💥 Tingle Power - Memory Tool

          The test for successfully placing something into long-term memory requires:

• A flexible imagination
• A strong desire to succeed (practice)
• Awareness of the ‘tingle power’ test
• An elapse of time (amount will vary)
• A memory-recall trigger
• Answer key (to check your answers)

          Do you have a flexible imagination?   Most children, artists, and everyone who enjoys reading fiction do.  (If you don’t, you can develop a flexible imagination – and a strong memory – with practice.)  You either want to be able to memorize or you don’t.  If you do, you’ll practice – and – if you don’t you won’t.

          Tingle Power:

Safety  Finish  Alligator  Snowflake  X-ray  Sunglasses  Call  Push  Ottoman  Surface  I  Heart  Balance  Cassette  Picnic  Tingle  Power  Shadow  Explosion  Ephemeral

          These 20 example words consist of unrelated nouns, verbs, adjectives, and a pronoun; some are simple to visualize (alligator, sunglasses) others are difficult (ephemeral—something which disappears quickly isn’t easy to picture in your imagination).

          First you need to form a chain of images related to each word.  The more exaggerated and unusual each image is, the easier it will be for your memory to recall.

          Now, in your mind, explain the links until the chain is complete:

          A huge safety pin, with a checkered finish-line flag attached to it, is piercing thru a white alligator which is in-turn biting into a massive snowflake, which fades into the x-ray body of a woman wearing a pair of sunglasses for a bra; in one hand she’s making a call on an old phone while she pushes the safety pin with the other.  Her head is a square ottoman; on every surface of the ottoman there are drawings of eyes on top of hearts.  Above the ottoman is a balanced large music cassette.  On top of the cassette is a picnic table.  The surface of the picnic table is covered with the words Tingle Power in a funky font, as well as the sharp-edged shadow of a nearby explosion which has caused a ring of ephemeral smoke to appear.

          Repeat the mental image from beginning to end.   Focus on the actual words you want to memorize instead of the stand-in words you decided to use in the story (finish-line flag = finish; pushes = push; eyes = I; balanced = balance; picnic table = picnic; ephemeral smoke = ephemeral).   Now—list the words; not the linking story.  Can you do it in reverse?   Having difficulty remembering some words?...maybe one (like surface) isn’t unusual enough; if so, draw attention to how weird-odd that word is (you should think about surface as her-face—her face’s surface.)

          The memory recall trigger can be the first image or (as in the example) the only written words: Tingle Power.

          Wait a few minutes or hours.  Test yourself and determine if you can recall the mental images in order.  Ask someone to help you check your list as you say the words aloud.  Repeat this process in a week.  Do it again in a month.

          Are you accomplished at remembering a chain of single words?  Now try the intermediate level: Memory Tool (62 song titles, released between 1959 and 2020).

 Other essays relating to memory:

Re-collecting Memories (Chapters 1 thru 4)

 When You Ponder Why You're Who You Are, What Happens?
Neither Overwhelmed Nor Underwhelmed