

probably put them in a memory palace

Level 3 - Book Structure and Psalm Chains

the big picture structure of how a group of psalms sit together or how a book is outlined

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