Historical events on June 30
1966 Thursday - Mike Tyson born.
1966 Thursday - Beatles land in Tokyo for concert tour.
1975 - Monday - Cher marries Greg Allman four days after divorcing Sonny Bono
In order to calculate a date it is helpful to do a series of chants where you start with a number and count by sevens. That way you can just know what the first day of a month is and do a quick calculation for any date that month. Our exercise today is to practice these seven sequences. Say them out loud a few times, preferably with no one in the room who might commit you to your local mental health screening center.
One eight fifteen twenty two twenty nine
Two nine sixteen twenty three thirty
Three ten seventeen twenty four thirty one
Four eleven eighteen twenty five
Five twelve nineteen twenty six
Six thirteen twenty twenty seven
Seven fourteen twenty one twenty eight
If you practice these sequences you will quickly be able to calculate any date just by knowing the day of the week the first day of that month occurred. Tomorrow we will combine the month and day exercises to know the first date of all months for this year.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Memorize a year - step 2
June 29 history
1964 Monday - Civil Rights Act passed in Senate after 83 day filibuster.
1977 Wednesday - Supreme Court ruled out death penalty for rapists of adults
Yesterday we learned how to create symbols to represent the months. Today we will
create symbols to represent the days of the week. Here are some suggestions.
Sunday - The sun, your church.
Monday - The moon, your school or workplace.
Tuesday - The number 2.
Wednesday - The hump of a camel, since Wednesday is often referred to as hump day
the middle of the work week.
Thursday - The number 3 as it sounds like third.
Friday - A frying pan or a TGIF sign.
Saturday - The planet Saturn with it's rings.
You may want to look at a calendar you have at home, pick a week, and insert these images into the block with the date in it. Spend about 15 minutes creating the images on your calendar and they will stick. It would also be helpful to rehearse the images you have for the months again.
Tomorrow I will teach you a rhythm of numbers to recite which will be an aid in memorizing dates. By next week you can have this entire year memorized.
1964 Monday - Civil Rights Act passed in Senate after 83 day filibuster.
1977 Wednesday - Supreme Court ruled out death penalty for rapists of adults
Yesterday we learned how to create symbols to represent the months. Today we will
create symbols to represent the days of the week. Here are some suggestions.
Sunday - The sun, your church.
Monday - The moon, your school or workplace.
Tuesday - The number 2.
Wednesday - The hump of a camel, since Wednesday is often referred to as hump day
the middle of the work week.
Thursday - The number 3 as it sounds like third.
Friday - A frying pan or a TGIF sign.
Saturday - The planet Saturn with it's rings.
You may want to look at a calendar you have at home, pick a week, and insert these images into the block with the date in it. Spend about 15 minutes creating the images on your calendar and they will stick. It would also be helpful to rehearse the images you have for the months again.
Tomorrow I will teach you a rhythm of numbers to recite which will be an aid in memorizing dates. By next week you can have this entire year memorized.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Today's Phenomenal Memory Tip
Events on June 28
1965 Monday - First combat forces in Viet Nam.
1971 Monday - Overturn of Muhammad Ali's draft evasion charge.
1978 Wednesday - Supreme Court ruled that Allan Bakke, 38 was discriminated against in being denied
admission tom medical school at University of California, Berkeley
In the next few days I will teach you a technique for memorizing a year of the calendar. All you need to know is how to make pictures in your head, and do a very simple calculation.
First, let's create some symbols for the months of the year.
January - snow
February - heart
March - shamrock
April - rain
May - flower
June - flag
July - fireworks
August - beach
September - schoolbook
October - pumpkin
November - turkey
December - Santa
If you do not like some of these symbols you can create your own. For example - You might prefer a menorah to use for December instead of Santa, or a manger. It is important to create pictures that you are comfortable with.
Tomorrow we will create symbols for the days of the week.
1965 Monday - First combat forces in Viet Nam.
1971 Monday - Overturn of Muhammad Ali's draft evasion charge.
1978 Wednesday - Supreme Court ruled that Allan Bakke, 38 was discriminated against in being denied
admission tom medical school at University of California, Berkeley
In the next few days I will teach you a technique for memorizing a year of the calendar. All you need to know is how to make pictures in your head, and do a very simple calculation.
First, let's create some symbols for the months of the year.
January - snow
February - heart
March - shamrock
April - rain
May - flower
June - flag
July - fireworks
August - beach
September - schoolbook
October - pumpkin
November - turkey
December - Santa
If you do not like some of these symbols you can create your own. For example - You might prefer a menorah to use for December instead of Santa, or a manger. It is important to create pictures that you are comfortable with.
Tomorrow we will create symbols for the days of the week.
Monday, June 27, 2011
When I first started memorizing the calendar as a five year old, I created visual and auditory images of the prime time television lineup to every date in that year. First, I would look at the name of the month that appeared in red at the bottom of each page, then I would look at the number in the square and say the combination in my head a few times. For example, June 22 Wednesday. At first this might seem boring and typical of the way most people memorize. However, I added visual and auditory images. As I looked at each block, I would visualise an image of a character who would be on prime time television that night. For June 22 I would see an image of Batman and play the tune in my head. For the 23rd Thursday it would be Robin - same tune, June 24 The Green Hornet, and June 25 Flipper. I would spend about a minute for each day of the year doing the same routine. I practiced the entire sequence for five consecutive days Monday February 28 to Friday March 4. By the end of the week I knew the day of the week that every day of the year 1966 occurred or will occur on. I had a year of the calendar memorized before I knew how to read.
Since I obviously had never read a book on memory, I discovered my new ability serendipitously. Unwittingly I was applying several mnemonic principles.
1. Rote Rehearsal - saying the combination of date and day a few times, for example Monday June 20
2. Elaborative rehearsal - Creating an association with pictures, sounds, and any combination of senses.
By paring the visual image with the block and the date and playing the tune I was creating associations between disparate items. Now I would see a block with a date in it and think of an image of Batman or Flipper (a dolphin) and by combining the two images I would think of the day of the week (Wednesday if it was Batman and Saturday if it was Flipper).
Elaborative rehearsal can be enhanced if you combine more than one sense in your image. I combined the visual sense by picturing the images, and the auditory sense by playing the theme songs in my head. The more senses you apply the stronger the image is that you created as a memory aid. I could have added sensory material for Flipper for the Saturdays by imagining the feel of swimming in the water riding Flipper (Kinesthetic) or imagined eating dolphin meat (Gustatory). The images would have been stronger but they were strong enough using two senses. Most images that you create will be strong enough with two senses and some with just one sense. However, the more senses that you employ the stronger the image.
Many memory experts advocate creating a silly picture for your images. By silly, they mean that is bizarre enough to not happen in real life. You might imagine Batman turning into a bat, or Robin turning into a real Robin. Or for Sunday imagine the Disney castle growing Mickey Mouse ears. While it helps to have a bizarre picture, often if you combine the rote rehearsal of reciting the fact with the elaborative rehearsal of creating pictures and sounds, the picture is still effective and you will remember.
Most memory experts will say that elaborative rehearsal is more effective than rote rehearsal. By itself it is. However, I have found through my learning and teaching memory that memorizing is the most effective when rote and elaborative are combined.
Would you like to learn how to memorize a year of the calendar in a short time? In the next few blogs I will show you a way to learn a year much more quickly than the way I did it.
Since I obviously had never read a book on memory, I discovered my new ability serendipitously. Unwittingly I was applying several mnemonic principles.
1. Rote Rehearsal - saying the combination of date and day a few times, for example Monday June 20
2. Elaborative rehearsal - Creating an association with pictures, sounds, and any combination of senses.
By paring the visual image with the block and the date and playing the tune I was creating associations between disparate items. Now I would see a block with a date in it and think of an image of Batman or Flipper (a dolphin) and by combining the two images I would think of the day of the week (Wednesday if it was Batman and Saturday if it was Flipper).
Elaborative rehearsal can be enhanced if you combine more than one sense in your image. I combined the visual sense by picturing the images, and the auditory sense by playing the theme songs in my head. The more senses you apply the stronger the image is that you created as a memory aid. I could have added sensory material for Flipper for the Saturdays by imagining the feel of swimming in the water riding Flipper (Kinesthetic) or imagined eating dolphin meat (Gustatory). The images would have been stronger but they were strong enough using two senses. Most images that you create will be strong enough with two senses and some with just one sense. However, the more senses that you employ the stronger the image.
Many memory experts advocate creating a silly picture for your images. By silly, they mean that is bizarre enough to not happen in real life. You might imagine Batman turning into a bat, or Robin turning into a real Robin. Or for Sunday imagine the Disney castle growing Mickey Mouse ears. While it helps to have a bizarre picture, often if you combine the rote rehearsal of reciting the fact with the elaborative rehearsal of creating pictures and sounds, the picture is still effective and you will remember.
Most memory experts will say that elaborative rehearsal is more effective than rote rehearsal. By itself it is. However, I have found through my learning and teaching memory that memorizing is the most effective when rote and elaborative are combined.
Would you like to learn how to memorize a year of the calendar in a short time? In the next few blogs I will show you a way to learn a year much more quickly than the way I did it.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
You Can Have A Phenomenal Memory
Hi, I'm Frank Healy and I have a phenomenal memory. I know the day of the week every date was or will occur from 1753 to 2999. I also know the weather in my area every day since 1966, historical events, and what happened in my life every day since 1966.
It started when I was five years old the week of February 27 to March 5, 1966. I was home sick from school for a week. Too sick to be up playing. My uncle Billy had given me a calendar for the year.Having nothing to do, I lay there and connected every date with a picture of what would be on prime time television that night. I would look at the squares with the numbers and create a picture in each square of what would be on prime time television that night. For Sundays it was Walt Disney, Mondays The Monkees, Tuesdays Combat, Wednesday Batman, Thursdays Robin (since batman was on Wednesday and Thursday I needed a different picture for the two days) Friday The Green Hornet, and Saturday Flipper. By the end of the week I had the calendar for that entire year memorized by connecting each date with a television show.
As the days and weeks went by I would recite in my head the date as events occurred in my life. Consequentially, I developed a good autobiographical memory. By the end of the year, I realized that I knew the date that everything happened since I began memorizing. As the years went by, I continued to make notes in my head on what events and weather occurred, and the day of the week each date was.
In 2007 I published my book "Living With A Phenomenal Memory" which is a detailed account of my memory and how I memorized the calendar, schoolwork, facts about the Beatles, Marx Brothers, Space travel, and other assorted facts. It is available through iuniverse at http://www.iuniverse.com/ and Amazon.
You may have seen the specials on 60 minutes of the people who have been studied at the University of California. On February 9, 2011 I was studied by Dr. McGaugh, and was the twelfth person they have determined who has HSAM - Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.
Each weekday beginning on June 27 I will be posting a tip on how to improve your memory. Some of the tips might be spread over several days. However, it is good to exercise your brain every day. Stay tuned for tomorrow's tip!
It started when I was five years old the week of February 27 to March 5, 1966. I was home sick from school for a week. Too sick to be up playing. My uncle Billy had given me a calendar for the year.Having nothing to do, I lay there and connected every date with a picture of what would be on prime time television that night. I would look at the squares with the numbers and create a picture in each square of what would be on prime time television that night. For Sundays it was Walt Disney, Mondays The Monkees, Tuesdays Combat, Wednesday Batman, Thursdays Robin (since batman was on Wednesday and Thursday I needed a different picture for the two days) Friday The Green Hornet, and Saturday Flipper. By the end of the week I had the calendar for that entire year memorized by connecting each date with a television show.
As the days and weeks went by I would recite in my head the date as events occurred in my life. Consequentially, I developed a good autobiographical memory. By the end of the year, I realized that I knew the date that everything happened since I began memorizing. As the years went by, I continued to make notes in my head on what events and weather occurred, and the day of the week each date was.
In 2007 I published my book "Living With A Phenomenal Memory" which is a detailed account of my memory and how I memorized the calendar, schoolwork, facts about the Beatles, Marx Brothers, Space travel, and other assorted facts. It is available through iuniverse at http://www.iuniverse.com/ and Amazon.
You may have seen the specials on 60 minutes of the people who have been studied at the University of California. On February 9, 2011 I was studied by Dr. McGaugh, and was the twelfth person they have determined who has HSAM - Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.
Each weekday beginning on June 27 I will be posting a tip on how to improve your memory. Some of the tips might be spread over several days. However, it is good to exercise your brain every day. Stay tuned for tomorrow's tip!
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