The best memory man in the world thanks to practice

A few years ago, an American student could only remember normally but thanks to ancient practice, Alex Mullen became the world champion in memorization.

According to the BBC, the story begins when Joshua Foer , a journalist who comes to see the US memory contest, hopes to write a book about the tournament.

He found a group of people practicing memory by ancient techniques and writing a book "Moonwalking with Einstein". Foer started practicing on his own according to these methods and won this competition the following year.

Mullen, the University of Mississippi medical student, was encouraged by Foer's story and began training to improve memory.

"I really don't have good natural memory," he said. "But starting in 2013, I practiced according to the methods that Foer mentioned".

A year later, Mullen won the runners-up memory competition.

"It really motivates me, I continue to train and become world champion in 2015".

The competition was held in Guangzhou, China, consisting of 10 rounds of mental challenge, including things like remembering as many numbers as possible after an hour, name and face after 15 minutes, or remembering goods hundred binary numbers. The last round is always the memory test of a deck of cards as quickly as possible.

Mullen is in second place before the final round. He looked at the deck for 21.5 seconds, faster than Yan Yang, who was leading for a second. That's enough for Mullen to win.

Alex Mullen, world memorabilia of 2015(Photo: University of Mississippi Medicine).

Mullen is currently holding the world record for remembering the most numbers in an hour, 3,209 numbers.

"A few years ago, I thought this was impossible , " he said. Mullen also holds half a dozen American records, including a record of 3,888 binary numbers in 30 minutes.

Enter the palace of mind

According to Mullen, anyone can get good memory.

"You just need to create a palace in your mind," he said.

The mind palace is an image of a real place that you know, viewed through the eyes of the mind. It could be your home, or your daily commute. To remember many things, you just need to go through your mind palace, placing images of things to remember in special places along the road.

This technique is thought to have come from a Greek poet, named Simonides, who lived in 477 BC. Legend has it that Simonides was at a dinner party organized by a wealthy aristocrat. Halfway through the banquet, he was called out to meet a messenger.

When he walked out the door, the roof collapsed and crushed everyone inside, no longer recognizing the body. Simonides recalled where he sat, and suddenly imagined himself talking to the guest sitting opposite, another person sitting on the left, another person sitting at the head of the table. He realized that bodies could be identified by remembering exactly where each person was sitting. This event is said to have led him to discover that the best way to remember a group of objects or events is to attach images to a specific location and in order.

Centuries later, Eleanor Maguire and colleagues at University College, London, scanned the brains of 10 people with the highest rank in the world memory contest. She hopes to find differences in brain structure that make them have extraordinary memories. However, tests do not detect any differences. The only difference is the priority of using 3 regions of the brain involved in navigation. People with super memories only remember better by walking through their mind palace.

Paint the numbers

When you want to remember binary numbers, each player has a unique way to turn these numbers into images. For example, with Mullen, he uses a "two-card" system to memorize a deck of cards.

It includes the transfer of substances (syrup, muscle, flanges, liposomes) and numbers to speech readings. For example, 7 checkers and 5 flanges come together to form the "m" sound (in English). Number 7 is converted to "k" and 5 is "l". Although these conversion rules are unclear, it is actually based on a kind of code that someone thought of long ago, according to Mullen.

He won the Swedish memory contest in 2012, and won the world championship two years later.

"Once you have the letters k, l, m, you just need to create an image that matches these letters. They remind me of Michael, so when I see this pair, I think to Michael Jordan, " Mullen said.

He revealed a trick to halve the total of 2,074 possibilities to combine pairs of cards together, but did not disclose details.

Mullen won the memory of the memory against rival Jonas Von Essen. Like Mullen, Von Essen also has a hobby of remembering everything in life.

This University of Gothenburg student has tried several techniques in it and achieved instant effects.

"Almost immediately I realized that I could remember more than I ever dreamed possible," Essen said. He won the Swedish memory contest in 2012, and won the world championship two years later.

Essen uses a slightly different technique to remember the cards. He assigns each card a specific image before grouping it into triplets and placing them on short distances through his house.

"So I can start from the front door. It is 4, 9 and 8. I opened the front door and saw Sherlock Holmes playing and eating a hamburger. Then I entered the large room, creating New scenes for the next 3 cards ".

What is your favorite restaurant?

Palace of mind can be anywhere - hotels, houses, commuting routes, a favorite holiday, a park or a train.

"Sitting for a while thinking you can see hundreds of places that you know quite well , " Mullen said.

Both world champions use specific palace palaces for things they want to remember in the short term, like a deck of cards, and things that want to remember forever.

"With a 5-minute competition, I used the same two palaces and reused them the next time , " Mullen said.

"Because I don't want to remember a 5-minute event that I did two years ago. But when I was at school, like about stomach disorders medicines, I would put them in a palace and not use them. use it for anything else, other than the relevant information ".

"Is it always effective? Has your mind ever been empty?" When asked this question, both of them answered "No".

"If you put something in the mind palace, it will always be safe," Essen said.

Essen has left the competition, but is still hoping to break the record for memorizing pi next year.

Another thing that both of you agree with is a way to have an extraordinary memory that is nothing special, anyone can do. Mullen only trains for half an hour or an hour every day before the world competition. Essen also only trained a little every day, before strengthening 5 hours a day right before the competition.

Essen has left the competition, but is still hoping to break the record for memorizing pi next year. He is currently memorizing 10,000 decimal places and hopes to increase it to 100,000 digits next year.

Mullen could not make a living as a champion.

"Bonuses are available but not enough to live," Mullen said. "So I focused my ability to help myself and others while studying at school. I did my best to bring the techniques to remember others, because it was really helpful in my life. I am trying to show people how to use these memorization techniques for learning in general, not just for contests, I like competitions but I think you will collect get more from these memory techniques in many different areas of life ".

Essen agrees with this idea. It was like riding a bicycle, he said. If you have not tried it, it will be very difficult and impressive, but if you just practice a bit, everyone can go.

"You don't have to become a champion to remember the world for a better memory than usual. Just like you don't need to win Tour De France to go to the store faster than walking."