YOUR MIND & HOW TO USE IT. William Walker Atkinson

without difficulty the "odds" posted on a certain horse on a certain day, or the details of a race which was run many years ago. The moral is: Arouse and induce an interest in the things which you wish to remember. This interest may be aroused by studying the things in question, as we have suggested in a preceding chapter.

      Visualization in Memory.

      Many of the best authorities hold that original impressions may be made clear and deep, and the process of reproduction accordingly rendered more efficient, by the practice of visualizing the thing to be remembered. By visualizing is meant the formation of a mental image of the thing in the imagination. If you wish to remember the appearance of anything, look at it closely, with attention, and then turning away from it endeavor to reproduce its appearance as a mental picture in the mind. If this is done, a particularly clear impression will be made in the memory, and when you recall the thing you will find that you will also recall the clear mental image of it. Of course the greater the number of details observed and included in the original mental image, the greater the remembered detail.

      Perception in Memory.

      Not only is attention necessary in forming clear memory records, but careful perception is also important. Without clear perception there is a lack of detail in the retained record, and the element of association is lacking. It is not enough to merely remember the thing itself; we should also remember what it is, and all about it. The practice of the methods of developing perception, given in a preceding lesson, will tend to develop and train the retentive, reproductive, recognitive, and locative powers of the memory. The rule is: The greater the degree of perception accorded a thing, the greater the detail of the retained impression, and the greater the ease of the recollection.

      Understanding and Memory.

      Another important point in acquiring impressions in memory is this: That the better the understanding of the subject or object, the clearer the impressions regarding it, and the clearer the recollection of it. This fact is proved by experiment and experience. A subject which will be remembered only with difficulty under ordinary circumstances will be easily remembered if it is fully explained to the person, and accompanied by a few familiar illustrations or examples. It is very difficult to remember a meaningless string of words, while a sentence which conveys a clear meaning may be memorized easily. If we understand what a thing is for, its uses and employment, we remember it far more easily than if we lack this understanding. Elbringhaus, who conducted a number of experiments along this line, reports that he could memorize a stanza of poetry in about one tenth the time required to memorize the same amount of nonsense syllables. Gordy states that he once asked a capable student of the Johns Hopkins University to give him an account of a lecture to which he had just listened. "I cannot do it," replied the student; "it was not logical." The rule is: The more one knows about a certain thing, the more easily is that thing remembered. This is a point worth noting.