The Virtual Journey - a Powerful Memory Technique

The virtual journey is a powerful and popular memory pegging method for remembering lists of items. You take an imaginary journey around a familiar route - say your house or road - and you attach the things you want to remember to the places along the way. Say for example you want to remember a sequence of key points for a speech you are giving at your daughter's wedding. The first six items are:

A story about her birth

A funny incident at school

What happened when the family went camping

Her first date

How she met her future husband at University

A joke about husbands and housework

The route you decide to take is as follows:

Your bedroom

Your bathroom

On the stairs

In the kitchen

On your front drive

Outside your neighbour's house

So you might imagine a journey as follows. You wake up in your bedroom and hear a baby crying. You go into the bathroom and there is your daughter's headmistress sitting on the toilet. You cannot get to the top of the stairs because of a huge tent that covers the whole landing. When you go into the kitchen you see your daughter's first boyfriend washing the dishes. You then go outside and see your new son-in-law wearing a mortarboard and gown. As you pass your neighbours house you see a line of men with vacuum cleaners cleaning the road. You carry on making ridiculous and memorable images for other all the key items in the speech and link them to places along the route.

When you come to make the speech you simply make the mental journey on the route and all the remarkable items will spring into mind in the right sequence. Each one reminds you of the story you want to tell. Many professional speakers use this technique. You can use it to remember a speech, give a presentation or recall a list. You should make the visual images dramatic and memorable - like the headmistress in the bathroom. With a little practice you will recall every detail flawlessly. People will be really impressed that you could remember every important point without any notes.

Paul Sloane writes and speaks on lateral thinking and innovation. This article is an excerpt from his new book How to be a Brilliant Thinker.

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