Memory Superpowers!: An Adventurous Guide to Remembering What You Don't Want to Forget

Chances are you’ve never gone on an adventure quite like this, so we’ll make sure that you’re well equipped. That means knowing all the necessary things you need to bring along, but maybe more important is knowing what to leave behind. Our adventure is going to be long and hard, so we must get rid of unhelpful concepts that will slow us down. Mostly, these are ideas you may already have about memory that you think are okay but are actually wrong. They need to be thrown out immediately so you stand a chance on Mount Foreverest!

NELSON’S THREE THINGS TO FORGET AND LEAVE AT HOME

Some people are born with horrible memories.

I hear this one all the time. Many people think that a bad memory is something you’re either born with or you’re not. They believe that if you’re lucky enough to have been gifted with a good memory at birth then you’re awesome and live a charmed life where studying is easy, and you pass all your tests without much effort. And they think that if you have a bad memory, you’re doomed to a life where studying is really hard and that you won’t do well in school.

Well, here’s the good news: That is totally and completely, flat-out WRONG! A bad memory is not something you’re born with. In fact, we all have the same basic abilities. And while some people might have better natural memories than others, the good news is that bad memory can always be trained into a good one.

Don’t believe me? Well, when I was your age, my memory was not so great—actually I’d even say it was probably even worse than that of the average person. I was horrible at memorizing things. My teacher would assign homework that involved remembering lists and facts, and I would hate it. I struggled so much, and just trying would take me for-ev-errr! And to make matters worse, the next day at school, I would be so nervous about forgetting things that I actually did forget things, just like I had feared. I would turn red in front of the entire class and a lot of the kids would laugh at me! Ugh. I can’t think of a worse feeling.

But a few years ago, when I heard about these strange things called mnemonics, I decided to learn all about them and practiced the techniques every day. Before long, I was crowned the USA Memory Champion!

Did you know such a competition existed? Don’t worry, most people don’t. It’s an event where contestants memorize all sorts of things as fast and as accurately as possible on the spot. When I won it for the first time, I was named the best memorizer in the country! Not only that, but I could memorize some really impressive things: a whole deck of randomly shuffled playing cards in under a minute, a roomful of people’s names, even a number that was four hundred digits long. Crazy, right? I went from having a horrible memory to having the best memory in the country in only a few months. I even set some national records along the way and then ended up winning the USA Memory Championship three more times after that. But here’s the crazier part:

You can do all of those things, too! All it takes is for someone like me to show you the ropes and reveal the way to memory awesomeness. Together, we’ll defeat the Memory Thief and help everyone remember whatever they want to!

So there. If you’ve ever said to yourself, OOOF! My memory is horrrrrible! STOP. Don’t say that anymore. Throw those negative feelings into the garbage right now! Memory is a skill that you can improve just like playing the piano, ice-skating, or painting (and is actually probably easier to do than all of those other things). No one has a bad memory—NO ONE. Just remind yourself of that if you ever get frustrated. Repeat the phrase I have an unforgettable memory! if you ever have doubt.

Your brain can fill up.

Do you ever feel like your brain can hold only so many things at once? Or when you’re studying, does it seem like there’s just too much information already stored in your brain and you couldn’t possibly cram one more single piece of information in there?

Well, you’ll have to leave behind that idea, too, because get this: The brain is nearly unlimited in what it can hold.

That’s right. You heard me—unlimited.

Sounds a bit ridiculous, but it’s true. Unfortunately, most people see the brain as containing a finite amount of storage space . . . like a parking garage that can just hold a very specific number of cars and no more. And if a few cars exit, then—and only then—can some new cars enter. Your brain is not like that at all. Your brain is made up of millions of connections between things called neurons. It’s more similar to something like a spiderweb, where all things are connected. And the more you add to it, the larger the web grows and the stronger it becomes.

Let me show you an example: Try to think of a memory in your own life from the last year . . . summer vacation, Thanksgiving, your birthday—any one of those will do. Now try to remember a specific memory from that time and mull it over for a few seconds. You’ll probably start thinking about a small detail, maybe what you were wearing, what your parents said to you, what the weather was like, some really funny thing that happened, etc. But the more you ponder it, the more you’ll find your mind jumping to other memories that the first memory reminded you of. Maybe that really funny thing that happened reminds you of a cartoon you once watched. Then that new memory will lead you to another one, and before you know it, you’re thinking about something totally different from that first memory you started with. Why? Because all of your memories are connected. One is connected to the next, is connected to the next, is connected to the next . . .

The bottom line is that your memory can never get full. It can only get stronger and better connected. So don’t ever feel like you’re running out of space in your memory. You can always add more things to that web!

Memorizing is boring and hard.

Nope, nope, nope. The only reason anyone thinks memorizing is boring or hard is because no one has ever taught them the fun and easy way. Simple as that. Chances are, most times that you’ve had to memorize something, you went about it by repeating it over and over again (yawn!). That’s called rote memorization and, yep, that is boring, hard, and definitely not fun. Rote memorization is about as enjoyable as reading the back of a shampoo bottle.

Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. The real problem is that no one has ever taught you the right way to use your memory. Fret not! We won’t be doing any boring stuff on our adventures. We’ll be learning the right way to use our memories. In other words: fun, fun, fun!

I’ll even make a deal with you. I promise that on our adventures, I will only have you memorize things in a fun and exciting way. If I ever break that promise, you have every right to take this book and flush it down the toilet. (Just don’t tell your parents, and do it in clumps of pages at a time so you don’t have to call the plumber.) Just kidding—maybe just put the book back on the shelf and forget you ever read it.

Memorizing can and should always be fun and easy. Never forget that!

What to Bring

Now that you have a good idea of what to leave behind on our adventure, let me tell you the important things you must bring. Because the challenges ahead will involve us using our mind and memory to the max, the main part of our expedition gear will be made up of things called mind tools. There are three of them that I’ll be giving you and they are the basic tools to help you remember absolutely anything and to defeat the Memory Thief. But just like any tools, if you don’t use them enough (or correctly), they’ll get rusty and won’t work! So make sure to use them often and you should be fine.

NELSON’S THREE MIND TOOLS

This first tool is all about SEEing IT AS A PICTURE IN YOUR MIND. We have the amazing power of somehow being able to see things using our imagination. For example, if I asked you to imagine a slice of pizza, you could see a picture of that slice in your mind, right? Maybe you’re picturing it on a plate in the kitchen, waiting to be eaten, or maybe you’re imagining a rotten, stinky slice you’ve thrown against the school bus window because you’re angry at your mom for packing the wrong lunch. Well, what if I asked you to give this pizza slice a pair of roller skates to wear? Now the slice is doing pirouettes in the kitchen (or down the aisle of the bus). How about now giving the slice a pair of sunglasses, a crazy green and blue hairstyle, and making it whistle Jingle Bells? Bizarre, right?

What’s great about SEEing is the fact that we can SEE anything we want in our minds. No matter how outrageous it is, our mind’s imagination can always bend backward and see the impossible. That’s what makes this so fun, too!

So no matter what you have to memorize, try to SEE it as a picture in your mind. Sometimes that’s easy to do (like with that silly slice of pizza), but other times it may seem tricky. (How do you come up with a silly image for a long number, for example?) But don’t worry, stuff like that is not so hard. I’ll show you how to SEE them in later chapters.

Once you’ve found a way to SEE what you are memorizing, the next step is to LINK it to SOMETHING THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. The problem with most people’s memories is that they don’t put the things they want to remember in places that are easy to find later on when they need to recall them.

Huh?

Think of it like this: You’ve saved a file on your computer before, haven’t you? What usually happens? You click the SAVE button, right? And then what happens? A little box pops up and asks you to give your newly created file a name, and then you need