By Gregory Mitchell
Does the world really need another memory course? I think maybe it does. I have taught a memory course several dozen times, using several different textbooks. The fact that I have used so many different texts reflects two things: currently available books on memory are at the same time satisfying and a bit wanting. All the books I have used have their strengths: discussion of principles, currency, real world examples and applications, good organization and student-friendly writing. The problem is, these texts all tend to be strong in two or three of these areas and not as strong in the other two or three. In this new course I am shooting for more.

As will be described in more detail in the course, Creative Memory, the effective methods for training memory have roots going back to ancient times. More advanced systems using memory codes themselves date back several hundred years. This is because the principles of memory training simply reflect the neural processes of the brain, which haven't changed. To remember some new information, we make associations with existing information stored in our Long-Term Memory. If we don't do that, the new information is quickly forgotten. The way we make those associations, however, can be improved. We need to access the normally under-used powers of the right brain.

In most civilized societies the development of language centers in the left hemisphere of the brain will produce dominance on that side, while spatial, visual and intuitive problem-solving skills, which are based on right-hemisphere relational processes, will be underdeveloped.

Though a highly developed memory and intuitive skills are not essential for life in modern society, they were important survival skills for primitive man who had no reference books to look up when he forgot something, no maps to guide him on long journeys, and was often in perilous situations where intuitive insight made the difference between life and death. To further evolve, we need to reclaim this heritage, which depends on the restoration and integration of our right-brain processes.

You will learn advanced memory techniques in Creative Memory that utilize the special powers of the right brain and left brain in synchronization. By applying various kinds of Memory Systems and Advanced Mnemonic Systems appropriate to the task in hand, and practicing them until they become second nature in your daily life, your original heritage of whole brain utilization can be recovered. This will enable you to "file away" any new piece of information in such a way that it is readily accessible for immediate future access. You were born with these abilities but were not trained to use them, hence they were unexploited and lay dormant; but now, with the techniques taught on this course, you can put the full potential power of your brain to good use.

The Importance of Memory
A good memory is truly important for anyone to possess. Your memory of faces, names, facts, information, dates, events, circumstances and other things concerning your everyday life is the measure of your ability to prevail in today's fast-paced, information-dependent society. With a good memory, you don't have to fear forgetting/misplacing important ideas and you are much better equipped to achieve success in your career and personal life.

Your memory is composed of complicated neural connections in your brain which are capable of holding incredible amounts of data. The ability of your mind to retain past experiences in a highly organized manner gives you the potential to learn and create new ideas of your own. Your experiences are the stepping stones to greater accomplishments and at the same time your guides and protectors from danger. If your memory serves you well in this respect, you are saved the agony of repeating the mistakes of the past. By remembering crucial lessons and circumstances, you avoid the mistakes and failures made by other people.

Unless you have an illness or handicap, a poor memory is often attributed to lack of attention or concentration, insufficient listening skills, and other inherent bad habits; however, it can be honed and developed using the right methods.

Many people believe that their memory gets worse as they get older. This is true only for those who do not use their memory properly. Memory is like a muscle - the more it is used, the better it gets. The more it is neglected, the worse it gets. This is the reason why older people have more trouble remembering than younger ones. However, people increasing in age can overcome this dilemma and can even further improve their memory by continuing their education, by refining their minds, by keeping themselves open to new experiences, and by keeping their imagination working. And especially: undertake a comprehensive memory training, such as our Creative Memory course.

An important factor to realize is that different people have various ways of learning. The way in which people learn is often a factor determining the subjects they choose to study, instructors they relate to, and careers they select. Memorization or retention of data operates by loading images, sounds, taste, smell, and sensation (touch) in a very organized and meaningful combination in our brain. There are various types of memory:

Short-Term Memory (STM) is characterized by 20 to 30 seconds of retention, involves a limited amount of information, and is necessary in traditional processing of experiences and ordinary data gathering (everyday sensation and perception). An image such as a picture in a magazine is held in the mind - i.e. in working memory - long enough for you to be able to recognize if you have a copy of it on your computer, for example. The image will be quickly replaced by another sensory memory unless you do something to retain it.

Medium-Term Memory (MTM) contains information, ideas and concepts with which we are working at the moment. This information may be held in the mind for an hour or two or up to several days. It may be held even longer in memory if it is continually referred to, and it may become familiar enough to be part of our permanent or Long-Term Memory. Alternatively our attention may move on and it may not be considered necessary information to hold in the conscious mind, though the traces of it remain and we may be easily reminded of it.

Long-Term Memory (LTM) involves consolidation and organization of complex knowledge and information for further reference and other cognitive (mental) processing such as the application of our understanding in work, study and play. Basic examples of information held in LTM would include your birthday, your father's name, and your home's appearance; however a developed and educated mind will have a vast storehouse of catalogued information, a knowledge network rather like the Internet, with which new ideas may be compared, related and better understood.

Long-Term Working Memory (LTWM) takes account of the large demands on working memory during text comprehension and expert performance in specific domains such as mental calculation, medical diagnosis and chess. In skilled activities, acquired memory skills allow the relevant contents of Long-Term Memory to be kept directly accessible.

Click for a detailed overview: The Architecture of Memory

Practices for developing your faculty of memory are concerned with how you continually organize data that are stored in your brain. In short, human memory is like a vast and complicated yet organized library, rather than a trash can or disordered store room. We will offer many ideas for making your retention practices more efficient and sharper.

Four types of remembering
Both knowledge and wisdom imply the ability to make use of past experience. When one studies the nature of learning it is found to be involved with remembering. We think and reason largely with remembered facts. We derive knowledge of ourselves and those around us from the continuity of both self-perceptions and objective experience which can be recalled to our consciousness. In this way man is able to deal with a concept of time as no other animal has yet been found able to, relating present to past and making predictions about the future - all this depends on the availability of our memories.

To remember means to keep in mind or to recall to mind. The recall of an event and the circumstances surrounding it depends upon using clues, or souvenirs, which remind one of a total experience. A few notes of a song will recall the whole memory, not only of the song, but also the pleasant events of the holiday when you first heard it. Particular words we hear stir up associations with our past life. A vast reconstruction of a past occasion, part of your personal autobiography, can result from quite such a simple stimuli.

Many traces of earlier experience lack this quality for reconstruction of the past. That is, they are not associative. For example, you may recall a poem as you recite it, even if you do not recall the circumstances under which you first memorized it. You can remember how to drive a car, ride a bicycle, or walk upstairs, without direct reference to the past.

A third kind remembering is by recognizing someone or something as familiar. One sees a picture and remembers that it is by a famous artist, though his name may elude you. A face in a crowd is suddenly familiar, but you don't recall the circumstances when you met this person last.

Finally you may find that you can re-learning something that you learned in the distant past, much more rapidly than you could if there were no retention of that previous learning.

Thus we have four types of remembering:

1. Remembering from souvenirs;
2. Recall by recitation, or performance;
3. Remembering by recognition;
4. Relearning more rapidly.

Studies have been carried out under hypnosis which show, for example, that a person prompted under powerful suggestion to bring back childhood experiences will do so more accurately than in the conscious, waking state. Extra details, such as the names of children in a class, details of the lessons and the names of teachers could be verified. This kind of study tends to prove the possibility of total recall from souvenirs if there is sufficient incentive. Similar detailed recall has also occurred during brain surgery when electrodes were placed in various parts of the temporal lobes of the brain.

In psychotherapy the recall of childhood memories can often be the basis for treatment and cure. The problem of childhood amnesia is difficult to understand, since at that time the child is having many new and exciting experiences. One explanation for this forgetting is that the child perceives the world so differently from the adult that the mature person's efforts to recall what seemed normal for the child fails because there is no logical connection of souvenirs with memories. This suggests that the adult storage of memory is related mainly to the development of linguistic ability. The souvenirs then used are words, and we have to put things into words to recall them. That for which there is no word is forgotten - and this relates to most of the emotions and body sensations one felt as a child.

Another theory relating to the loss of childhood memories is that it results from unbalanced activity between the hemispheres of the brain - that the brain hemisphere which is under-used, the left one in the case of the child, emits a kind of electrical interference due to its boredom. This interference prevents the transfer of short-term memory into its long-term counterpart. The same thing can happen to an adult if the right brain is under-used.

There is another important factor which may make it difficult for an adult to access the memories of early childhood. The dominant brain wave activity of children under the age of six is in the four to eight hertz range associated with Theta in adults, the state of consciousness that an adult enters just prior to sleep. However, normal waking consciousness for an adult, who has a more developed brain, is dominated by the higher frequencies of the Beta state. It is therefore only possible for the adult to access the majority of childhood memories when in a controlled dream-like state, such as the reverie of hypnosis.

As regards the second type of recall by recitation, or the skillful performance of an action, this suggests a program in the brain that has developed as a result of frequent practice or over-learning. It becomes something we can now do without thinking, as a second nature.

Remembering by recognition is a common experience and takes place automatically and instantly, most commonly with images. It implies that we have access to a very extensive picture memory, but is largely an unconscious right-brain function - we may see a face and recognize it but it was not a face we would have been able to consciously recall had we not been reminded. Similarly, smell, taste, sound and music may be recognized.

The left-brain recognition of ideas is a more conscious function and not so automatic. But still, it has an unconscious component. Tests have shown that certain material which has been previously learned, even though it now appears to be completely forgotten, is in fact easier to re-learn a second time.

Sometimes we can learn something about memory by studying the ways in which we forget things. All of us have been in the situation where we were certain that we knew a particular name or word and yet were unable to recall it immediately. The word we wanted seemed to be 'on the tip of the tongue', and one feels in a state of torment until we have dredged through our memory and recalled it. In relation to this 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon it has been found that the words which came to mind when searching for our target word do have certain characteristics in common. Some would be similar in meaning, some have the same first letter, or the same stressed syllable. Thus it is apparent that recall in this case is not an all or nothing process, but we do not feel satisfaction until we consciously know the whole word.

This process of course has a parallel in the use of a computer, where a certain key word is required to recall a file from memory. The word must be correctly spelled before the file will open. As we get older, certain of these key words are lost to our physical computer memory due to random cell death. Along with the word we perhaps lose access to certain associated memory files, so it is necessary for us to forge a new neural pathway to the word associations. The brain will go on looking for our lost word by other routes and finally the desired word springs into our mind perhaps an hour later. This illustrates the immense capacity and resilience of the physical brain.

The Stages of Mastery
Learning to master a new skill requires the following progressive stages:

1. Novice - Unconscious incompetence
   The novice is blissfully ignorant of all that there is to learn in the subject. Initially, he is not conscious of the fact that he is as yet incompetent in the skills involved. This is usually a short stage if the person is motivated to learn the subject.

2. Advanced Beginner - Conscious incompetence
   The advanced beginner has realized his ability is limited and that he therefore needs to practice to improve his skills. He is now conscious of what he doesn't know and what he needs to know. Often this means not succeeding straight away but rather, learning from one's mistakes in order to acquire an acceptable performance level. He can do OK when the situation matches previous examples, but still has much to learn in order to deal with novel situations. After a few days of formal training, it may take several months to acquire conscious competence.

3. Competent - Conscious competence
   New skills and capabilities are being internalized with the ability to go beyond rule-bound procedures. When we know that we have acquired a skill, then we have become consciously competent. Our confidence increases with our ability, but we still have to concentrate on what we know. This stage may last over a year, with ongoing progress.

4. Proficient - Easygoing competence
   Proficiency is gained from experience in diverse situations. Tools and concepts have been internalized and can be applied in a variety of situations without effort. The person has an intuitive, holistic grasp of each situation without having to take the components apart piece by piece, prior to determining a solution. Acquiring this degree of skills may take a year or several years.

5. Expert - Unconscious competence
   Finally, the skills are fully internalized and they become habits - we can then do them while our mind is on other things. We have reached the expert stage of unconscious competence, which usually requires several years of practice and ongoing learning. Our confidence and ability have peaked to the degree that applying our expert skills is effortless and not even any longer a conscious matter. Once a person has reach this stage of learning - unconscious competence - he or she is using Long-Term Working Memory for that activity.

6. Originator - Creative mastery
   The expert may progress further, to become an originator in his field. He knows how to break the rules creatively and to discover new practical techniques. He may be capable of going further still, to make a paradigm shift in his own mind that results in expanding the domain of expertise into new areas and directions, both in theory and practice, which effects the work of all the other practitioners in the field. By and large, a person is not capable of this degree of creativity until he or she has a degree level of education in the subject and has been immersed in the domain at work for seven to ten years.

Memory Systems
What is a memory system? It is a short cut to remembering. Usually it is built upon a principle of association of ideas. You simply associate new and perhaps abstract information with something familiar to you. Then, by recalling the familiar item, you automatically bring the obscure one back into focus.

Most of the systems for training memory are as old as civilization itself, though many improvements have, of course, been introduced from time to time. Through the use of mnemonics technology (mnemonic devices for assisting the memory) in conjunction with a couple or three years of part-time study, we can gain the sort of data-base enjoyed by our forefathers, in an expanded and modern context, and along with it a greater sense of certainty and a greater security in our identity.

The key is the use of visual images in an ordered, spatial arrangement that relate to the abstract ideas and enable us to remember them. Human memory recalls concrete images far more easily than abstract ideas, especially images with an emotional charge, and it remembers an ordered chain of associations more accurately than a random assortment. By the use of mnemonics - using chains of association to connect one memory with another - new information is encoded in such a way that it is connected to previously stored data, such that it is not easily forgotten.

The wider the existing knowledge net, the easier it is to find such useful connections, so the process is cumulative and accelerating. However modern mnemonics technology works so much better than the old ways of rote memorization, that even a little experience with these techniques can make a startling difference. One is on the way to acquiring an excellent memory.

Creative Memory
Mind Development has researched this field for over 30 years and has made a number of important developments. The new course, Creative Memory, presents the very best techniques for acquiring a rich knowledge net that will transform your life. But it's more than that...

This memory course, if properly done, induces an altered and enhanced state of consciousness. The right brain becomes more dominant, there is access to the newly trained associative mode of thinking and divergent thinking starts to play a major role as a mental process; mnemonics require inventiveness. Increased right brain dominance facilitates visualization, an associative mode of thinking is more conducive to intuition, and divergent thinking is one of the corner stones of creativity.

Students experience an altered state of consciousness, because they have developed a Long-Term Working Memory. Have you ever observed a top, solo violinist when he is performing? He seems to enter another world and the score is effortlessly at his fingertips. We could say that any type of expert who has developed a Long-Term Working Memory operates in this altered state of consciousness in their particular domain. Here we go further to develop that altered state in a broader domain, that of the individual's entire knowledge network.

Creative Memory is still in preparation and expected to be released by Spring 2009.

Without memory there is no knowledge, without knowledge there is no certainty and without certainty there is no will. To further evolve, we need to restore and reintegrate our mental processes of expert memorization.