Training the brain to perform amazing feats is a case of flexing the mind muscle
MARKUS DUNK
MEMORY is a mysterious thing. A British woman suffering from amnesia was last week flown back to Britain after being found wandering the streets of Athens. She has given herself the name Jezebel Blythe but has absolutely no idea who she is or who her friends and family are, even though she retains the ability to recall language and other facts.
This week 46-year-old George Sims, who was feared dead in the September 11 attacks in New York, was found alive and well in a hospital, yet with no memory of the attack. Although it is clear that some sort of physical or psychological trauma is to blame for many cases of loss of memory, what remains unknown is how and why this faculty responds in such diverse and unpredictable ways. Even for those of us not affected by traumas, the ability to remember seems a hit and miss affair. This isn't the case for everybody, however. This week, contestants at the World Memory Championships in London competed in gruelling exercises in which human recall was stretched to its limits. Andi Bell, a 34-year-old, walked away with the title of World Memory Champion after managing to memorise the order of 23 packs of cards in an hour, 156 names in 15 minutes, 192 words in 15 minutes, 50 dates in five minutes and the order of a deck of cards in 82 seconds.
According to participants in such events, the ability to memorise vast quantities of material is less to do with natural ability and more to do with practice. The memory is a muscle that must be built up. Most memorisers use a technique of substitution and association whereby words and numbers are replaced by memorable images and symbols. Former world memory champion Dominic O'Brien uses an old Greek method that utilises association, imagination and location.
THE ultimate test of memory, recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, is the ability to recall the number known as "pi" to the largest number of decimal places. In 1973, the record stood at 930 places. Since then, it has increased in leaps and bounds and stood at 42,195 by 1995. Still the record is challenged. In 1998, Yip Swe Chooi of Malaysia recited 60,000 digits of pi with only 44 errors. The following year another Malaysian, Sim Pohann, recited 67,053 digits with only 15 errors.
Although the ability rapidly to recall a lengthy string of numbers is impressive (as are the rest of these memory feats), it's hard not to wonder how useful - or practical - such achievements are.
Yet some have found that their talent for recalling enormous amounts of information was invaluable in their work. One such person was Tom Tatham, who died this year. He was renowned as an authority on an enormous range of subjects and supplied the questions and answers to television and radio quiz shows, as well as editing Whitaker's Almanack and Wisden.
Today, however, we have largely given over the task of remembering to tools. With diaries, Palm Pilots, books and computers storing dates, numbers and information for us, there is less incentive to fill our brains with facts and data. This is nothing like the way in which ancient cultures treated the memory. In societies where books and writing were rare or non-existent, it was necessary for people to memorise stories, traditions or texts so that they could be passed on to future generations.
There are numerous cases of monks who could recall the whole of the New Testament and other great swathes of the Bible.
Although this was partly an act of devotion, it was also done for the practical reason that books were extremely rare and expensive, and the memory was a readily available way for these texts to remain alive.
There seems little need for any of us to learn the Bible by heart now but developing such memory capabilities does have useful modern-day applications. Apart from competing in memory competitions, Dominic O'Brien runs courses on how to beat casinos at blackjack (a trick that has seen him banned from a number of establishments in Las Vegas). By memorising which cards have been dealt, it is possible to beat the house.
Although it may be possible to train your memory to perform such startling feats, it ultimately remains beyond our control. The amnesia that has afflicted George Sims and Jezebel Blythe is a mysterious phenomenon. Often, amnesiacs recover their memories as swiftly and inexplicably as they lost them.
IF THIS isn't much consolation to those of us with poor recall, it may be worth noting that experts believe forgetting is the brain's way of promoting psychological wellbeing. If we never forgot anything, not only would we go mad due to all that useless information in our thoughts, we would also never be able to see the bigger picture. As author Jon Wynne-Tyson once said: "The effectiveness of our memory banks is determined not by the total number of facts we take in but by the number we wish to reject."
Although if I were you, I'd be careful about using that as an excuse the next time you forget an anniversary or birthday.
How to remember
THERE are a number of easy techniques that can be mastered to help you remember everything from people's names to telephone numbers. According to the Mind Tools website (www.demon.co.uk/mindtool/memory.html), to remember the phone number 735345, imagine travelling to that person's flat: with the destination firmly in mind, envisage these stops on the journey:
1. Front door: the door has sprouted angels' wings and is flying up to heaven! (7)
2. Rose bush: a small sapling (tree, 3) is growing through the middle or the bush.
3. Car: some bees have started to build a hive (5) under the wheel of your car. You have to move it very carefully to avoid damaging it.
4. End of road: a tree (3) has fallen into the road. You have to drive around it.
5. Past the garage: someone has nailed a door (4) to the sign.
6. Under railway bridge; the bees are building another hive (5) between the girders here.
