memory

Care for a stroll down memory lane? I was doing some research on the Web the other day and ran across an interesting and tragic bit of trivia about the first "memory system." Evidently the first person to devise a way of memory training was a Greek poet and orator named Simonides, around 477 BC. His memory system came about quite accidentally. He had been invited to attend a party for a wrestler who had recently won the Olympic games and during this festive affair, he was asked to recite poetry for the group.
As chance would have it, he had to leave before the party was over, and shortly afterwards the ceiling collapsed, killing everyone in the house. The bodies were so damaged that there was little to help identify all the guests who had were present. However, while he had been reciting, Simonides had been looking at his audience and where they were sitting. Later, by looking at the appropriate places, Simonides was able to recall the names of the people. This made him think that attaching names, objects, or ideas to a place could help recall them.
Almost 2,500 years later, modern scientific research on the brain has discovered why this technique works. It works because it combines the left-brain "job" of handling words, lists, and numbers with the right-brain one of processing rhythm, imagination, color, shape, and space.

If you want to try this technique for yourself, here's a memory exercise that could come in handy. The first step is to set up a "place." Visualize a room in your home. Mentally going around the room, starting on the left-hand side, imagine each object as you would come to it, like a chair, or sofa, or wall hanging, and assign it a number. Then add anything in the center of the room and give it a number as well. Go over this mental picture of your room until you can call it up easily.
Then, when you have some items you want to remember, imagine a vivid picture of each one and mentally place it on the numbered object in your "room." And when you need to recall your list of items, you just imagine the room and the numbered objects and the pictures of the items you "placed" on each one.
Have fun with this, and give your brain a good workout at the same time!