Memory Facets

 Memory is far and away the most remarkable of all your mental functions. Were your mind unable to store up an enormous part of all the information fed it by your senses, each new moment of existence would bring with it the necessity of "starting from scratch" in everything you think and do. You'd have to wear a little tag with your name on it, on the chance you might meet someone to whom you'd like to introduce yourself; every time you picked up a book you'd have to examine it to see how the pages turned ... and you wouldn't be able to read it anyway, because the letters and words would be meaningless to you!

Everything you do is made easier for you by your memory ... each activity is simpler because in the past you've had experiences which told your mind and body what to expect and how to act in certain situations. Your life is a continuous lesson, because the countless things you do prepare you for doing them again ... because experience eliminates travel on the trial-and-error route by teaching you the right or wrong way.

Even if you were to leave your memory completely alone, without ever giving a thought to using it more efficiently, it would continue to serve you loyally and well ... but, why settle for a meager pension when, by investing just a bit of consideration, you can reap a vast fortune? While attending a lecture you're sure to pick up a few tidbits of information, just in hearing the words.

But if you could know how to prepare all those facts for more efficient remembering, if you were able to multiply your chances of remembering tile information, think of how much more knowledge you'd be able to absorb!

The first step toward strengthening your memory is to find out exactly what it is. There's much more to it than a bunch of assorted facts and ideas swimming around in the gray matter of your brain ...as you'll discover when you read tire next few pages.

It should be made clear, right about now, that in this book the term "memory" means more than merely the mind's retentive abilities: it means, to freely adapt the dictionary's assertion, all means by which one can recall or make available to tongue-tip any information or knowledge one feels like using. This will include every trick, gimmick and short cut that we can devise; anything we can do to avoid being caught in the mental cold.

Suppose we take a look now at your memory's total make-up ... for our purposes, its parts can be classified into two basic categories: "natural" memory, or your own mind's function of remembering, and "artificial" memory--devices for retaining information outside the framework of your mind.