ALI - The three foundations of memory

The three foundations of memory are Association, Location and Imagination. Dominic O'Brien in his "Quantum Memory Power" CD memory course suggests the acronym of ALI (as in Muhammed Ali) to remember these three words.

Association - An association is a mental link between two disparate items. Memory techniques require us to force associations between items that usually have no connection. This is where the fun and creativity of memory are required, and is a skill you need to practice regularly.

Location - Items to be remembered need to be stored in a place set aside in your mind. There are many ways to do this, but the oldest method is to use your memory of a physical locations, such as the rooms in your house. More abstract locations are pegs such as numbers and I will write more about the number-rhyme, number-shape, and major systems in later articles.

Imagination - effective memory requires us to convert the information we are trying to remember into something that can be experienced in a number of different ways and stimulating the senses. For example, remembering "apple" requires you to imagine the appearance and colour of the apple, the taste as you take you a bite, and so on. Using the Imagination we can go further and imagine the object interacting with what we are associating it with, maybe exaggerating its size or shape. Giving life and movement to inanimate objects will help create a stronger impression.