Roman Room Method

This is one of the best memory tricks I ever heard about. Few years ago when I was in university we received an assignment to prepare a speech about any topic of interest, it just had to be in Arabic language (we were foreigners learning Arabic). We studied a lot, many of my classmates had difficulties with memorizing huge amounts of information, so witnessing nervous breakdowns was something usual for us. As you may suppose, this was a hot topic for all of us. The method I am going to share with you now helped me to survive that year. It was also the topic of my choice for that assignment. I recall it was fun to look at faces of students as they were listening, some of them were completely astonished and excited to try my trick, while others (including the teacher) had a puzzled look, they definitely thought I was nuts!

I am not an inventor of this trick, it was practiced long before I came into this world. The legend says that ancient Greek poet called Simonides was invited to a banquet to recite his soliloquy. Shortly after he left the place, the roof caved in, killing everyone inside. The bodies were so disfigured that they could be no longer identified. The authorities called Simonides in hope he could remember at least some of the people who were there. To their surprise, he named each person who was there. Moreover, he remembered their location in the room.

This memorizing technique was named Roman Room method probably because of Cicero, the Roman orator, who was famous for using it too. He was known for being able to recite volumes of information by mentally placing ideas on the chairs instead of people.

Building your own Roman room is easy, just needs a little preparation and practice. You mentally number corners, walls, floor and ceiling of room that you know very well in a certain order, which is not to be changed after that. Then you take first word, or idea that is on your list and somehow associate it with whatever it is in position 1, which is first left corner as you enter the room. The stranger is the association the better. Strange, funny, ridiculous associations are remembered even better.

I have a blog were I share some tips of success in business and relationships. Let's apply this and to see if we can memorize those tips in order. Here are the first ten:

Trick 1: Keep Silent. OK, how this can be associated with first left corner of my room? Let us say I have a reclining chair there. So I can imagine a poor guy tied to this chair with scotch tape on his mouth.

Trick 2: Work on Your Mind - Peace of Mind Is Not Your Goal. In position two, which is the wall right after that left corner I have bookshelves. This is easy - books associate with mind very well. We can add a sword on the top of the bookshelves as a symbol of war, which is the opposite of peace.

Trick 3: Learn to Manipulate. Position three is next corner after the bookshelves and I have a fireplace there. Let's imagine a sly fox as a symbol of manipulation sitting on the top of the fireplace giving me a lesson on cunning.

Trick 4: Break the Patterns. "Break the Patterns" goes to position four, which is the wall just face to the entrance. I have a window there. My window is just a simple window, but since I have great imagination, it is not difficult to imagine some oriental design (I live in Lebanon after all!) that is damaged by a shotgun bullet.

Trick 5: Look Outwards Rather Than Inwards. Piece of cake! Position five is the corner to the right from the window. There is a chair there, I will throw a binocle on it.

Trick 6: Be Mysterious. Position six is for TV, so I can mentally imagine the movie about someone dark smoky and mysterious, Zorro for example.

Trick 7: Face Your Fears. This should be associated with position seven. Position seven is the corner to the right when you enter. Let's say you are afraid of snakes and you have a lamp table there. So imagine a cute toy snake right on the table.

Trick 8. Be Flexible. This is for the wall where the door is (just right where we entered) so I can imagine a flexible wire around the door knob.

Trick 9. Rely on Yourself. Point nine is my floor. I see myself in the role of a blacksmith. I am shaping the iron with anvil and hammer to earn my living right in the middle of the room!

Trick 10. Avoid Miserable. Hmmm...This has to be associated with the ceiling of my room. But what miserable people have to do with the ceiling of my room? Here is the solution: huge photo of my friend who loves nagging more than eating on the ceiling!

Repeat a couple of times. Congratulations, you are done! Now you will never forget your list and you won't mess up the order, all because of silly sly fox teaching you cunning tricks!

It is strange, but to memorize better and easier, you need to memorize more. Particularly in this method, once you've done the preparation (that is assigning numbers to different locations) things become easy, you just need a little creativity. Your room becomes your mental drawer you can use even when you are not at home. Moreover, you will be easily able to recite the points on your list starting from anywhere in the middle or even in the back order immediately. This is hard to achieve if you memorize just by repeating the information. As you get accustomed to the use of this technique you can use more than one room for longer lists, as well as imaginary rooms that don't exist outside of your mind.

So, do you think I am nuts too?

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