Mastering Your memory Dominic O’Brien

(Canal: Dr. David Lewis)

So, that is those are the memory test, now we should go back on those
memory test at the end of this morning and you will be amazed at how easy it is to
remember all those things, it be something you can impress your friends with, before
the pants off them or whatever but now here is a man for whom that test would
actually be a light aperitif before he sat down to a full-course banquet, this is an
amazing clap called Dominic O’Brien, is very kindly, agreed to come down from
London, to talk to us here today, he is a eight time world memory champion and he is
going to actually show you some things which are absolutely amazing, the stein
issue so, i’d like you to welcome when he walked into the room, Dominic O’Brien.
-Manager Dr. David Lewis

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am going to obviously explain what it

takes to become a world memory champion (laugh). I am going to give a couple of
demonstrations and I shall illustrate this by getting you to perform a feat of memory
yourselves, and then, we have some questions and answers at the end, one of the
questions that Dr, David asked me was I born with a good memory and the answer is
no, in fact when I was a baby I had a knock to the head and I think this may have
been a trigger for my dyslexia, we did not know much about dyslexia, in the 1960s or
50s, but certainly I had a problem reading and writing, I was quite slow took before
attempts to pass English language and I had a problem concentrating on what the
teacher was saying was more interested in the movement of face or I was easily
distracted, so I think I had a bit of attention deficit disorder as well, in fact I have my
old school reports here, interesting reading, “this calculation can not keep the
question in this head”, another one Geography appears to know more the universe
than the earth, unless Dominic really slakes himselfs he is never going to achieve
any success”, “he tends to dream in the middle of a calculation which leads him to
lose track to the thought of attentions problems”, “Dominic daydreams a lot pays too
little attention to detail terribly slow often can not repeat the question”, history is a
good one absent, “I think they meant absent-minded”; so you would not have thought
looking at those school reports that one day this boy would go on to become a
memory champion.
So, what happens? It was not until eleven, it was in 1987 when I was 13, that I
saw this amazing guy called ‘Creighton Carvalho’* remember a record breakers
with Roy Castle, he was attempting to memorize the deck of cards, which he did in
three minutes, in fact two minutes and fifty-nine seconds, and the way the cards were
dealt out they were dealt out, one at time like this (demonstration), and Creighton
was able to memorize the exact sequence, and when I saw that I was fascinated,
because I ruled out the possibility of a federal grand, because the cards were not
splayed out in a row fifty-two.
He was not photographing memorizing them, he must have had some
technique to get the sequence of information, either that or he was born with a very
special brain, and interestingly enough this is a question that the Institute of
Neurology asked me and nine other top memorizes a few years ago, they wanted to
know, do we have very special brains? Are we intellectually superior over and above
our memory or are we using special techniques?, They did functional magnetic
resonance imaging, they looked at my brain layer by layer, they did not find any
silicon chips in there and the aids of cheating is not (laugh), it is a normal brain,
second question, is this guy a genius? They said no, I said, there must be some
mistake (laugh), you are quite normal but you have a trained memory, the third
question is, are we specializing? Are we using parts of your brains that are the
control group?, in fact, they were students, are not using and they found there were
areas, they have said, “we found that superior memory was not driven by exceptional
intellectual ability or structural brain differences, rather we found that superior
momerizes used a special learning strategy engaging brain regions, such as the
hippocampus that are critical for memory and for special memory in particular”.
What I did when I first of all create and memorize the cards was thought, well
maybe he is using some sort of story, I heard about using a story method to connect
one card to the next and with my lively imagination something, I was using at school,
but not study anything I started to turn the cards into pictures into people, in fact very
quickly, I was able to memorize a half a deck of cards, I made a few mistakes then I
found, I was getting faster and faster, my concentration was increasing and then in
1991, I was invited enter the first world memory championships and there were only
seven of us, at the time and fortunately I was able to win it,
If anyone is interested in entering the world memory championships, I have
got some of the test papers here, it really is a growing sport, it is a mine sport and we
have believed in our national champions from around the world. from China,
America, Turkey, Australia, South Africa and it is a three-day competition and there
are ten events, the first one, you presented one number not too difficult you might
think but this particular number is two thousand digits long, this is the first page
(showing to people), this is a thousand numbers, they’re presented in rows of forty
digits by 25 rows and the idea is you’re supposed to read through it like a book and
you have one hour to do this and at the end of it, you’ve got an hour and half to
reproduce the number, the most I’ve done is 1820 after errors, you then have half
hour to memorize binary numbers, four thousand binary numbers, you have shorter
sprint records or events, you have 15 minutes to memorize 100 names of faces, you
never seen before, 300 words and 15 minutes that have no connection at this point
I’d like a volunteer, somebody to do, (the volunteer was choose) what I’d like you to
do is I’ve got a grid here of 50 squares, I’d like you to produce a single digit for each
square and I’m going to try memorize it. One of events of the world memory
championship is probably the most difficult is, they put in a CD with a hundred
numbers called out, at the rate of one digit every two seconds and at the time the
psychologist was saying well that you can’t memorize more than about 15, 20 digits,
in fact the short-term memory span is seven to nine units an I was able to disprove
that I memorized the hundred digits in one list, so then they made it more difficult,
they did it one every second and the current record is 196 digits, this helped by the
current champion, the guy called Clemens Nayer. So what they do is, they put in the
CD and if you happen to memorize the 100 digits, then they put in another 115 and
200.
So what days are I doing now? Preferably sometime today will be finished
Daisy (the volunteer), in your head sighs, Daisy if you would like to could you read
out the number when you finished and I’m gonna attempt to memorize this and you
can try this as well, it’s the only you can do, so it requires three things really the use
of imagination, something you all got brain wave control concentration and places I
use a journey. (Daisy read all the numbers for Dominic and he after said all the
numbers perfectly)
The interesting thing about that is I will have that number in my head for as
long as I like so if you ask me at the end of the lecture, I’ll be able to go through the
number backwards and forwards tomorrow morning next week, probably after about
a moth it’ll begin to fade there’s a rule of five if you review it once and then the next
day, then the next week, the next month or three months later, it really goes into your
long-term memory, what I’m effectively doing now is I’m seem to be bypassing my
short-term memory, I’m putting it straight into my long-term memory and I’m doing
that by using those ingredients using location association, imagination, but I’m also
able to get into the right state of mind where I can see these pictures very clearly, let
me just give you an example of this. Imagine going back to your old school and
looking at the front gates and they’ve gone digital, so there’s a timeline there and it
wich says quarter past two sister 14, 15 so just imagine that a clock outside 14, 15
and as you go down the school drive you see a balloon and string which looks like
the number nine, the numbers shake four, nine and it’s attached to a swan which
looks like the number two, two looks like a swamp, I know whether you have and old
school chapel but just imagine going to the chapel and there’s a wedding ceremony
and there’s 65 years old man marrying a 35 year old woman, lucky man! Now just go
back through the story and tell me what the number is 14, 50 as one, four, one, five,
two, 65, 35, very easy.
Anybody know what that number is what I’ve done is, I tricked you into
memorizing the first ten decimal places to buy 3.1415926535 and you did that very
quickly, how long will you have that number in your head for you could show off like I
didn’t go backwards couldn’t you five, three, five, six to nine, it’s a bit of a strain but
it’s possible isn’t it?. Now, you begin to see how it’s possible to do a 50 digital
number, so in fact what I’m doing is, I’m turning pairs of numbers into people, so I
have a code, I call it the language of numbers, seven, two, four, three, I split that into
two pairs so 72 id George Bush, why is 72 George Bush, how many mistakes he’s
made us at that’s a good one all right the seventh letter the alphabet is G and the
second is B, this is the system that I had and 43 becomes David Copperfield, now I
have a picture of George Bush pulling a rabbit out of a hat which is what he needs to
do, to stay in power if it was the other way around if it was 43, 72 what would that be
David Copperfield doing what george Bush likes to do wave the U.S flag, so now, you
can see that to do a 50 digit number.
 I have what I call a journey. It's an old Greek Method called “Loci”, I only need
about 13 places to swap four digit sequences and I’m just picking up the imagens
that I created, let me take the decks of cards. If you just go on a journey of your won
in your head, just prepare five stages and the best way to do this is to close your
eyes, because when you close your eyes, it’s telling your brain you want to go sleep
and then you start producing these wonderful frequencies called alpha and beta
waves, then, ir helps you to picture things so once you order close your eyes.
So, go on journey of five stages, so you start with your bedroom, then you
could go to the bathroom or whatever, the second stage stage is spare room maybe
the staircase covered under the stairs just five places, but, put them in a logical
sequence and don’t go back to the bedroom, just keep moving forward, everybody
got 5 places? Let’s have a look good, that’s the first step you can open your eyes,
now the second step is to learn the language, so I’ve got five playing cards here, the
king of diamonds to me is Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world, the king
spades that’s cooked Jack the Alan Titchmarsh couldn’t it the gardener king of
garden spades, next one we’ve got nine of clubs how about Nick Faldo he plays golf,
golf clubs, nine sounds like Nick Association, queen of clubs that could be Kylie
Minogue the queen of nightclubs and finally James Bond park throb seven of hearts
double 0.
Now, I’m going to shuffle them up return to your journey make sure you’ve got
the five places, okay, knight just look at the cards as I turn them over in any
sequence that I want, so you’re in your bedroom and you’re going to open your eyes,
please Kylie Minogue, you’ve got the thumbs up there, now just imagine interacting
with these objects as I give you them, so imagine Kylie Minogue, use left brain logic,
why is Kylie Minogue in your bedroom? But, you decide the privacy of your own life,
that’s the first, go to the second stage of your journey, James Bond, whereas James
Bond is the bathroom, the spare room, you decide, why is there? What’s he doing?
Just picture, next one goes to the next stage of your journey and you meet Bill Gates,
he’s counting his money or his diamonds, why is he doing that in that particular room
in the house? It’s very important to use the logic, the reason; Nick Faldo is the next
stage, you meet him practicing his golfer of the open swing, he’s got maeby’s
breaking the chandelier or whatever felt you’ve got, finally you see Alan Titchmarsh,
he’s making a real mess in the living room digging up the carpet and everything else.
Now all you have to do is review that information, so what happened in the
bedroom kylie Minogue the queen of clubs, first card, second stage, seven of hearts,
next one, Bill Gates which is the king of Diamond, next, Nick Faldo which is nine of
clubs and finally King was played, it’s really quite simple, isn’t it, that was just five
cards, what I found when I started training my brain this way, that my concentration
started to increase and I was able to turn it on and get faster and faster and in fact
when I do compete my standard goes up unfortunately for me certainly the other
competitors their standard goes up as well, but in 2002 I got a new world record
which was for the memory like memorization of 54 decks cards, the Guinness rules
state that the 54 decks must be shuffled into each other and then dealt out one of the
time only a single sighting of each card and this took me 12 hours to do it, so I dealt
them out very slowly and then I had to review each deck in my head until I did the 54
decks and it took me another three hours to regurgigate it, that is the current record
54 decks at some point I’m going to try and do a hundred decks. You at this point you
think you want a sideman, he spends all his time memorizing cards and numbers,
well I don’t actually I’m more interested in what’s going on in the brain, but I believe
that this reviews the learning process so it’s very useful for students and particularly
ones that were struggling at school like me, but also I think, it’s a great exercise for
the brain and we’re talking about Alzheimer’s early and even though you might have
the appearance of Alzheimer’s, when you’re over 75, 85, I believe you that you can
keep that at bay just by exercising your brain, I think games like sudoku, crossword
puzzles, playing memory games games like this. What about bridge? yes that’s very
good but, it’s not really straining your brain, you need to do this for about a 10
minutes stretch, I’m going to do some questions and answer in a second but I’m
going to, I’d like a volunteer to shuffle the deck, I’m gonna try and beat cratons record
of 2 minutes 59 seconds with one error, so maybe someone would like to try me on
this (O’brien see the cards). You let those cards filter through, all right, I’ll turn my
there, so if you’d like to deal with the cards I’ll name them out one at a time. (O’brien
got it right all the cards), the good thing about that is I can now know the sequence
inside out, if we look at any card, the four of clubs, I know the seven of hearts is
behind it and then, the ten of diamonds, it a good trick that and somebody said as
you can memorize, many cards won’t you start playing the casinos. So I did, I took
six months out to tell you the game of blackjack and started to clean up now, I’m
barred from every single casino in the UK. - Dominic O’brien