18 how to organize your recorded dreams using digital assistance for quick analysis

Why You Need To Read This Book People around the world desperately wish they could remember their dreams with clarity, consistency and in a way that will profoundly change their lives Yet so few will ever develop the skills needed to recall their dreams and participate in one of the world’s most prominent languages: the language of dreaming They will never experience the nuances and layers of possibility and personal transformation that come from expert dream recall, the kind of expertise only you can develop by following a few simple techniques Even with the best intentions and the best of books on the subject of dream recall, students of dreaming rarely learn enough to engage in expressive conversations with their dreams and form an important relationship with the inner aspects of themselves that normally appear only at night, but can be encouraged to reveal themselves during the day so that the division between sleeping and dreaming is interestingly erased Being able to recall your dreams will create amazing new insights about your unconscious intentions, your true desires and the clues you need in order to effectively achieve them Why is dream recall such a struggle? Many would-be dreamers blame a lack of time They don’t sleep enough for effective dreaming The amount of sleep our minds and bodies receive certainly has an effect, but when correctly trained in dream recall, no matter how short a period of time you have for sleep, you will notice yourself slipping into dreaming even before you’ve fallen “unconscious.” Don’t believe the REM myth that dreaming begins at some special hour after deep sleep has already been achieved Science now knows better and the notion that dreaming only occurs during REM was never true in the first place In fact, defined correctly, you are dreaming right now, but have not yet learned to see and experience it The dream recall technique described in this book will help you achieve this experience Some claim that dream recall is too hard The nature of the exercises in most books requires that you draw a symbol on your hand and engage in daily “reality checking.” Indeed, these are tedious methods However, such techniques are mentioned in this book only in passing The truth is that you don’t need to artificially create “triggers” in order to better remember your dreams or eventually achieve the goal of “going lucid.” There are better ways, more enlightening and elucidating ways, and I want to teach them to you in this book But the biggest excuse heard around the world is the saddest excuse of all: most people claim that they have a bad memory I sympathize with this I used to love claiming that I have a poor memory In fact, the first time I studied a foreign language, I silently swore in English so vehemently about my “bad memory” that I would have been kicked out of class had I spoken my frustration out loud I remained irritated with what I perceived to be my poor memory until I decided to something about it I studied memorization and ultimately wrote several thousand published pages about Ars Memorativa, or the Art of Memory I have helped thousands of people memorize thousands of pieces of information ranging from foreign language vocabulary to names, facts and figures and the order of randomized playing cards These are all easily learned skills based on universal principles that you can completely understand and start using in under an hour However, this is the first time that I am revealing my dream memory techniques, procedures I discovered while engaging in the same research and experimentation phases of my life that led to the birth of the Magnetic Memory Method These techniques are based on a mixture of research into dream recall, lucid dreaming and the scientific study of dreaming But this book is not filled with theory, statistics or explanations of brain biology It is composed of simple, effective, elegant and fun strategies that you can put to use immediately Within a month of finalizing my Magnetic Memory strategy for dream recall, I could easily recall the dreams I had experienced during the past 30 days by the dozens Within three months, I found myself drawing amazing connections between complex dreams, simple dreams and my every day fantasies (a.k.a daydreams) My mind was bursting with the plots of hundreds of novels and movies, more than any single person could write in a lifetime More importantly, the insight into my own decisions and elevated self-awareness created new opportunities for me along with greater satisfaction in life It pleases me immensely to help people remember their dreams better, especially when people regularly describe to me how easily they are able to adopt my techniques and see massive improvement in their lives These achievements are thrilling to me, thrilling for the people who use my techniques and they will thrill you too This edition of How to Remember Your Dreams is for you Whether you are an adult, teenager or even someone interested in doing dream work with students, patients or other professionals, I have designed this book so that as soon as you understand the system, you can wake up the following morning and permanently install any dream that you wish into your long term memory for easy and accurate recall To this end, I have written this book primarily for those dreamers who have the burning desire to explore their inner minds without frustration or hindrance within minutes, if not seconds, of waking up Three obstacles stand between you and remembering the vast quantities of dreams that you’ll need to achieve what essentially amounts to 21st century elucidation and enlightenment The Belief That You Don’t Need A Dedicated Memorization Strategy For Remembering Your Dreams Although a high level of desire is always important when it comes to any form of learning new skills, it is rarely enough Motivation must be accompanied by method if real gains are to be made I’ve spent many years crafting systems for myself and many years more teaching others how to lay the railway tracks in simple steps so that they can then follow the journey they’ve created each and every time they want to practice based on clear and simple procedures Instead of resting on desire and well-intentioned wishes, this book offers you a dedicated dream memorization strategy, one that will have you memorizing three to six dreams per night within a few short weeks – or even days – of practice The Belief That Memorization Strategies Won’t Work For You People often tell me that the memory techniques I teach will not work for them But I always confidently respond by saying that not only will these techniques work – these techniques will literally blow them away when they see how quickly their memory abilities develop Try out the techniques taught in this book for yourself and you will marvel at the progress you’ll make Guaranteed The Belief That Memorization Strategies Are Too Much Work You will need between 1-2 hours to set up the full system taught in this book and another 2-3 hours to really get the hang of the method and pick up speed The steps are easy, fun and you can start memorizing your dreams even before you’ve finished reading this short book The best part is that this system will serve you for life and can be extended to memorizing just about any information you could ever want I have a suggestion for you before you turn the page and start your journey toward advanced dream memorization skills Believe in the power of your mind When I started learning memory techniques and working on my dreams, I constantly told myself that it was too difficult and that my brain was ill equipped for such procedures I acted as if I had been born with a poor memory by virtue of birth Don’t be like this The ability to remember my dreams with near-100% accuracy opened the world’s doors for me, healed me in uncountable ways and changed how I view reality so that I am more a positive, productive and contributing member of society and I’m confident that becoming an effective dream memorizer will the same for you But please note that I’m not talking about anything woo-woo or “New Agey” or “NLP-ish” or anything to be skeptical about (not that there aren’t good things to be learned from those fields who are so often unfairly targeted by critics) This book offers tried and true methods, many of which are based on scientifically demonstrated principles known to increase the happiness of individuals who practice certain techniques and procedures to which I’ve added several subtleties and twists Moreover, when we consider the importance of advanced spiritual and mental health, it is that much more critical that we not belittle ourselves Your mind is as powerful as mine, and by developing a positive mental attitude, learning my system and putting in a small amount of effort will be easy, fun and demonstrate to you the powerful abilities of your own mind every single day for the rest of your life Dreams remain essential to the human experience This means that those with an advanced ability to engage with them can experience greater pleasure when traveling throughout their days than they have ever “dreamed” possible When it comes right down to it, isn’t pleasure what life is all about? With an advanced dream “fluency,” you’ll have conversations with fantastic people you will swear could actually exist, eliminate nightmares and visit wondrous locations You’ll become more creative, improve your memory and experience a boost in self-awareness And you’ll discover untapped inner resources of creativity, joy and wonder and as you become a more authentic individual as a result You will love adapting this dream system to your individual learning style and enjoy massive success as a result Give me 2-5 hours of your time as you teach yourself how to use this system and I will give you the techniques and abilities you’ll need to remember every dream you have for as long as you want to practice How to Remember Your Dreams … Using the Magnetic Memory Method By Anthony Metivier, PhD For Dreamers Everywhere WAIT! I have created FREE Memory Palace Magnetic Memory Worksheets and other resources that will help you implement the procedures taught in this book In order to download them, go to: http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/free-magnetic-memoryworksheets/ As a reader of this book, you’ll also have the chance to subscribe to the *daily* Magnetic Memory Newsletter – while it’s still free Subscribe now and get the only information that will keep your memory magnetic for years to come When you subscribe, you’ll also get a free 45-minute interview I conducted with world memory expert Harry Lorayne! Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One: Night Writing & The Main Principles of Dream Recall Chapter Two: How to Use Your Dreams to Become More Visually Creative Chapter Three: The Art of Dream Memorization Chapter Four: How to build a Network of Memory Palaces for Storing Dreams in Your Mind Chapter Five: Day Journaling And Other Day Time Activities To Boost Dream Recall Chapter Six: How to Sleep In And Still Remember & Memorize Your Dreams Chapter Seven: What To Do If You Simply Cannot Remember Your Dreams Or Backslide On Your Night Writing Chapter Eight: The Triggers of Lucid Dreaming Chapter Nine: Dream Recall, Meditation And Relaxation Conclusion About the Author Introduction Because the full story of my adventures with memory techniques centers so heavily on developing strategies for learning and memorizing foreign language vocabulary, poetry and randomized decks of cards, I will refer interested readers to those books in the Magnetic Memory Series The most important point, as I noted in the prologue, is that many people feel that memorization techniques don’t and won’t work for them and this is not an attitude I accept – particularly because I used to share it I used to love telling people about my poor memory When we this, we essentially train the people around us to treat us as if we have weak minds, which reinforces our beliefs about our inefficient recall skills It is a negative cycle I broke free from negative self-identification by learning memory skills, and the fact of the matter is that when learned and used in the correct manner, these memory techniques will change your life And learning how to remember my dreams was a huge part of my learning process, an aspect that I haven’t discussed with the Magnetic Memory Family until now Dreams, Drugs And A Literary Trip To Mexico I’ve always been interested in dreams, especially because I had no choice As a young child, nightmares plagued me Part of the reason – a reason I was conscious of at the time, involved the number of surgeries I had to undergo following a ruptured eardrum For eight years straight, I visited the hospital and underwent surgery under general anesthetic in order to have a tube placed in my ear The smell of the gas exuding from the mask and the spinning sensation that quickly followed as I slipped into unconsciousness became the theme of many dreams and it got so bad that I would actually chant to myself while falling asleep that I wasn’t going to dream that night Of course, it never worked In fact, looking back, my resistance against having bad dreams probably stimulated my mind to produce even worse nightmares than if I had simply done my best to get to sleep without fear Since developing and using the techniques in this book, I can count exactly three dreams that could be classified as nightmares – only in this case, they were far more interesting than terrifying And although they were not lucid, I believe that the frightening aspects were heavily diminished by my experiments and experiences with Magnetic dream recall As I grew older and the need for surgeries ceased, the constant nightmares calmed and I fell into the exciting life of a teenager experimenting with music, literature, alcohol, marijuana and LSD (at least, my friends and I thought it was LSD – it could have been rat poison for all we knew!) At age fourteen, I experienced a bad trip – worse than any nightmare I could ever imagine – and wound up taking some counseling as a result (I’ve written out the experience in the form of a short story, so if you’re interested in reading it, send a note to learnandmemorize@zoho.com and I’ll see if I can dig it up for you) In a slightly odd move, the counselor asked me if I had ever read Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge Until that time, Dungeons and Dragons-esque novels had been my bread and butter, so the idea of non-fiction books that people write about themselves in order to help others experience transformation was utterly foreign to me Nonetheless, the counselor took the book from his shelf and placed it in my hands There was a black bird on the cover and some figures standing in the desert on the cover – the book itself seemed like something from a dream For those unfamiliar with this book, in very brief terms it covers the adventures of Carlos Castaneda, a young graduate student who heads to Mexico as part of his research on psychotropic plants There he meets Don Juan, a shaman figure who helps him explore different natural substances known to create hallucinations and visions Many have claimed that Castaneda made up all or many of the events in the book, but this is irrelevant to the influence it had on my thinking at the time – and still does Although I am a scientist at heart, as well as by my own graduate training, lessons about the nature of reality and perspective not fly over my head and every few years I re-read Don Juan: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge, if only to experience again the wonder it brought to me and an interest in exploring my dreams Although dreaming is not an overly large part of the book, it did broach the topic of lucid dreaming, not to mention the idea that drugs can be used to artificially stimulate dreaming and the idea that a dreamer could awaken within the dream and consciously interact with the dream sent me exploring It would not be until university that I kept my first dream journal I used my computer’s word processor to record the first dream I ever “transcribed.” Although all the files from that computer have since been lost, it had to with a woman who lived in a mountain More than live there, she was also somehow the mountain itself, or some integral part of it Words cannot exactly convey the idea, but the depth of memory I have of that feeling of duality can most certainly be attributed to my attempt that morning to verbalize it In the dream, there was a long, iron trail leading to the mountain and all of the sand surrounding this trail was toxic and burned everything it touched The woman/mountain was producing all of reality and calling me to approach the mountain However, no matter how hard I struggled to reach the mountain by using the iron trail, I would always wind up writhing in pain on the poisonous sand The dream repeated again and again, and in each repetition, I tried to avoid falling directly onto the sand by tossing various objects ahead of my body Many books talk about the power of dream journaling to stimulate, not only how well we remember our dreams, but to strengthen the intensity and depth of our dreams And from that first written dream onward, I could feel the truth of these claims about memory and intensity and have been hooked on what could be called “dream hacking” ever since Dreaming In The Big Apple As a young doctoral student, I found myself living, researching and writing in Manhattan where people can experience psychoanalysis styles of every stripe if you’re willing to brave the oddities of self-revelation and overcome the quite possibly healthy, natural resistance to explaining your darkest secrets and fantasies to a stranger who hardly speaks But I didn’t seek out psychoanalysis on purpose I needed a doctor to prescribe medication for manic depression and also wanted to experiment with different forms of medication because Lithium had been making me fat for years and seemed responsible for an unpleasant sluggishness of mind The doctor I found – literally by closing my eyes and running my finger down a list of doctors who could serve my needs until I felt compelled to stop – turned out to be a dream specialist As the author of over forty books, many on dreaming, he was also one of high renown This fact became a curious aspect of the therapeutic process and taught me a great deal about the power of dream interpretation But in this book I won’t be giving you the traditional list of symbols and possible meanings I’ll be teaching you a much more powerful method of dream interpretation based on what I learned in these sessions The process is easy to implement and will change how you interact with the world This is the most reliable, practical and impacting method of dream interpretation I’ve encountered and I believe that the same will be true for you too Lucid Dreaming Auf Deutsch I next moved to Berlin, Germany and later Saarbrücken where I held a research and teaching grant and worked on the role of paintings in novels and movies This was a very dream-like topic in the dream-like circumstances of very a ample scholarship funding (thank you Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft!) Following my dream therapy experiences in New York, I made Germany my laboratory for implementing the strategies I had learned and for developing better dream recall Although the doctor had asked me not to record my dreams during the period of time I spent in his sessions, I knew that keeping a written dream journal would be essential to the process and so I purchased a large notebook In fact, it was more like a ledger, the kind of notebook that is far taller than it is wide and has extra material on each corner of the covers to protect them from damage My instincts told me that each entry would need to be dated, so that first night I wrote out the date for the following day and went to sleep brimming with excitement Writing out the date in this way signals to your unconscious mind your intention to write down your dreams There are two other ways to record your dreams in addition to using a journal, but I ultimately still favor using a ledger for reasons I will discuss in depth It was also in Germany, in this case Berlin, that I began to develop what is now called the Magnetic Memory Method Although it was primarily devised as a means of easily learning, memorizing and recalling foreign language vocabulary, I quickly realized that it could also be used, not just as part of enhancing dream recall, but also for memorizing the dreams Thus, I will teach you the basis of the Magnetic Memory Method in this book so that you can use it to explore the memorization of dreams in addition to the morning recall strategies taught in this book and show you how advanced dreaming skills can be used to improve your memory overall, as well as your creativity Coincidence, Déjà Vu & General Repetition Last night, I rehearsed for the second time with two musicians It seems like we’re starting a band together, but one can never tell where things will go But although I already felt quite “in tune” with these people, especially the drummer, last night during a break the drummer revealed to me that he is a fellow dreamer Although he doesn't use the memorization or interpretation techniques discussed in this book, he recognizes the central importance of writing dreams down Moreover, he confirmed my own experience by explaining that he eventually was able to record between six to ten dreams per night, that he experienced lucidity and the feeling of starting to dream even before sleep sets in I not believe in hocus-pocus I favor the power, beauty and usefulness of random chance in life and am primarily scientific in my approach to all things Nonetheless, over the years during which I’ve experimented with dreaming, the feeling of coincidence has increased and to find a fellow dreamer while I am finally working on a book on this topic – at this moment in my life – does not fail to make me ponder the deeper significance of dreaming I believe that the unconscious mind directs conscious behavior and science backs this up (a great book called You Are Not So Smart has several chapters that discusses such research and there are dozens of books that repeat the same reportage on very interesting experiments) Did my unconscious seek out a fellow dreamer? If so, how could it possibly have known? Ultimately, the answer – but not the question – is irrelevant The point is that these feelings of coincidence increase as a part of practicing dream recall and the more they happen, the more that life feels like a dream The same is true of Déjà vu We’ve all experienced the feeling that we’ve done something before, but it is relatively rare During my periods of intense dream recall and interpretation, however, the instances of Déjà vu increased remarkably The use of this extraordinary feeling, which at its highest levels can create absolute joy, involves becoming more aware of the patterns of life, the circularity of things and the paradoxical lack of originality in all things while all things are at the same time completely new In principle, repetition is always different because the act of recognizing repetition stamps the second, third or umpteenth time around the same event with the mark of originality, even though it is otherwise the same It is the feeling that nothing like this has ever happened before even though it has happened before and may possibly be happening right now again and again outside of your awareness This is not word play Stephen Hawking has suggested that the definition of our reality is that it is not every other possible reality To take it a step further, one might say that our reality is only possible because it cannot be other than it is Messing around with your dreams will give you experiences of Déjà vu that will increase your thinking about this and create states of awe about the nature of the universe that I not believe can be achieved otherwise, save through by the fleeting nature of drugs Dreams are not only healthier, but even long after your discontinue the use of the techniques discussed in this book, the effects will remain and you will be changed forever I hope you will use the ideas and strategies in this book to experience a boost in dream recall and all of its benefits and positive side effects My hope is that you will experience something akin to enlightenment, merely by engaging with time normally “lost” during the hours that you sleep But now that lost time is ready to be found, so let’s get started Chapter One: Night Writing & The Main Principles of Dream Recall Recording your dreams in writing is essential to developing recall I'm not going to overburden this book with scientific reasons behind why writing creates this effect, but I will point you to some science that supports writing as an enlightening activity and there's basic wisdom in the idea that using the hand builds the mind and produces states of increased happiness The research is presented in Richard Wiseman's 59 Seconds, an interesting book that cuts through a lot of the junk in the self-help world by showing you scientifically validated techniques that you can use in under a minute in order to improve your life In general, there are many examples of how writing has been linked to increased creativity and the development of memory Leonardo da Vinci, amongst many others, experimented with mirror writing exercises and learning to write both forwards and backwards using both hands has been central to my mental development You begin to think quite differently about the shape, form and flow of words and unique forms of expression come to mind If you're a musician or magician you can train to shuffle or run scales with your non-dominant hand and experience new ideas and forms of expression in these arts as well Stephen King has talked extensively about training the mind through daily writing patterns, and although he doesn't talk specifically about either dreaming or memory in On Memory, memory is deeply involved in composing novels and writing is in a very true sense dreaming with your eyes wide open Moreover, regular morning writing, especially when combined with writing the date out the night before you go to sleep will train you to expect that you will write down your dreams and you'll eventually find yourself dreaming about writing down your dreams I talked in the introduction about how this book will not ask you to draw symbols on your hands or engage in reality checking exercises and this exercise is the reason why Although reality checking is a process like writing, it has to be done at random or perhaps according to reminders that pop up on your phone Having a symbol on your hand is a constant thing that your mind will soon dismiss and exclude from perception, like a button on a wrist cuff The reason why writing your dreams regularly works for assisting better recall is simple: you're practicing recall by writing You're increasing your ability to recall in detail and developing a style while at the same time creating an image of yourself engaged in the activity You don't need to draw a symbol on your hand when you make yourself as the writer of your dreams a symbol And by writing in bed, you make your entire sleeping arrangement symbolic of the activity When practiced rhythmically, you build a feedback loop, compounding the effect night after night and morning after morning Speaking of rhythm, I not think it makes a great deal of difference how late in the day you go to sleep The difference comes from maintaining the morning activity of writing as many dreams as you can remember, and for at least some period of time, allowing yourself to awaken during the night to record your dreams In my personal experience, you will soon begin to see the theme of writing down your dreams appear in the dreams themselves This will typically occur at the end of each dream Write this down each and every time it happens Do not fear repetition All wealth in dream recall comes from repetition and dedication to the act of repetition When writing your dreams, focus on writing the most recent dream first With practice you'll find yourself writing down five to six or more dreams, but I feel that it's important to begin with the most recent dream first and work backwards You can jot out important details that come to mind in the margins if you're worried that you'll forget them, but with practice this becomes less and less likely because regularly practiced dream recall improves your memory overall, especially when used in conjunction with other aspects of the Magnetic Memory Method It is also recommended to carry a notebook with you throughout the day You can use the notebook to capture any new dream details that occur to you (this will begin to happen very often) and add them to your dream journal later During your initial pass through the recording of your dreams upon wakening, write your dreams in a linear, narrative manner as much as possible Although different details you've missed on your first pass may demand your attention as you're writing, it's difficult to edit handwriting, so simply include these details at the end or connect back to the previous paragraphs using arrows Here's another tip that I've used to great effect: Divide each page into two columns Use the left column to record your dream narrative and the right column to jot notes for details that you recall but did not include as you're writing out one of the next dreams down the line The left column can be much wider than the right Personal experimentation will tell you what works best Writing can also be enhanced by sketching Sometimes you'll have dream experiences that can only be expressed by drawing or there will be strange shapes that words will never be able to describe Don't worry if you "can't" draw Just move the pen or pencil across the page Your mind will help your muscles and bones produce the perfect image for the moment and for helping you achieve your goals of extensive and enlightening dream recall As mentioned, I advocate using a pen and paper It's not because I'm old fashioned, but because the technique works The only problem is that the more you record your dreams, the more you'll awaken at night and want to write in your dream journal There are two solutions for this, one primitive and one advanced One helps you write in the dark The other requires light I shared a bed with someone during my most intense years of dream journaling When I started waking up several times a night to record my dreams, I would get up from the bed, gather my dream journal and go to the washroom where I could turn on the light without disturbing my partner and write When the awareness of dreaming prompted me to awake sometimes five or six times a night, going to the washroom started to prove onerous I had once read a book about the life of writer and painter Wyndham Lewis (check him out sometime) Having lost his sight in his later years, but still hell bent on writing, he found a way to rig his journals so that strings indicated to his hands where they needed to stop and proceed to the next line The book was not entirely clear on how Lewis did this, but I took the idea and put staples through ribbons that indicated to me where the lines were so that when I reached the end of the line, I could feel where the next one began Ultimately, this technique proved very useful because one tends to write on top of one's own words when lacking some form of guidance in the dark However, it takes some practice, and in my experience, proved problematic for any sketching The extent to which drawings and diagrams will form a part of your dream practice will vary, but keep in mind that for the purposes of night writing, you may encounter difficulties with creating visual representations When I first began my dream recording efforts, I was not terribly concerned about legibility However, when I later went past dream recall and began working towards lucid dream experiences, being able to understand the writing became essential We'll discuss this dimension of dream writing in the next chapter Before concluding, here are two more solutions you might consider In the age of tablets and smart phones, apps have become a central aspect of daily - and nightly - life It's now possible to read and write in bed using "digital ink" on "visible paper" without overtly disturbing our sleeping partners (I say "overtly" because the introduction of light could subtly disturb their sleep and it is our duty as ethical night dreamers to monitor any reactions and alter our activities in order to protect their sleep) The first app I have found useful for my iPhone is called Plain Text It is a simple text editor that you can link to your Dropbox account so that your writing is instantly saved every few seconds the program is running and your device is online You can leave the program open, enter the date for the following morning at the top of the page, darken your screen and start writing the instant you awake Similarly, Dream Tracker is a writing application, one designed specifically for recording your dreams Its benefits are that the date is already applied to your writing and you can apply type (lucid, vivid, normal, blurry), mood (happy, sad, strange, anxious, nightmare) and you can add keyword tags of your choice to your dreams The tragic downfall of this otherwise fantastic app is that there appears to be no way to email yourself your dreams or sync them to Dropbox or some other remote data cloud You can, however, copy and paste the writing into Text Editor, a minor inconvenience that makes the tagging function still useful, though in order to transfer the tags, you'd need to note which ones you made and retype them manually This is not such a big deal because the more time you spend on dream-related activities, the deeper your dream recall will become Ultimately, there is a better way to tag your dreams (discussed later), and it is ultimately not a good practice to have connectable wireless devices with you in bed This is because the temptation to check email is too great Even without dream recall, looking to see what work-related demands and marketing messages (including ones from me) are lurking in your inbox will deeply erode your mornings Unless you not have a wireless connection in your house, avoid having smart phones and connectable tablets related to your dream recall practice In sum, dream recall is simple to stimulate and deepen within a very short period of time Here are three sets of action steps you can take to get started immediately Action steps you can take today: Buy a dream journal If you decide to create a night writing guidance device, take care that the journal you choose makes this possible A hard cover journal with A4 sized paper will work best Buy a second, smaller notebook to carry with you throughout the day to capture any new details that arise I recommend that this second notebook be unlined so that you can also use it for ernest sketching as part of developing your visual creativity (discussed in the next chapter) Depending on who you are as a person, you can either shop at a dollar store for your dream journal or buy a luxury journal with creamy paper, a leather cover, etc This is a private decision, though if you want to invite general affluence into your life along with intense, detailed and accurate dream recall, you should not skimp on your dream journals, especially since you're going to want to hold onto them for the years of your life and possibly bequeath them to a family member, a library archive of all your writings or to a dream society for cherishing and analysis You will also want to have a notebook with you in order to implement my day journaling technique You'll learn about this life-changing activity in an upcoming chapter Again, consider whether you want to have a notebook that is merely functional, or one that will signal to your conscious and unconscious mind your deep devotion to dream recall Buy a pen or pencil that you deliberately intend to use solely for recording your dreams Avoid the temptation to use it for anything else even if this means having another pen on your nightside table (the same goes for your dream journal) Exclusivity is essential and the more you preserve it for this task and this task alone, the more your mind appreciates your dream tools and the more powerful they become as you deepen your dream practice over time Once again, put some thought into the kind of pen you choose Is it merely a functional pen that you use for "dream writing from the trenches," or does it need a bit of luxury to signal to yourself the care and importance you place on your dreams? I've heard of someone who purchased a $1000 pen from a store in the Yorkville area of Toronto, though I myself have used a pen given to me by my aunt and uncle upon earning my PhD This assigns importance to the instrument and the effects of this symbolism will yield dividends when it comes to dream recall The caveat to spending a lot money on expensive dream journals and a pen you use exclusively for that task is that feeling that you need to so may cause you to balk and not get started Thus, my advice is that if you cannot afford to place a premium on dream tools right now, simply get started with a 99 cent writing pad and a Bic pen Once you've tasted results, you'll want to deepen them by associating the respect of luxury with your dreaming In the rare case that these notes about acquiring expensive dream writing implements have offended you, please consider the negative effects of poor pride in all areas of your life and ask your dreams for guidance in this area We will pick up this thread again in a future chapter Get some other books on dream recall, dream science or dreaming in general and put them in a place where you will regularly see them It doesn't matter if you agree with their contents or not or if you learned anything from them So long as they have the word "dream" in the title an are genuinely about dreaming, they will Having such books on your Kindle or Kobo will also help, but they will in no way have the same potential effects that physical books you constantly bump into hold It is best to have these books in several locations: by your bed, on the coffee table, on a bookshelf, on top of your fridge, in the bathroom, on your desk at work, in the glove compartment of your car, in your backpack, etc The more you run into books about dreaming throughout the day, the more you will be stimulated to repeat your conscious intention to recall your dreams Please note that this activity is different than drawing a mark on your hand in the hopes that you'll recognize you are dreaming in the unlikely event that you see the mark again in a dream You will most certainly see books about dreaming in your dreams and this is far superior to a mark on your hand for stimulating lucidity because you'll actually see the word "dream" in your dream You'll also start either seeing yourself writing down your dreams or feel the urge to write as part of your dream Thus, repetitive writing is the most powerful method for both stimulating dream recall and lucidity Action steps you can take tonight: Deliberately decide to record your dreams by consciously telling yourself that this is your intention It's as simple as mentally declaring, "I will record my dreams." Get in the habit of saying this at least once before going to sleep You can compound the effect by saying it several times throughout the day I also recommend that you deliberately decide that you will record your dreams for at least a year I've never done this myself, but some people find that writing out a contract with themselves helps ensure their success I would predict that after two or three nights, if not sooner, you'll already feel the impact on dream recall by simply following these steps That will likely be all the impetus you'll need to keep going Record the date for the following morning at the top of the page If you will be planning to write in the dark, it is best to always start on a fresh page so that you're sure you know where to start writing Leave the dream journal lying open so that it is ready to be written in Practice some form of relaxation as you settle into sleep I recommend pendulum breathing combined with progressive muscle relaxation I've included a chapter on these two practices further on in the book As your dream recall deepens, you'll find that you notice yourself slipping into a dream even before you fall asleep Although you may not be able to exercise any conscious control over these dreams, it is an amazing feeling and an excellent sign that lucid dreaming is nigh Action steps you can take tomorrow morning (or whenever you awaken with a dream-ripe mind ready for the harvest): Write your dreams in a linear format 2 Don't worry about any details or sequences you missed Jot out notes so you can add fuller descriptions later Stay in bed or at least in the bedroom for a while in order to see if any more dreams come to you Conversely, you can take your dream journal with you, but take care to return it immediately upon finishing any additional writing Far better is to use your supplementary notebook for recording additional dream sequences and fragments that come to you These can be compiled later Although some people who have written about dreams recommend that you record simple impressions, I recommend writing out your dreams as if they were a story Simply write them out as if you were telling them to a friend The details and sequences you need to add later are essentially "oh, and I forgot to tell you" additions The only difference is that you will tell the story in the present tense, as if it is happening as you are writing it This "immersion writing" will further stimulate dream recall If you are a writer of either fiction or non-fiction, writing in narrative prose is essential This will give practice in vignette composition and you'll discover unusual secrets about plot and transitions Some of the prose renditions you write may become the basis for short stories and novels Even if you never use the material of your dreams in your writing (we cover this in depth further on), you'll find yourself experiencing a deeper connection with your unconscious mind and its capacity for producing narratives You are essentially conditioning yourself to dream while you are awake and record the results in real-time Chapter Two: How to Use Your Dreams to Become More Visually Creative A lot of people who have encountered the Magnetic Memory Method get in touch and ask me about how they can increase their visual imagination abilities in order to better generate the associative imagery needed to memorize information like foreign language vocabulary and names and faces I've answered the question in all of my books and deepened my answers in the over 1000 pages of material about memory skills that I've written for the Magnetic Memory Newsletter All of those exercises can deeply improve your dream awareness, and I will summarize them for you here However, only now am I going to talk about how to use the things you see in your dreams to become more imaginative and visual overall and use this boost to experience greater success with mnemonic memory work if you choose to explore mnemonics (please - memory techniques, particularly Memory Palaces, are humanity's greatest invention) How to Experience General Boosts In Creativity and Imagination As I talk about in all my books, I am not "naturally" a visual person However, I don't believe in "nature," as such, and am constantly "hacking" what I seem to have been given by virtue of birth in order to improve it Thus, instead of accepting that I have "Imaginative Deficit Disorder," I worked on ways to improve my imagination The first step was to explore why I wasn't visual I analyzed a number of aspects of my life For example, when reading, I rarely imagined what characters or environments looked like I cared more about the conceptual elements of the plot I seem to just think about the story and often find myself skipping over descriptions in favor of the dialogue and cerebral descriptions of character thought processes I later read in Stephen King's On Writing that he often doesn't describe what characters look like because he assumes his readers will fill in the details regardless of how he describes them But I'm one of those people who never noticed this until he pointed it out because I don't visualize the characters at all unless I make a conscious and concentrated effort to so (and therein lies the key) Having identified this characteristic in my reading habits, it was a simple matter to start reading differently Although I've always been an avid reader, making an effort to "see" characters and environments opened up a whole new world to me Another piece of self-assessment I performed (and I hope you're selfassessing along with me) involved, not the consumption of creativity of others, but my own output I realized that I was only writing academic papers, and that the one published novel to my credit was severely cerebral (not to mention dozens of equally thought-based small press publications, none of which offer the reader much by way of a visual experience) It's not that it's a bad book, but because the book demands so much thinking as one reads, there is very little to "see"apart from the drawing on the cover And that is an interesting point because I "drew" that cover by tracing over an image of a person in a magazine I generated very little from my imagination apart from a few colors and bizarre additions Following a series of strange and bizarre events, I wound up teaching Film Studies Yes, as someone suffering Image Deficit Disorder, I wound up teaching students about the most visual artistic medium that exists because it can contain every other form of visual media Strange occurrences like these are the stuff of dreams, though again, I wad adept at discerning and talking about how the visual material developed plot, characterization and then sense of being lost in the narrative world of entertainment I also specialized in novel- film adaptations, which I think helped me compensate for the lack of internal visuality I brought to my reading experiences Later, I won a research grant to work in the Art History department of a German university just across the border from France where I had easy access to the Louvre via high speed train (it was literally less than two hours away) My research project? To study the use of famous paintings in novels that were later adapted into films In other words, dreams within dreams How fitting that a person lacking visual skills would find himself constantly studying the most visual of all the artistic mediums Knowing that I wanted to become more visual, I decided to take up drawing to help myself better understand how artists created their works Although it was hard work, I found myself becoming profoundly more visual as a result All of this artistic development more or less coincided with the experiments in recording my dreams using the methods discussed in the previous chapter Don't get me wrong: I have not become a professional artist, only more artistic, and in ways that deeply satisfy I can express myself through sketching and this practice has made me much more visual, a key ability for people using advanced memory techniques Drawing has also made me a better writer, 1) because the hand develops the mind and 2) I have a deeper appreciation of the visual world Before we turn to some exercises I have developed to become more visual using material culled from my dreams, here are a number of things you can starting today to become more visual 1) Examine how you read Do you actually "see" what you are reading? This question applies to both fiction and non-fiction If you read primarily non-visually, make a determined effort to see the characters and environments in the material you are reading Pause to close your eyes and literally build the imagery if it isn't coming to you with the desired ease You can start with an imaginary wire frame and pile on the clay if you find it helpful, or imagine that you are painting the scene Personal experimentation will demonstrate what works best for you 2) Examine how you watch films Are you absorbing all of the visual material, including the backgrounds? By paying closer attention to what can be called the "deep mise en scene," you will start seeing how filmmakers fill the visual field with hidden imagery meant to shape your viewing experience This practice alone will influence your dream recall (If you're interested in Film Studies, I have an online video course that teach you more in-depth about how to look at film It's hosted on Udemy, which is kind of like the Amazon of video courses.) 3) Visit art galleries I used to hate art galleries until I realized how useful they are when it comes to developing the visual imagination Art galleries are also excellent for developing Memory Palaces One of the great things about art galleries is that you can see the brush strokes, something that very few art books allow for Since so much of dreaming is about experiencing images in process, looking at paintings is an interesting means of seeing how artists have literally dreamt while awake You also get to see the paintings and other artworks in context You see how they've been framed, how they've been placed in relation to other paintings and how other people are perceiving them as they move around the art gallery The more consciously aware you become of these elements, the more visually aware you will be You can also bring along the notebook you use for writing down new dream memories that occur during the day to sketch copies of the paintings and drawings you encounter in the gallery 4) Look at art books This is great for looking at paintings and other artworks you can't physically visit You can also spend more time with the images, revisiting them again and again to study their intricacies 5) Pick an image from a novel For example, if you're familiar with Lord of the Flies, choose the conch Using an imaginary version of the room in which you currently sit, close your eyes and recreate that object in vivid and intense detail It's very important that you create the image in a room because using mentally reconstructed locations is the key to all memory efforts I've already been suggesting this all along with respect to the care needed in how you treat your bedroom, and this will only intensify as you continue developing your imaginative powers as part of stimulating dream recall In effect, the room is the canvas upon which you will paint this object in your imagination Could you simply imagine a canvas upon which to paint? Yes, but this would be largely ineffective in comparison for two reasons: * You have to spend mental energy to imagine the canvas in a way that is unnecessary when you base your mental room on a real location * You are going to "paint" your chosen image in dimensions In fact, you are both sculpting and painting it in order to complete the next stages of the exercise Once you have vividly created the image, be it a conch or some other object from a novel (a sword, ring, piece of characteristic clothing or treasure), the following: - Increase and decrease its size Make it so huge that it presses up against the walls of the room (bending and cracking them if you like), and make it so small that it practically disappears - Spend time working on the speed of the transformation Focus on actually seeing the object change sizes - Spin the object in space Left, right, in every possible direction Spend time seeing every detail of the object in your mind from every perspective - Mentally push the object around the room, both forwards and backwards - Shine light on the object Reduce the light around the object, again experimenting with the speed at which you imagine the transformations - Change the colors of the object Change the outer colors by working with the surface of the object, but also the inner glow Work with all the colors you can think of, and for bonus points, study a color wheel to become more educated about color combinations In this exercise, you've used an object from a novel This means that you had to invent what the object looked like based on your general understanding of what such a thing should look like If you chose a fantasy object from a Science Fiction novel, for example, then your creative work was that much more cut out for you and more rewarding The next step is to use an object from a movie This exercise allows you to relax your visual creativity because you don't have to "build" it based on an author's description But that doesn't make it any less challenging or rewarding Follow all of the steps above using this object that you've seen in a film Repeat the procedure with paintings In this case, however, I want you to choose a portrait, such as the Mona Lisa Recreate her in your room, but using the principle of constitution, build the rest of her figure Work on doing this with consistency Make the body you are adding congruent, using all of your powers of imagination to ensure that the height of the figure and the clothing match the head and shoulders you are able to see in the painting This is one of the finest exercises you can engage in if your goal is to better recall your dreams and improve your creativity The reason this exercise helps with dream recall and creativity is because you are learning to "fill in the details" based on the very strong likelihood of what this figure would look like As before, practice all of the other image manipulation exercises The next step is to examine your dreams for objects Don't skip to this step without spending dedicated time with the other exercises even though you will be strongly tempted to so It is absolutely key to your success with manipulating dream objects that you have practiced with other objects of both reality and the imagination Why? Because your dreams know and respond to your intent, as does the unconscious mind in general The more prepared you come to your dreams, the more prepared your dreams will be to serve In this case, the room you "build" in your mind for mentally manipulating your dream objects should be the room in which you sleep Any room or office will for the previous exercises, but in this case you want to compound your dream capital by keeping close to the room in which you sleep Try this: 1) Read your dream journal and find an object you have either mentioned or described Because this object is coming from your dreams, how it looks will likely be very familiar to you 2) Lay down in bed With eyes closed, hover the object over you Follow all of the procedures I've described At the risk of repetitive, here is the list of activities again: - Increase and decrease size of the object Make it so huge that it presses up against the walls of the room (bending and cracking them if you like), and make it so small that it practically disappears - Spend time working on the speed of the transformation Focus on actually seeing the object change sizes - Spin the object in space Left, right, in every possible direction Spend time seeing every detail of the object in your mind from every perspective - Mentally push the object around the room, both forwards and backwards - Shine light on the object Reduce the light around the object, again experimenting with the speed at which you imagine the transformations How to Reach the Next Level In the introductory exercise, I've limited you to objects When going through these manipulation exercises with material from your dreams, however, I encourage you to work with other dream elements as well You can isolate and play with, remembering to exaggerate the sizes and colors and "spin" the physical orientation from multiple angles * People: how they look, what they wear, what they say, how they sound, how they move, how they feel to the touch You should also include conversations you've had [As an aside: In our era, we have interesting possibilities with mediated communication as well For instance, last night I dreamed that my girlfriend sent me a text message that she would be late because she was going jogging with the president of a university where I use to teach The elements I have to work with from this dream include how the text looked on my phone and how she looked in my inner dream fantasy (in the jogging pants I pictured her wearing, she looked mighty fine indeed).] * Animals: how they look, sound, move and when applicable, how they feel * Plants: all of the above features apply, including how they grow and how they relate to the larger environment * Environment features and actions: wind, rain, snow, sunshine, etc * Occurrences: Birthdays, elections, funerals, school examinations, graduations, festivals This can also include mundane occurrences, such as a yearly dental exam, etc Just note that it is the scheduled occurrences we are focused on here more than the fact of visiting a doctor's office as a random dream element * Remarkable places: These can range from parks to shopping malls In principle, all places are remarkable, but we don't give them the attention they deserve when learning our personal dream lingo For example, I often dream of underground hospitals with various passageways I also often dream about train and subway stations, almost all of which involve underground tunnels By using the exercises I've been teaching you, I have come to see the connection between these two locations, suggesting that "tunnel-ness" or "underground-ness" are key features of my dream language and this essence of being under the earth may be more important to reflect upon than the fact that it is a hospital or a subway station This is one area where knowledge of literary symbolism can be interesting For instance, Northrop Frye has pointed out that in Western literature there is a deep symbolic connection between downstairs, the main floor and upstairs with hell, earth and heaven These associations emerge unconsciously in the literature (as well as films), but are very visible once you know the code Both the novel and film of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" will demonstrate this narrative-symbolic feature to you in detail, and this is just one example * Archetypes: Although I think the value of these are limited because dream symbols mean different things according to the dreamer and how he or she interprets them using the conditions of daily life (see the chapters on dream interpretation), it can still be interesting to notice an unusual preoccupation with elements such as crosses, money, books, weapons and so forth Take care that you not limit yourself to traditional interpretations of what these archetypes are so often said to mean Doing so risks robbing them of their unique power Conversely, we must be willing to accept that they may have no meaning at all As a saying that is often (and probably mythically) attributed to Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar With these exercises completed, imagine standing up and walking around the object You can float or fly around it like Peter Pan and touch it with your hands Keeping your eyes closed (after enduring the room is reasonably safe from dangerous obstructions), actually stand up and walk around the room Maximize your caution an try this only if you are confident of your safety Once you have gained familiarity with the eyes closed version of this exercise, practice doing it with your eyes open Of course, you will not actually be able to see the object in any literal sense, but it's worth going through the exercise as if you could see the objects because this will dramatically change how you think about physical space and the possibilities of injecting your imagination into it The applications are immense Whether you want to write more profoundly, deepen your artistic expressiveness or simply enjoy a greater appreciation of the creativity around you, these exercises will revolutionize your imagination When used in addition to the recall strategies discussed in the previous chapter, these creative processes will also stimulate your dreamtime experiences, saturating you in the worlds of your sleep, vast periods of time normally lost to us night after night On a final note, I have stressed the use of rooms based on actual locations for these exercises The reason has to with achieving the next level of dream mastery: the memorization of your dreams We take up this topic in the next chapter Chapter Three: The Art of Dream Memorization So far we have discussed advanced tactics for stimulating dream recall, recording our dreams and using our dreams to boost creativity Dream memorization is the next step, an advanced procedure that will enable you to keep the details of any dream you choose fresh in your mind for contemplation and analysis The techniques offered in this chapter will also deepen your dream experience, so should only be explored when you are prepared for what can amount to rather extraordinary consequences when it comes to selfrevelation and self-understanding The application of the Magnetic Memory Method to dream recall requires a small amount of self-analysis and the structuring of several Memory Palaces What are Memory Palaces? Memory Palaces are mental constructs based on real locations combined with an imaginary journey through the location in which you create several "stops" or "stations." There are many different stories about how the Memory Palace technique emerged, one of which is probably mythical If not mythical, it is certainly nightmarish Simonides of Ceos, invited to orate at a banquet, found himself the sole survivor after an earthquake leveled the building Because he had linked the attendees to where they were seated using memory techniques, he was able to help identify the corpses by essentially "journeying" from "station to station." Whether this story is true or not, no one can say, but it certainly demonstrates the core concept of the Memory Palace technique in a dramatic way As you'll soon discover, I've added a number of 21st century guidelines that make using the technique easier, more effective, elegant and fun If you've been following the exercises in this book, then you've essentially already built a tiny Memory Palace by creating an imaginary version of your bedroom or another location in order to mentally create and manipulate a variety of objects from your wakening imagination, the waking imagination of others and objects drawn directly from your dreams In this chapter, I will teach you how to build complete Memory Palaces that you can use to store core elements from your dreams based on themes that you will identify I will give you some examples of the themes I use, but ultimately, you will need to look deeply into your dreams and identify your own recurring themes The only problem - though it is a thoroughly interesting problem to have involved the vast number of themes you will start to find emerging in your dreams And the more you track your dreams, the more rich and diverse the themes will feel Nonetheless, you can exert some discipline and select a few core themes for the purpose of cataloging My themes, for example, include some of the following: Innocence Experience Spiritual Physical Rational Irrational Struggle Infidelity Death (You’ll see some more examples of theme labels I’ve used later on) If you write your dreams on index cards instead of in a journal, they are easy to gather together under certain headings in a shoebox I did this for some time and it made for some interesting cross-referencing possibilities Ultimately, however, it proved unwieldy and writing on cards instead of a journal does not feel like "narrative" writing That said, if you use the ideas in the chapter on using your dreams to write stories, then having dreams organized on index cards and filed under themes can be tremendously useful I still transfer exceptional dreams onto index cards for this purpose when I feel that their images and plot elements will come in handy for a story Regardless of how the dreams are physically stored, each of these themes is assigned a Memory Palace and when I find particularly rich dreams that I want to memorize, I assign it to a category and Memory Palace to which it essentially belongs, taking care not to be seduced by the numerous ways in which the dream could be cross-referenced As an aside, one of the remarkable aspects of dream recall involves the sensation that you've had a dream countless times before However, upon awakening and transcribing the dream, you'll find that you've never had the dream before It can be unsettling to realize the utter familiarity is actually irrevocably unique That said, locations often recur For example, I often live out detailed dreams in prisons and hospitals One hospital dream plagues me to this day because, even years later, I still feel like I had experienced the dream dozens of times before It took place in a university hospital on a bizarre campus But the fact remains that each and every hospital dream I've had occurred in a completely new location It is merely the fact of hallways, examination rooms and elevators that gives the feeling of repetition You may find this too amy time your dreams involve schools or other institutional buildings Thus, another option here is to catalog your dreams according to location This is particularly useful if you tend to see recurring places However, I've tried this and find that theme trumps location In essence, any theme can take place in a hospital, but only the word hospital serves as the organizational device, a place where anything can happen Then again, you could choose to analyze the themes that pop up in particular settings There are countless possibilities for exploration and yet building a network of Memory Palaces based on location may interfere with the ease of use because you're matching location with location instead of matching location with theme Chapter Four: How to build a Network of Memory Palaces for Storing Dreams in Your Mind Before we begin, please note that using Memory Palaces to memorize your dreams is not a replacement for writing them down If you memorize them without using your journal first, you will not only lose important details, but you won't have a record to check your memories against, nor will you have a depository of your personal dream symbols and a means of cataloging and cross-indexing them Finally, you won't be able to draw various elements from your dreams, an essential aspect of stimulating deeper dream recall and moving towards lucidity One of the best ways to build your first Memory Palace is to use your own home You can also use your workplace, school, church or any building with which you are familiar The important point is that you actually use a building because rooms give you a sense of containment for each dream In other applications of the Magnetic Memory Method, such as for memorizing massive amounts of foreign language vocabulary, you will use smaller "micro-stations" for storing words, but for dreams we use "macro-stations" only Whether you use your home or some other building, the next step is to create a mental journey throughout the home There are two major guidelines that you will need to follow in order to ensure maximum success in journey construction 1) Start in a "terminal location." In the Magnetic Memory Method, this means starting in a part of the building that ensures your journey can move forward without trapping yourself In most homes, this means starting in the master bedroom, or perhaps in the basement 2) Do not cross your own path If you start in the kitchen, but then have to double back in order to reach the bedroom, you are introducing confusion into a journey that needs to be clear, direct and as linear as possible I've made a video about avoiding Memory Palace confusion here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ6j5d7Dvgo Many people skip these important points and move throughout their Memory Palaces willy-nilly If you have any problems effectively navigating your Memory Palaces, then having neglected these two points may be the source Another reason we want to obey these guidelines is that Memory Palaces work wonders based on the fact that we can move from location to location without having to think about what comes next Some people respond in turn that these rules require them to think about what comes next along the journey, but following a simple preparation and predetermination stage, you'll find that your journey throughout the Memory Palace is secure and requires no further thought Let's look at a Memory Palace in detail As I draft this book, I am sitting in my office/bedroom (I know they say you shouldn't work where you sleep, but if you are a writer, I think this rule demands an exception when it comes to linking creativity with daily habits) This room serves as a station in the Memory Palace based on my home My roommate's bedroom is across the hall, followed by the washroom, the kitchen and the exit In total, this is a four station Memory Palace: Room/office Roommate's room Bathroom Kitchen (For information on how to "fit" a Memory Palace like this with dozens of stations for memorizing smaller items like foreign language vocabulary, I invite you to check out some of my other books or join the free Magnetic Memory Newsletter) In other homes, I have had up to ten rooms to work with, and using some of my schools and university campuses, I have created journeys of more than thirty full-room stations If you decide to use Memory Palaces to memorize your dreams, you will need to decide on how many themes you want to organize your dreams into and think about how many dreams per Memory Palace you want to maintain Unlike the foreign language vocabulary memory techniques I teach, dream memorization does not require the same length of retention, nor the same rehearsal strategies to ease the information into long term memory The sole reason we want to memorize our dreams using Memory Palaces is for the purposes of mulling them over and for ease of comparison as we so If you want to start building Memory Palaces for memorizing dreams, here are a set of action steps When these are completed, we can move on to the actual work (play, actually) of placing and memorizing the dreams Get relaxed Always take a moment to either meditate, some breathing exercises or engage in progressive muscle relaxation before doing anything related to dream work This will ensure maximum creativity and help overcome any and all resistances of the conscious mind Carefully exam the dreams you've been recording for themes Try to identify at least five, and if you have more, see if there are combinations you can create, such as "friends and enemies." The themes can be general themes, such as truth, death, love, etc or they can be based on action themes, such as running, swimming, working, evading, etc Keep in mind that the more specific your themes, the fewer dreams will fall under those headings It is rarely good to generalize, but this is one of those cases were it can serve a positive purpose You will have a highly specific set of themes based on your waking and dreaming life In addition, the themes will change over time, though you may discover an ability to influence the themes and even ask your dreams to answer questions or solve problems This practice of dream alchemy is perhaps an imperfect and dubious art, but I address it and report on my experiences nonetheless in the chapter on interpreting and influencing your dreams 3 Assign a location to each theme These locations should be buildings with at least 4-5 rooms If you want to merely flirt with the method, which is not necessarily recommended (in for a dream penny, in for a dream pound), start with just one Memory Palace and build it according to the principles discussed in this chapter In other words, create a mental journey that takes you from room to room along a linear path, one that obeys the rules of not trapping yourself in the Memory Palace and not crossing your own path Having created each journey with care, mentally travel them back and forth If you are basing one of your Memory Palaces on your home, you can experience an interesting boost by walking along the journey with your hands running along the walls For bonus points and a boost in your cognition skills, this exercise with your eyes closed This technique causes you to use different parts of your mind, thereby awakening what have likely become dormant centers of inactivity Go through your dream journal Select a small number of dreams you want to memorize, for example, one from each theme Lay in bed Read over one of the dreams and then close your eyes Mentally navigate to a Memory Palace This should be the specific Memory Palace you will use for storing the narrative and visual elements of that dream Go to the first room of the journey (or first "station," to use the terminology of the Magnetic Memory Method) Paint your dreams onto the walls Normally in mnemonics and the Magnetic Memory Method, we use associative-imagery to "encode" information with wild and crazy images that we can later "decode" by following our Memory Palace journeys and allowing the zany pictures to "trigger" the information we've placed at each station In this case, the dream material is usually sufficiently strange and we don't need to create artificial images to trigger recall Instead, we "paint" the dreams into our Memory Palace rooms by reliving the dream elements and projecting them onto the walls You can experiment with different approaches, such as literally seeing a paint brush applying the dream material to the walls or perhaps you will unroll them like wallpaper You could also explore hovering them in the center of the room as if they were a hologram As with all things using the Magnetic Memory Method, your personal experimentation as you apply the methods will show you what works best Revisit the dream It’s important to “rehearse” any information you’ve memorized and you should so repeatedly at regular intervals for as long as you want to have the information memorized In conclusion, the technique described in this chapter is advanced and I offer it for those dreamers serious about using memory techniques in combination with other aspects of dream work This aspect of the Magnetic Memory Method essentially asks you to take dreams out of your mind and then place them back in The dream material you work with will not be and cannot be the same as the dream you experienced, but this is still one of the highest level activities you can engage in when it comes to dream recall and exploration If you explore this technique - and I hope that you because it will take your dream experiences to an entirely new level - keep an eye out for multi-room buildings that you can use as Memory Palaces And if you would like to explore the topic of Memory Palaces further, please join the Magnetic Memory Newsletter for daily ideas about using the natural abilities of your mind to memorize just about anything Chapter Five: Day Journaling And Other Day Time Activities To Boost Dream Recall In previous chapters, I have suggested that you keep a notebook with you at all times in order to record various dream fragments that you will increasingly recall throughout the day, along with sketching to increase your visual creativity There are several other activities you can engage in that I would like to suggest The first thing you can with day writing is to revisit your handwritten dream journal and type the material into your computer This may sound laborious, but it is a tremendous technique for improving dream recall, studying your dream patterns and imagery and developing as a writer The second suggestion is creating a daily Top 10 list of great things that happened in the past 24 hours I suggest making it for the past 24 hours because that enables you to write the list at any time of the day, instead of doing it only before you go to bed You can also write out the list several times a day when warranted I've mentioned Richard Wiseman's 59 Seconds before, and it is in this wise tome that you can read about the scientific evidence that supports the main results of keeping such a list updated on a daily basis: increased happiness It has also been demonstrated that the effect occurs at higher levels when people write out their lists instead of merely thinking about them The hand builds the mind Although it sounds repetitive, it is never boring to list the great things that happened or things for which you feel grateful I find that certain things repeat again and again To demonstrate this, here is an example of a daily list with a note beside each so you can see what I always include compared to novel occurrences An * indicates that it is always part of my list, whereas a + means that it is a new experience I feel is noteworthy 1) Enough money * 2) A place to live * 3) Food * 4) Interview with 10 Year Old Memory Palace Master surpassed 1000 downloads + 5) Great morning with girlfriend + 6) Great letter from a reader experiencing success with the Magnetic Memory Method (over 699 words memorized!) + 7) Good sleep * 8) New book about dreaming in German language found for free Kindle download + 9) Weather (Note to reader: I often include a note about the weather, but certainly not everyday Sometimes it truly is hard to appreciate no matter how positively I choose to approach the world ) 10) Found time to practice bass + (this is one I wish I could list far more often) Some people call such lists gratitude lists and I once did so as well Presently, I don't call this activity anything at all I just it and I hope you will too, particularly if you're a person who experiences depression and extended periods of sadness This is a fantastic - and scientifically validated - means of increasing your happiness, if not producing overwhelming joy The next strategy I would recommend is to write out your future desires on a daily basis This will have several useful effects 1) You will clearly identify what you want in life Daily writing about it helps refine the vision and deepen the clarity of your desires 2) By writing your wishes daily, you will quickly determine if what you write is what you truly want Not only will you thoroughly convince your unconscious mind that this is something that you want, but you'll convince yourself because it takes dedication and passion to write something down every day It's the same dedication and passion you'll need to manifest what you want 3) You'll ensure that what you're dreaming of obtaining is actually for yourself and not someone else For example, it took me several months of writing out my goal of buying an ocean-side home was actually something I wanted to give a former girlfriend Although I think I always knew at some level that my desire to achieve this material possession for her was driven by the same biological need that forces a bird to build a nest, writing out this goal for several months gradually showed me that I wasn't really interested in fulfilling this wish at all (and it turns out that the wish wasn't really all that important to her after all), but preferred to live in Berlin and play in a band (which I wound up doing) Thus, writing out your future wishes can have the great effect of talking you out of pursuing a goal by demonstrating that it's either not something you want or that it's something you're doing to fulfill another person's wish, which is inauthentic and potentially destructive I once heard Dean Jackson say that all wealth is in writing and I've found this to be true This statement does not refer to writing that you sell (although writing certainly can be lucrative), but the writing that you to explore your ideas and flesh them out to their fullest possible dimensions and it truly is something that must be done daily in order to ensure that you are experiencing the necessary depth It also needs to be written by hand, not merely thought about You will always benefit from connecting a physical process to the externalization of the thoughts in your mind You can also ponder what goals are truly appropriate to have For example, for long periods of time I was tremendously specific about what I wanted my future to be like I wrote down how many rooms the home I wanted would have and the precise amount of money I would have in my bank account But I've since come to feel that this is ineffective and tantamount to trying to force the universe to make my son or daughter have blue eyes merely by writing the wish down as if it were a command I have since started wishing for things that I really want in general in my writing and openly allow for spontaneity and chance to dictate the rest For example, I no longer describe what kind of home I will have I merely assume that it will be great and write about my desire for health instead (both physical and mental) I no longer write a financial number, but describe my wish for joy and abundance instead After all, what does the precise number matter if I'm getting what I want out of life From one way of looking at things, the precise number does matter because it can help guide the conscious and the unconscious mind in interesting and important directions On the other hand, having a precise number can blind you to the glory of what you've been achieving and prevent you from enjoying the present state of the journey I've resolved this dilemma for myself by choosing to write daily that my income will exceed my lifestyle by 10 times (another nice idea I learned from Dean Jackson, in this case his “I’ll know I’m successful when” list) So far so good, and I have experienced far greater pleasure watching my financial future grow under this model than I ever did when I was writing large figures every day They became more frustrating than helpful In other words, your daily dream/wish writing can include general specifications and help ensure that you are enjoying the here and now instead of focusing entirely on the future, which is a constantly changing and nebulous space Please note that in recommending this procedure to you, I am not talking about the so-called Law of Attraction Although these activities will almost certainly make you happier and teach you a great deal about what you actually want for your life, these will not in and of themselves bring you your desires You will need a pick, you will need a shovel and you will need a treasure map In other other words, effort will be involved beyond the words On the matter of treasure maps, let me tell you two stories about them before I encourage you to make one as another supplemental daily activity you can engage in to enrich and enliven all aspects of your life, especially your dreams I first encountered the idea of treasure maps in what I fondly call "Job School." After finishing a major research grant in Germany and experiencing tremendous difficulties finding a new teaching position back home in Canada, I found myself unemployed and floundering Although applying for it felt tremendously awkward given my recent heights as an honored professor - I was granted the enviable "Professor Doctor" title while in Germany, normally reserved only for people who complete a habilitation and jump through other thoroughly admirable hoops beyond the basic PhD - I was accepted into a job search training program hosted by the government that came with a small stipend I learned a great deal in Job School and met a few interesting people, even though I found keeping a positive attitude sometimes rather difficult During one class, we were taught to make a treasure map, literally a series of images meant to represent what we hope to achieve in our lives The instructors brought in a pile of magazines, scissors, construction paper and glue Completely unable to take the exercise seriously and incapable of connecting with the images in the fashion and lifestyle magazines, I created an abstract, Dada-esque monstrosity that would have made Picasso wince (but also proud) Although I didn't realize it at the time, the image perfectly expressed how lost I was in the world Later, after finding work in a small, after-school program for exceptional students called ELIT, the owner Haydee Windey raised the topic of treasure maps again I told her about my experience with making one in Job School, and we shared a good laugh about it However, it took several more conversations about the topic before I made one By this time, I had already been experiencing great results with my daily writing (mostly learned from Richard Wiseman's 59 Seconds, but also from multiple other sources I've adapted from over the years) I made my first treasure map after Haydee and I attended an "Idea Party" in Vancouver As the host told us, Idea Parties come from a book called Wishcraft by Barbara Sher At the time of writing, this book is available for free at wishcraft.com, and I recommend it to you highly (It's worth pointing out that "Sher" sounds a lot like both "sure" an "share," so be sure to take advantage of this free resource Barbara Sher is sharing with you) At this particular Idea Party, each participant took the stage for ten minutes and described their dream goal When they finished speaking, the audience would respond by furnishing ideas to help that person achieve their goal One of Sher's basic principles is that many of us never achieve our dreams because we try to go it alone, and by attending an Idea Party, you not only get to hear feedback on your dreams, but also connect with like-minded people who can help you One this particular evening, a woman who needed finding for an invention, for example, wound up meeting a potential investor My dream? At that moment, I wasn't prepared to tell the truth, but that's only because I didn't know it One of Sher's fundamental premises is that we don't follow our dreams because we're not honest with ourselves about what we really want As I've already mentioned, I had deluded myself into thinking that I wanted to provide a home for someone against my own wishes At the time I was perfectly capable of defending the decision and would not be swayed even though I myself knew there was something wrong about it But it's not necessarily so easy My criticism of the idea that we aren't honest without ourselves about our wishes is that life is more complex than that Does anyone ever really have just one wish? And is every wish truly something that we want, or just a fantasy? As the interesting psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan pointed out, sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality This is a terrible realization I have definitely experienced myself and probably you have too The duplicity and multiplicity of wishes can be solved by the daily writing rituals I've already described These exercises will help you truly determine just how earnestly you want to achieve something Writing your goals daily will become the greatest teacher and coach In any case, even though I wasn't prepared to share my real desire at the Idea Party, confronting myself in that moment of resistance and fear put me much closer to honesty with myself and eventually getting on track with my true wishes and dreams In combination with writing my goals on a daily basis, I have shaped a fulfilling life from what used to be a pit of depression Importantly, I've also learned to see how my desires change over time and be reflexive and responsive to the changes I've also been able to consciously track the fear-based needs of the ego, which is constantly standing nearby, looking for every chance to force its way in and involve me in projects and laborious activities that falsely promise the security and comfort that the ego needs in order to deny the certainty of death The truth is that following your dreams is the safest place to be Now it's your turn Put these exercises to work and you will not only dream with increased depth, recall and vigor for life, but you will shape your future based on the fullest possible understanding of your true desires Chapter Six: How to Sleep In And Still Remember & Memorize Your Dreams Sometimes you just want to sleep in Indeed, regularly (daily, for maximum effect) waking up to record your dreams can deprive you of an hour's sleep or more Although I recommend that you spend at least months physically writing down your dreams in your journal, in this chapter I'll teach you to "write" your dreams into the room you're sleeping in so that you can rest longer and still experience massive dream recall Again, I recommend using this technique only after becoming adapt at the main dream memory techniques taught in this book To prepare, divide your bedroom into quadrants of walls and corners I have 8: The four corners The center of each wall Decide on a starting point I always use the Northeast corner because it's the closest to my head I then move from station to station away from my head until I circle back to it Upon awakening, I "place" the first dream I can remember in the corner, usually by reducing it to a few simple elements For instance, in the examples I give below from a single morning of dream recall, I reduced the first dream to an image of a mountain and a raft I see the images in the corner in very bright and vivid colors, exaggerating everything as intensively as I can before moving on Later, when I write out the dream, these initial images will trigger the entire dream, though again these triggers work so effectively because I have rigorously trained my mind to Magnetize these images I suggest you spend time with the initial stages of dream recall before expecting the same results with this advanced technique Just as you will often recall new details when writing out your dreams and need to note them or add them later, this will happen when you create images along these stations for recall later In order to ensure that I've got all the images I need for all the dreams I can recall upon awakening, I make more than one pass In other words, I circle the room, or as much of the room as I have used at least three times to make sure that I have left enough triggers for myself Read through the examples below I have described five dreams that I was able to recall and memorize using this method immediately upon awakening I took a total of three passes, but only two were necessary and the fourth path was used to write out the dreams themselves in a single setting I have labeled each dream so you can see an example of labeling in action and I have included a new dream fragment that arose as I was writing out these dreams I don't know exactly where in the sequence of dreams this fragment occurred, but I'm very glad to have it because I may be able to piece it in later or otherwise use some of its elements in a story sometime North East corner: Initial image: mountain with green diamond On a raft with girlfriend Theme label: lost The dream begins with a visual animated graphic of British Columbia and its trees All of the trees have been reduced to a small green diamond on a single mountain An amimator then says that this is just one part of British Columbia and I think this makes more sense as the visual field extends and I realize that my girlfriend and I are looking at the mountain from a small raft We're floating on a river surrounded by small islands The sky is exceedingly blue and we both remark upon how beautiful it is It dawns on me that we are in the middle of nowhere and getting more and more lost every second Our cellphones will not work and I start to envision helicopters that will never come to rescue us I think about my father Middle of north wall: First pass: girlfriend in gas station uniform Second pass: long blue car In this dream, I am walking with my girlfriend after getting off the streetcar She is dressed in a thick uniform with a heavy winter jacket She could have been a security guard Eventually she disappears and I arrive at a gas station where I am picking her up from work She seems embarrassed when her co-worker appears, as if I'm not to know that she sometimes works with a man, spending long hours together in the tiny gas station store The two of them stand close together to talk with someone who approaches the door, blocking my view I am an excluded party Eventually, my girlfriend says we can leave We encounter a blue car from the 50s It's long and blue and has suicide doors It needs fixing and somehow she knows the solution and can fix it only by driving it I'm reluctant to get in, but nonetheless, we both slide into the back seat When the car won't start (why would it when we're in the back?), we poke our heads out and see that the front passenger tire is flattened This car isn't going anywhere Dream label: infidelity Northwest corner: I am at a party and meet a dark skinned girl She stands awfully close to me and there is a small amount of flirtatious petting Although I participate, I am deeply reluctant She talks about how great our relationship is and really wants to deepen it somehow In the dream, I am very recently in a seriously committed relationship with my current, reallife girlfriend It takes me awhile, but I eventually tell the dark-skinned girl that we can't see each other anymore because I am serious about my girlfriend Dream label: infidelity Middle of west wall: First pass: An old academic friend of mine enter a street car Second pass: He makes a joke with the streetcar operator about math The streetcar operator is offended Third pass: the driver steps out, sits down on a passenger seat and listens to me explain my friend's mathematical joke as I try to convince him that it really was just a joke South west corner: From the street car I enter a restaurant where a blond is ordering a large meal She doesn't have enough money so starts striking items from the list I want to offer her five Euro so she can get what she wants, but something holds me back Dream label: money Additional note: at some point in these dreams I am asked by an authority for my passport Since I normally not carry it with me, I am surprised to find it in my pocket after telling the authority it is most certainly at home She is happy that I am able to present it, but lectures me nonetheless that I should always have it on me when living in a foreign country In sum, this is a very powerful, effective and fun way to recall and memorize your dreams for visiting later if you want to sleep in I hope you will work your way up to this level of skill and let me know about your progress by emailing me at learnandmemorize@zoho.com Chapter Seven: What To Do If You Simply Cannot Remember Your Dreams Or Backslide On Your Night Writing Let me be frank: Skipping a day can have retrograde effects on your dream recall efforts As with playing a musical instrument, daily practice will take you much further than weekly sessions However, whereas you can get away with missing a few days here and there with an instrument, your muscle memory will carry you through and you can quickly get up to speed within a few days of regular practice, if not a few short session in a single day It is, as they say, "just like riding a bike," which works because so many of the large muscles of the body learn and memorize the procedure Although you may be shaky at first after not riding for five or ten years, it won't take long for muscle memory to kick in With dream recall, the muscles in your mind operate differently Daily conditioning and regular patterns are the brain's bread and butter So how we achieve this conditioning? In a word, persistence Whereas Salvador Dali titled his famous painting "The Persistence of Dreams," we're dealing with the persistence of writing our dreams down One of the benefits of writing down the date of the following morning before you go to sleep goes beyond telling your unconscious mind that you intend to recall and write down your dreams It also creates a chain that you'll be able to see in your dream journal To strengthen the chain, you can place a paper calendar that shows the entire month beside your dream journal You can place a very visible mark on it so that you see the chain every day and each time you "break the chain," you'll see it in glaring, obvious detail "Don't break the chain," is a term from Jerry Seinfeld who apparently has a large calendar on his walk that he uses to draw big fat X marks on each day he spends time on writing comedy The goal of the game is not to break the chain regardless of whether you feel like writing or not They say that it takes only 29 days to form a habit for life In my experience, 29 days is the gateway drug, but not the battle won In fact, the study from which this 29-day figure comes actually states something more akin to the idea that it is only after 29 days that you will begin to truly experience the real benefits of a positive habit The real figure for developing a habit for life is 90 days Persistence, persistence, persistence How to develop it? Easy Allow yourself to fail In fact, expect that it's going to happen and accept the inevitability of missing a day or two here and there I believe that by giving yourself permission to fail on a daily goal in advance, you are effectively giving your mind permission to succeed It's the purest form of reverse psychology because you perform it on yourself That said, if you miss a day, it's important not to let it extend, because one day can all too easily transform into two days and before you know it, a month has gone by and you haven't written down a single dream Unfortunately, this will get you nowhere The only thing to be done is to get back up on the horse Six days out of seven is still excellent and I not believe this will interfere with the 90 day rule However, what about if you fail to remember a dream? No matter how adept you get at dream recall, this will happen from time to time, particularly if you skip days and most certainly if you skip two in a row The answer is remarkably simple: Write something down upon awakening Anything will in order to create the valuable muscle memory that will condition your body to automatically assume the writing position upon awakening, but writing on a dream-related topic will achieve this conditioning and feed into your dream recall efforts Here are some dream-related topics you can elaborate upon: * Why you think you were unable to remember your dreams on this occasion * How you feel about not remembering any dreams * Any stories or images that come to mind immediately upon awakening * A brief narrative description of the room you sleep in and any relevant details about the person you share it with Focus on loving that person in your writing, not griping if they unintentionally or even intentionally disturbed your sleep With the exception of honestly recording whatever may have occurred in your dreams, never associate negativity with your dreams * Write about what you could at some point during the day in order to stimulate greater dream recall (such as visiting Amazon to browse for books about dreaming, visiting a new location to collect new Memory Palaces for memorizing your dreams, reviewing and typing up the dreams in your journal, using one or more of your dreams to develop a short story, novel or screenplay (see the chapter on writing narratives based on the material in your dreams for more information about that) Reading this book will certainly help stimulate dream recall, and as I've suggested, reading as many books about dreaming as you can will also teach your unconscious mind about your longing for this experience This includes hanging dream related images in places where you will regularly see them You can also follow all of the creativity exercises in this book to become more visual, and start a dream journal even if you don't recall your dreams You can write each morning about why you think you don't remember your dreams You can also write a quick story based on the first thing that comes to mind If you don't feel like you are a writer of stories, take the novel you are currently reading or a film you've just scene and re-arrange the details For example, if you just saw a production of King Lear, describe a version of the story by imagining what it would be like if King Lear were a woman, or a lawyer or even a horse Doing exercises like these will teach your mind that you are prepared to write something down each and every morning using the materials available to you Your mind will eventually surrender dreams to you and the long game of dream recall will begin Remember the following statement because it applies to many areas of your life: where preparation meets opportunity, there is no ceiling on the great things that can happen Although I not recommend making marks on your hands in order to instigate lucidity, if you desperately wish to remember your dreams, you can experiment with writing commands on your hands, such as "recall" on the palm of the left hand and "dreams" on the palm of the right Although I think it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever see these writings on your hand within a dream and go lucid, constantly encountering the command throughout the day will likely stimulate your mind to start recalling dreams These are explicit commands, and are quite different than the implicit suggestions that your mind should recall dreams created by leaving dream related books and images around the places you frequent, on your desktop, etc The important thing is to be scientific by tracking results and to be persistent by going the distance A final step you can take involves undergoing general memory training You're already getting that in this book, but there are dozens of other books on memory available, so I invite you to download my Memory Training Consumer Awareness Guide for help in selecting the best possible memory training information product Whereas simply having a bunch of books about dreaming around will focus both your conscious and unconscious mind on dreaming and stimulate greater dream recall, having memory books, audio programs and video courses lying around will never improve your memory, so you need a top quality memory training product and one that you will actually use Go here now download my free guide: Put these suggestions into play and watch your dream recall soar, even if you occasionally skip a day or experience a morning where you simply cannot recall anything Chapter Eight: The Triggers of Lucid Dreaming There are several types of lucid triggers that you'll begin to notice while dreaming after regularly engaging in the exercises you've learned in this book that can cause full-blow lucidity: * Seeing yourself writing your dreams * Feeling the need to write your dreams down * Remarking upon how you've experienced a particular element of a dream before (see example below) * Experiencing inner-dream deja vu, the feeling that you're having this dream again for the second time that night or that you've had it dozens of times before, either that night or on previous nights at some previous in your life (Although the feeling can be extremely intense, it may not be actually true.) All of these are triggers of lucid dreaming, but that doesn't mean they will trigger the experience Whether they or not, it's important to write these instances down Here's an example in which I've done that from my personal dream journal: "Band that I think sings "into temptation" takes to the stage after talking with them for some time (and something to with heavy metal guitars and the scene) Singer with grey beard on the right announces he's retiring from singing (he looks more like a mixture of Peter Gabriel and Pete Townsend than anyone actually in the band) The industry is too "razor sharp" for him, he says (I compare this with my experiences with The Outside) then he and his partner sing brilliantly well, making it extremely emotional to know that this will be the last time anyone will hear him sing with his band live again They walk off and halfway down the street pause to receive massive applause (particularly from a balcony with some people all dressed in black where an earlier part of the dream took place but can't recall - and maybe it actually didn't but this was a lucid trigger) Immediately after the singer and band disappear, people run after them and speed in cars with murderous intent shouting "kill them" (sending Sergio my awareness letter, linking to the outside) The dream switches to a documentary about how pay phones of the future will be free, but reveals all the attempts they'll make to try to incur charges The dream is incredibly specific and filled with graphic animations detailing each and every charge." As you can see, I've made several notes to myself here, both for reflection (see the chapter on interpretation) and to note a trigger lucidity In the case of my inter-dream comparison of the singer's statement that the music industry is too "razor sharp" and my own experiences in a band, it is both something to interpret later, but also a lucidity trigger because I am essentially beginning to interpret what the dream means while I'm still in it I haven't become fully aware, but dream awareness is emerging There is not much more for me to say about lucid dreaming that hasn't been covered in other places I personally not believe that you can meet other lucid dreamers in some kind of shared dream space while they are also lucid dreaming I'm certainly open to having such experiences, but find it unlikely and the scientific checks and measured required to confirm that this is actually happening would be elegant enough and rather easy to set up with the help of 4-5 mediators However, the fickle nature of lucid dreaming make the process unwieldy and it could take years of close monitoring to establish a single hit I believe it would be easier to chase a ghost, another phenomenon about which I am beyond 100% skeptical As a final thought on lucid dreaming, I think it is worth tracking the triggers, but not with the intent of forcing them to happen A scientifically detached process of observation will produce more dividends over the long run In addition, one should keep in mind the perspective one of my spontaneous dream mentors gave me (spontaneous dream mentors are people with whom you speak about dreaming who give you some deep insight about dreaming) This dream mentor told me that he never wanted to go lucid because he can already control so much of his waking reality Dreaming is the place you go to experience strange and new scenarios over which you have no control Part of this person's definition of lucid dreaming involves the idea that lucid dreaming means being in control of the dream, which may or may not be your experience For others, lucid dreaming will simply be the awareness that you are dreaming and/or the sense of embodiment in the dream, of really being in your dream body, possibly with the feeling that you could control your dream or your actions within it if you wished Either way, I think this dream mentor's perspective is sound and we all need to consider whether or not lucid dreaming is a fruitful pursuit But that is ultimately a question you cannot answer until you've experienced lucidity for yourself, In sum, to get started on the path to lucidity, simply start writing down any triggers you notice by making conscious notes about them as you record your dreams You can it as I've done in the preceding example using parentheticals, or jot notes in the margins The more you develop this awareness in your writing, the more you'll condition yourself to be aware of the triggers in your dreams (and have your unconscious mind conspire to bring them to you) It's a very powerful circle that takes no extra time and the effects are riveting Chapter Nine: Dream Recall, Meditation And Relaxation I used to be a tremendously anxious person My mind never slowed, I had difficulties falling asleep and I would bolt awake almost every morning with my mind already running circles It was incredibly difficult to get back to sleep when woken by a noise and what it felt like to sleep in was a complete mystery to me Now, however, I fall asleep with absolute ease using three distinct skills I can extend my sleep when I wish and drop into a state of deep relaxation at any time in less than a minute With a very small amount of practice, you can too The story of how I developed meditation and relaxation skills is filled with interesting twists and unusual events, but I'll save the history for another time The important thing is to give you these tools as quickly as possible so that you can integrate them into your dream practice and improve all aspects of your life by limiting stress and creating extended states of relaxation and inner peace There is no particular order of importance to these skills, but for maximum effect, I suggest that you learn all three They are easy, elegant and fun Meditation Meditation is not rocket science A the most basic, and likely most effective level, it involves nothing more than sitting and paying attention to your thoughts Meditation is not about shutting your thinking off or sitting like a silent stone It is about concentrating it on particular kinds of thought Let's look at some of these: 1) Breath Thinking about breathing is a great meditative exercise and one that can be extended to non-meditative states (which in fact makes your "normal" state of consciousness partially meditative, an ideal position to be in) One way to think about your breathing is to concentrate on evening the flow of oxygen in and out Using a count is especially effective and you can vary the length and depth of the exchange For example, try the following cycle - Inhale for a count of one, exhale for a count of one - Inhale for a count of two, exhale for a count of two - Inhale for a count of three, exhale for a count of three Continue lengthen the count up to ten and then reverse the count (Note: you can perform this breathing exercise as part of a walking meditation or even a slight jog if you wish It can also be combined with meditative push-ups with some practice) Another way to focus on the breath during meditation is called "psychic nostril breathing." This involves simply imagining that oxygen is flowing into the right nostril and out the left nostril for one cycle and then reversing the process Repeat as often as desired 2) Visible shapes using open eye meditation You can focus on the shapes of things and study them in conjunction with concentration on the breath For example, if there is a table in the room, stare at one corner and simply allow your eyes to focus and defocus on the shape Your thoughts not have to be mystical, but merely fascinated by how the table occupies space and by how features such as a corner interact with the surrounding air, the walls of the room, the floor and any number of other features Bedposts, musical instruments, picture frames and any other feature of a room work Doing this just for the sake of doing it can feel tremendously peaceful and quiet the mind 3) Imaginary shapes using closed eye meditation In this exercise, best used in conjunction with one of the breathing exercises described above, close your eyes and create an image of a shape Start with something simple, such as a circle, square or triangle I find triangles to be particularly effective and interesting to meditate upon You can play with changing the size, shape and color as well as animating your shape with movement vertically, horizontally and by rotating it as a 3D sphere, prism or cube 4) The elephant meditation It has been said that stilling the mind is like trying to tie down an elephant: when it wants to move, it moves I have found this to be a great meditative exercise Conceive of your thoughts as an elephant and try to hold them in place When they move, reassert your grip You don't have to use an elephant to complete this exercise You can try and stop a hamster from running in his wheel, stop water from leaking through or spilling over a dam, or mentally preventing a volcano from exploding Any visual representation that comes to mind that involves holding something in place as a metaphor for holding your thoughts in place will provide you a great meditative exercise 5) The "what next?" meditation Eckart Tolle mentions in The Power of Now (highly recommended, even for people who can't stand self-help books) that you can exert gentle control over your thoughts by simply asking, "what will I think of next?" In principle, this is a conceptual version of the elephant meditation, one that allows you to note the precise nature of the inevitable thoughts that will arise, label them nonjudgmentally and then return to the question A great deal of joy and unintended, but enjoyable humor can arise from this exercise You can also extend this exercise to everyday life when you encounter yourself in a vortex of negative thinking or worry about the future You can ask, ideally in good humor and with a touch of irony, "what terrible, nasty, irrational and destructive thought about (insert specific concern) will my mind serve me next When the next negative thought arises, label it non-judgmentally and return to the question With respect to meditation, the point is not to stop thinking, but to exert gentle control over the kinds of things you think about This is tremendously freeing and relaxing, especially when conducted in conjunction with a breathing exercise You'll also learn a great deal about yourself and realize that there is a division between you and your thoughts The more you explore this division, the more you will enjoy living in the world, the easier it will be to cope with life's problems and all of this mentally-generated separation between your body and your mind has direct application to how you dream Note: there is no true separation between the body and the mind because the brain that produces the mind is part of your body Nonetheless, you can "hack" the "Matrix," so to speak, by using these meditative exercises as a means of feeling the connection between the body and the mind and shaping the ways the torrents of thought created by the body by default can be calmed, soothed, silence and, however temporarily, tied down through metaphorical images or repeated inquiry Over time, the influence you can assert will deepen incredibly, as well as your dream recall and these two areas will work together to enhance your life in many ways you cannot conceive until you start consistently implementing these techniques Pendulum Breathing Although Pendulum Breathing connects to the breathing exercises discussed in the previous section, it deserves its own section If you’ve ever seen a pendulum, then you know that there is an interesting moment at the end of each cycle where the pendulum seems to hang for an instant and then move a little bit more in the first direction before falling back the other way It does this back and forth Pendulum Breathing works much in this way To start with Pendulum breathing, fill your lungs normally, and then pause slightly Instead of exhaling, breathe in a little bit more Let the breath out naturally and pause Instead of inhaling, exhale out a little bit more By circulating your breath in this way, you are “swinging” the air like a pendulum This practice will reduce stress in your overall life once you are used to doing it, but if you nothing else, implement pendulum breathing in your memory work This method of breathing makes Memory Palace construction and the generation of images and associations so much easier because you are putting yourself in a kind of oxygenated dream state At first, it may seem difficult to concentrate on both your breathing and doing imaginative Memory Palace building In some ways, it is like being a drummer who is creating three or four different patterns, one for each limb With practice, the ability will come to you The best part is that this form of practice is incredibly relaxing Progressive Muscle Relaxation Progressive Muscle Relaxation is relatively well-known, and yet so few people practice it The work is simple: sit on a chair or lie down on a bed or the floor Next: 1) Point your toes upward and hold 2) Point your toes towards the wall and hold 3) Flex your calves 4) Flex your thighs 5) Flex your buttocks 6) Flex your stomach muscles, lower back muscles, chest and shoulders (all core muscles) 7) Flex your hands, forearms and upper arms 8) Flex your neck, your cheeks and the muscles surrounding your eyes Practice Pendulum Breathing as you this, or at least work to conjoin the flexing movements with your breathing By supplementing your dream recall practice with personal experimentation in each of these areas of relaxation, you will profoundly shape your ability to recall and memorize dreams with ease Your daytime focus will deepen, your sense of awareness and embodiment will increase and you will bring relaxation with you everywhere you go Conclusion Your dream journal will become like an Embassy as you travel in the foreign, but familiar countries of the night Each morning you will renew your dream passport, so to speak, stamping it with a dated "sigil" of precisely what happened during your visit In this sense, dream recall is "via regia," the royal road to finding yourself, understanding your intentions and making positive change in your life Dreaming is absolutely essential to your life Like breathing and blinking, it happens to you automatically And like breathing and blinking, you can consciously influence how often and how deeply these actions occur by concentrating on what you want to happen Although it takes more effort to write out your dreams on a daily basis than it does to keep your eyes closed, the principle remains the same: dreaming is something that happens to you and is an experience you can shape by using technology as simple as a pencil and paper in collaboration with the natural abilities of your mind I have been cautious throughout this book about making extraordinary claims about the ability to make your dreams provide you with answers to questions and problems Nonetheless, I truly believe that by using the simple, interpretive tools in this book, you will create a portal into the wisdom of your unconscious and use it to dramatically improve the quality and value of the decisions you make in your life I've also equipped you with the ability to use your dreams to become more visually creative and to mine your mind for countless plots and images that you can use to write stories, novels and screenplays that feature truly complex and compelling material that the conscious mind rarely has the ability to craft on its own Whether you write fiction based on your dreams or not, this book has given you the ability to design a daily rhythm that will bring greater continuity to your life The positive effects will be felt in many areas, such as mood, consistency of focus and the depth of attention you bring to your daily activities As part of this book, I’ve also introduced you to Memory Palaces, which you can use to memorize anything, and for more information about these amazing mental constructs, I invite you to visit www.magneticmemorymethod.com where you’ll find a resources page, free videos, an invitation to join the Magnetic Memory Method newsletter and MP3 downloads of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast In sum, dream recall will revolutionize both how you sleep and how you spend your waking hours You now have an incredible tool to take with you on your quest for inner piece Before I leave you to explore the world of your dreams and how they can benefit each and every aspect of your life, I want to leave with 14 dream principles Use these to further intensify your exploration of night writing Discipline means writing down your dreams even if you don't feel like it I've given you the tools needed to memorize a large number of dreams so that you can stay in bed longer if you wish, but these still need to be written down on the same day in order to achieve the maximum effect of a dedicated practice of dream recall Invest your focus in developing conversations with your dreams regardless of whether or not you achieve states of lucidity Instead of writing weird marks on your hands to induce (or try to force) lucidity, simply let lucidity come In fact, take an indifferent stance If you follow the steps discussed in this book, you'll have far more extraordinary experiences than lucidity on its own can ever offer To repeat, as a dream friend of mine said, he doesn't want to control his dreams He loves to dream precisely because he experiences the boundless creativity of his mind during periods where he is not in control Just get started Nothing will happen if you wait And there's always a reason to wait, usually several You need to combat this wide field of reasons not to get started by taking the first steps right now Review this book and start with step number one today so that you can start seeing results sooner rather than never 4 You have control over the quality and depth of effort you put into developing dream recall Don't let anyone else discourage you I neither suggest or speak against telling others about your dream recall efforts, but if you talk about it, never let anyone's disinterest or outright negative responses shake you from the Magnetic Memory Path to dream recall Negative thoughts are as deadly as junk food, so avoid them when you can, but definitely don't consume them just because they're around You can consciously deflect the junk and then listen to your dreams to see how your unconscious has also worked to cleanse itself of negativity Be enthusiastic about the dreams, stories and images that your dreams bring you Never undervalue anything you see or hear in a dream You are receiving a part of yourself and need to honor the nighttime cinema of your mind so that it continues to bring you amazement and wisdom Congratulate yourself on your progress Most people never bother to implement the skills and strategies they learn about in books, audio programs and video courses But you are a person of amazing depth and character and should commend yourself for taking the necessary steps to improve your nighttime experiences and explore your dreams in order to better your daytime life You deserve self-respect and self-admiration and you certainly have mine Practicing dedicated recall means solving problems Although you may never receive clear answers, and there may be no direct way to reliably interpret them, the act itself is an act of growth and a means of redefining exactly what your mind considers a "problem" to be Do good things in your life so that you can good things in your dreams and create a feedback loop of goodness between the two These principles will serve you well, and when they do, please be sure to get in touch by emailing me at learnandmemorize@zoho.com Sincerely, Anthony Metivier Berlin 2014 About the Author Anthony Metivier completed his BA and MA in English Literature at York University in Toronto, Canada He earned a second MA in Media and Communications from The European Graduate School in Switzerland while completing a PhD in Humanities, also from York As the author of scholarly articles, fiction and poetry, he has taught Film Studies in Canada, the United States and Germany He plays the electric bass For more books information on Anthony Metivier’s unique approach to memory improvement, visit: http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com SECRET BONUS SECTION #1 To thank you for reading this book, I want to give you a few special bonuses Think of this section as one of those hidden tracks some artists put at the end of their CDs When I teach memory skills in a live setting, I haven’t got a whole lot of time to impress my students while I’m demonstrating the memory techniques discussed in this book Let’s face it: we used to live in an instant on world Now it’s a world of instant downloads People want the skills I have to offer and they want to download them into their brains immediately Here’s what I’ve come up with a routine suggested by Michael J Lavery of Wholebrainpowercoaching.com to help create that effect Within fifteen minutes, I teach students to recite the entire alphabet backwards It’s strange that we cannot this naturally and equally strange that we need to go to such elaborate lengths in order to train ourselves to it, but it’s worth the effort Saying the alphabet backwards is the equivalent of skipping rope with your brain It sends oxygen rich blood to your brain and will wake you up any time you need a kickstarter And it’s healthier than coffee! Having read this book, you already have the basis for how to accomplish this feat There’s actually two ways to it Option One: Create a 26-station Memory Palace Place 26 objects, one per station The only rule is that each object must start with a letter of the alphabet in reverse order, i.e zebra, yolk, xylophone, weathervain, etc As with all memory techniques, the process works best if you create your own words Option Two: Create a highly memorable story This method uses a linking system taught in this book I didn’t teach it because with the exception of using it to memorize the alphabet backwards, I personally don’t use it For more on the linking technique, I recommend reading any of the books mentioned in the resources section Here’s Lavery’s suggested story that I used to memorize the alphabet backwards: Zebras with Yellow Xylophones ask What to a German man named VUT who is a SR (Senior) with a Question for the Post Office in Northern Minnesota, Lake Kilimanjaro where Jesus asks I (me) about the Human Growth Formula created by the Education Department of the Central Brain Administration I use Option One in class to teach my students how to say the alphabet backwards, but I it in a sneaky way I never tell them that the goal is to say the alphabet backwards I simply have them first draw a memory palace for themselves with 10 stations I give them ten words When they are sufficiently impressed with their ability to recall the first ten words (zebra, yolk, xylophone, etc), I have them repeat the process with a second memory palace With another ten words down the hatch and everyone reciting all twenty words with ease, I ask one of the students to recite the words again, but this time saying only the first letter of each word It rarely dawns on the person speaking what they are achieving, but within seconds, the rest of the class is stunned Five minutes later, the students have added six more words and everyone is reciting the alphabet backwards with ease Try this for yourself You’ll love it! SECRET BONUS SECTION #2 In this bonus I will describe to you how that I have modified the larger principles described in the previous chapter to my own purposes as part of reaching my goals of easily memorizing the vocabulary words of different languages Although you may not use your memory to retain poetry, the order of a deck of cards or the number of your car and seat on a train in Spain, my hope is that you’ll follow my descriptions of how I put these larger principles into action and see how to apply them in your own way Please don’t skip this bonus section There are many important clues and ideas that you can use on your journey towards memorizing Greek vocabulary These exercises were essential to me and they will be essential to you Poetry and Novels I know that we’re not here to learn memory tricks, but there is little that impresses people more than the ability to whip out a heap of Shakespeare off the top of your head I’m not talking about “To be or not to be.” I’m talking about the entire soliloquy Poetry can be difficult to remember, especially if it is unrhymed or has an unusual rhyme structure Take John Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example I love the second stanza: O for a draught of vintage! That hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth Tasting of Flora and the country green Dance, Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South! Full of the true, the blushing Hippocrene With beaded bubbles winking at the brim And purple-stained mouth That I might drink and leave the world unseen And with thee fade away into the forest dim Good stuff, no? Now, how did I memorize it? Well, as discussed in the previous chapter I started by picking a location As it happens, I had first encountered this poem in a classroom in Winters College at York University in Toronto where I took some of my four degrees I remember the room where I studied the poem and the entire building very well So that’s where I started Remember: we use places that we know precisely because we don’t have to remember them If I know where the door is in relation to the desk where I sat, then there is no need to remember that the desk is station one and the door is station too It just happens naturally So let’s begin Here is how I memorized this delightful, if sad stanza from one of Keats’ most heartfelt poems O for a draught of vintage! I imagined myself as large and as vibrantly as possible squeezed into the tiny desk I sat in when class was in session I saw myself drawing the word “vintage” using dark black pencil The pencil is enormous and digs deeply into the surface of the desk like a knife To get more action into the scene, I imagined myself working feverishly, like a mad draftsman trying to express some unspeakable secret That hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth By the door leading out of the classroom, I pictured a fridge, and there I saw myself digging earth out of it with a shovel I stabbed the earth deeply with the shovel and tossed the dirt into the hall Tasting of Flora and the country green Outside in the hall, I saw myself painting the concrete wall with flowers and a green countryside This time I was a mad painter and this time, to remember the line, I visualized myself tasting the paint Dance, Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! By the door of the next classroom down the hall, I saw myself dancing, and then kicking Ezra Pound through the bars of a prison For reasons I won’t get into, Pound is readily associated with Provencal songs by people who majored in English Pound also went through a period in his life where he was caged beneath the sun, and according to legend he laughed at the guards a lot So I saw him laughing at me as I kicked him, his face badly burnt by the sun O for a beaker full of the warm South! For this one I had to bent the rules of reality There is a third classroom in Winters College on that floor, and I simply imagined that it was a scientific laboratory Inside, I imagined a mad scientist violently cracking an egg-shaped compass pointing south into a bubbling beaker The smoke and boiling bubbles helped me remember that the South Keats speaks of is warm Full of the true, the blushing Hippocrene For this image, I moved into the staircase at the end of the corridor I imagined a blushing Hippopotamus with his mouth full of college degrees, his belly stuffed to the brim with them With beaded bubbles winking at the brim This one was easy In the basement of Winters College is a pub run for and by students I just saw myself trying to bead the brim of a wine glass with a needle and some thread And of course, everything was huge, vibrant and visualized with over-the-top action For example, I wasn’t just “trying” to push a needle into the glass, but stabbing at it frantically The imagery is kind of disturbing, but that’s exactly the point That’s what makes it memorable That I might drink and leave the world unseen Brace yourself for more grotesque violence To remember this, I saw myself drinking from the glass and then stabbing myself in the eyes with the needle And with thee fade away into the forest dim The patio outside the pub isn’t exactly like a forest, but I still used it I populated it with trees, made it dark, and envisioned myself being guided into the forest as the entire picture dimmed out, like the ending of a film In truth, memorizing the passage was not a great deal of work, partly because I love the poetry Being able to pay attention to the subtleties of the language and Keats’ particular spin on the world not only helps, but creates a sense of urgency for me I not only want to know Keats better, but I need to know his poetry better This is what I tell myself I manufacture excitement when I don’t feel it naturally Paradoxically, I combine this sense of excitement with deep relaxation when working This combination of excitement and relaxation helps came easily to me because I just relaxed and let them come to me In about half an hour, I was able to recite the passage with ease When it comes to novels, the procedure is more or less the same But instead of memorizing individual lines, I remember important plot points and the names of characters Character names don’t necessarily have to be remembered because the novelist will use them over and over again and in many cases we’ll come to identify with the characters and remember their names naturally and without any external effort It helps too if you understand the shapes novels tend to take Usually there is some kind of problem or dilemma experienced by a character who is faced by something that has happened in his or her past The dilemma then turns into a crisis that must be dealt with, followed by a strong decision and a series of actions leading to a battle or confrontation with the antagonist There may be a moment of self-revelation during the battle that helps the character defeat the antagonist, followed by the resolution Obviously, not every story has this exact shape, but thinking in terms of story shape can certainly help as you work on memorizing the elements of the plot The important thing to keep in mind is the kind of space you use If you are memorizing 8-10 lines of poetry, then it’s possible that a single room or a small apartment with several rooms will I usually prefer to use one room or location for this kind of work, but if you are able to compress things in your memory palace, you could imagine a bookshelf in a room you are familiar with and use each individual book as either a portal to another memory palace or as an individual signifier of what you want to remember It’s all up to you But when it comes to remembering the key events of a novel, make sure that you have a big enough place so that you don’t run out of stations I wouldn’t want to use Winters College to remember Tolstoy’s War and Peace, for instance, but for something like that, Broadway in Manhattan would probably It’s a long walk from 187 where I used to live down to the southern most tip of Broadway, but I’ve done it, the streets are numbered and you can easily follow it in a sequence that’s hard to miss If you are a film reviewer, or just want to memorize the plot points of the films you see, it may take some practice to get fast enough to create vibrant, memorable and active images and store them in unique locations in real-time, but it can be done You can also take notes and then memorize these later when you can relax On that note, I must say it again: one of the key points in all of memory practice that no other memory book I’ve read mentions is that you need to make sure that you are relaxed If you are feeling tense or running away from a mugger (which you might be on the stretch of Broadway that runs through Manhattan), these techniques probably won’t have the desired effect I mention this mugging example for a reason I was once the victim of an attempting mugging on Broadway in Harlem I know the area quite well, but I cannot use it as part of any Memory Palace because of that experience My heart always quickens when I think of that gun pointed at me This touch of anxiety interferes with the memorization process immensely Keep this point in mind when building your memory palaces Here are some action steps that you can take immediately to start practicing the memorization of poetry: 1) Pick a poem you actually enjoy Although it is certainly possible to memorize material you could care less about, obviously for the purposes of practice, you want to enjoy “owning” the material in your head 2) As always, make sure that you plan out in advance where you are going to store the material Make sure that you are familiar with the locations and that you’ve “cleaned” them out If you’ve used the location before, you might run into some trouble if memories from the past are still lurking there 3) Work on your memory only when you are relaxed 4) Avoid falling back on rote memory attempts They can sneak up so easily, but are not the point of the exercise Use the techniques of location, imagery and action 5) Test yourself, but in a way that doesn’t involve rote learning If you make a mistake, go back and examine the imagery you’ve chosen Is it strong enough? What might you need to add in order to make it stronger? 6) Talk to someone about the efforts you are making This is one of the best ways to solidify your results If you can, teach them how to what you are doing Teaching is not only personally edifying, but it helps to make the world a better place And remember, the more you can remember, the more you can remember 7) Avoid using places where stressful memories might interfere with the memorization process SECRET BONUS SECTION #3 Imagine the following scenario You’re seated with some friends in a restaurant You have 52 individual objects on the table They’re quite small and easily stored in your pocket These objects can be assembled and reassembled at will Each object has a unique set of images on the front and look virtually identical on the back In fact, you have to turn each one over to spot the difference between one object and another You have the objects out on the table because your friends have been asking you exactly how you’ve come to have such a powerful memory Because you know that one of the best ways to master something is to teach it to someone else, you’ve decided to teach them the skills you learned in this book But first you want to give them a demonstration Imagine that you ask one of your friends to reorder the objects They can spend as much time as they like Once they’re done, they hand the objects to you You turn them over one at a time, look at the fronts and then turn them back over, hiding their unique features from your line of sight for the rest of the demonstration When you’ve gotten through all 52 objects, you have the objects back to your friend To create a bit of time delay, you recite the alphabet backwards or a new poem you’ve recently created Then, you ask your friend to look at the front of the first object You tell him what it is Your proceed to the next object and then the next and the next until you’ve correctly named all 52 Your friends are amazing You feel wonderful You are now in a position to teach What are these 52 unique objects you’ve remembered with such tremendous ease? Yes, you’ve guessed it: a deck of cards Would you like to be able to what I’ve just described? Then read on, because the techniques in this chapter involve memorizing a deck of cards More importantly, this skill is an important step towards finessing your mind in preparation for the memorization of Greek vocabulary Admittedly, effectively memorizing a deck of cards is quite complex, at least to get started However, the groundwork and you’ll find many more applications for the raw tools you’ll need to cultivate that are applicable in numerous ways, learning German being just one of them If nothing else, setting yourself up to be able to memorize a deck of cards quickly and efficiently will give you great exercise in the discipline needed in the Preparation and Determination department Think about this chapter in terms of the Karate Kid Remember the way Mister Miyagi made young Daniel-san wash cars and mop the floor There seemed to be no purpose in it, certainly not in terms of reaching his goals with karate Yet, when the time came to actually implement karate skills, blammo, Daniel-san had them all at hand So please don’t underestimate the power of squats and pushups, which is essentially what this chapter is all about All that said, let me note that I also wanted to learn how to memorize the order of a randomly shuffled deck for the purposes of doing amazing magic tricks I wound up gaining a lot more in the process, about memory, about language and about myself Ultimately, there’s no direct way to describe how and why this process helped me with the acquisition of different vocabulary terms other than to say that I couldn’t have figured out the path without taking each and every step of my particular journey I also learned a lot about what doesn’t work for me when it comes to memorizing things during this stage of my memory journey That is why I am sharing these details with you And so: following the technical description of how I learned to memorize a deck of cards, I’ll follow up with the example of how I use this system to memorize the seat number on my train, or anything else I might want to remember that this system can help with There are a number of stages in being able to memorize a deck of randomized cards quickly and effectively First, we need to learn a method of organizing the cards We this by giving each card a number Since there are 52 cards in the deck, we need to divide them up according to suite and then give each suite a number I’ll explain the rationale behind these numbers in a moment, but for now, let’s say that: Spade = 10 Diamonds = 30 Clubs = 50 Hearts = 80 Now let me explain why we have designated these suites with these numbers It has to with a numerical sound system that works like this (believe it or not, remembering this simple list of sounds is really the hardest part of the job – the rest is just a technical application of the list): = ta/da = na = ma = = la = cha/ja = ka = fa/va = ba/pa = sa I know what you must be thinking: these memory people are nuts! Well, there is some truth to that, but let’s carry on with developing the technique Remember that we said the Spades are assigned the number 10 The reason for this will start to become clear when you look at the following: Ace of Spades = 11 (Toad) of Spades = 12 (Tin) of Spades = 13 (Dam) of Spades = 14 (Tire) of Spades = 15 (Tail) of Spades = 16 (Dish) of Spades = 17 (Tack) of Spades = 18 (TV) of Spades = 19 (Tape) 10 of Spades = 20 (Nose) Jack of Spades = 21 (Nut) Queen of Spades = 22 (Nun) King of Spades = 23 (Enemy) Now, we start with the Ace of Spades as the number 11 simply to give the order a nicer sequence Since the sound for is “ta” or “da,” I have made the word Toad as my association for the Ace of Spades You could come up with whatever word you like based on “ta” or “da” sounds, but I would recommend that you pick something that can be easily imagined and placed into action in some way Just to be clear how the sequence works, I’ll point out that the of Spades is “Tin” in my system because the sound for is “ta” (or “da”) and the sound for is “na.” Therefore, 12, which is the of Spades could be “tan,” or “dan.” Surely there are other options, but “tin” has always worked well for me Another tip that you might find useful is to pick words that have some personal meaning if you can of Spades is “dam” for me, not only because as a card associated with 13 is “dam” a logical word, but it also reminds me of when my father worked on a huge dam-building project He brought me out there a few times, and to my childlike imagination, it was amazing to see the scope of that project In fact, I think it would probably seem pretty amazing to anyone of any age The point here is that the more personal the image is, the more staying power it has Now, assuming you have this system in place, let me briefly explain why after the of Spades, we switch from words that start with “t” or “d” to words that start with “n.” The reason is that the is represented as the 19th card in the sequence, and since is “ta” and is “pa,” I have chosen the word “tape.” The Jack of Spades, however, is the 20th card Since is a “na” sound and is a “sa” sound, I have selected the word “nose.” Before I give you my personal keywords for the rest of the deck, let me give you a quick example of how I would use this system just using a single suite Let’s say that I want to remember that the of Spades comes on top of the of Spades in a stack I am trying to memorize I would imagine a giant role of tape manically wrapping up a huge concrete dam Later, when I wanted to remember which order the two cards came in, it would simply be a matter of remembering the absurd image of a roll of tape crazily unraveling over the surface of a dam, as if to secure it from cracking apart in an earthquake In fact, in order to really make it memorable, I might want to add a detail like that This is called “giving the association a reason.” If there is a reason, no matter how absurd, that a role of tape is wrapping up a large concrete structure, then it can help with remembering it Let’s carry on to see how I’ve portioned out the Diamonds using this system Since the Diamonds fall under the number 30, most of this suite will start with “m” words But as in every suite, we eventually come to the next group of 10, which means that the 10 of diamonds will start with an ‘r’ word Ace of Diamonds = 31 (Maid) of Diamonds = 32 (Man) of Diamonds = 33 (Mime) of Diamonds = 34 (Mare) of Diamonds = 35 (Mail) of Diamonds = 36 (Match) of Diamonds = 37 (Muck) of Diamonds = 38 (Movie) of Diamonds = 24 (Map) 10 of Diamonds = 40 (Rice) Jack of Diamonds = 41 (Rat) Queen of Diamonds = 42 (Ran) King of Diamonds = 43 (Ram) Ace of Clubs = 51 (Lad) Clubs: of Clubs = 52 (Lion) of Clubs = 53 (Lamb) of Clubs = 54 (Lyre) of Clubs = 55 (Lily) of Clubs = 56 (Leash) of Clubs = 57 (Lock) of Clubs = 58 (Leaf) of Clubs = 59 (Leap) 10 of Clubs = 60 (Cheese) Jack of Clubs = 61 (Cheetah) Queen of Clubs = 62 (Chain) King of Clubs = 63 (Gym) And finally: Ace of Hearts = 81 (Fat) of Hearts = 82 (Fan) of Hearts = 83 (Foam) of Hearts = 84 (Fire) of Hearts = 85 (Foil) of Hearts = 86 (Fish) of Hearts = 87 (Fake) of Hearts = 88 (Fife) of Hearts = 89 (Viper) 10 of Hearts = 90 (Bus) Jack of Hearts = 91 (Boat) Queen of Hearts = 92 (Bone) King of Hearts = 93 (Bomb) These are the words I’ve come up with for each card using the numericalsound system, but it’s up to you to pick the words and images that work best for you Now, let me tell you how I put all of this together Do you remember how I said that I sometimes have portals inside of my memory palaces that lead to unusual places? My memorized deck of cards is an example of this I have lived in two apartments in the capital of Germany, Berlin I really liked my office in the first apartment and have used it a lot to memorize many things In the mental version of that office as I have remembered it, there is a pack of red Bicycle playing cards (I just realized now that it may be from the cards that I got the idea of explaining to people that memory systems are just like bikes!) But instead of playing cards inside that box, there is a garage If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film, The Dark Knight, you’ll know the kind of space I’m talking about In that film, Batman’s “Batcave” is actually a sophisticated room, open and bright with plenty of room for automobiles But I don’t have any fancy sports cars or Batmobiles in my garage (inside a card box in an office in an apartment in Berlin) Instead, I have the first four cars I owned as a teenager I have the cars lined up in order from the first car to the fourth car (which also happened to be the last car I ever owned before turning to transit and rental cars only) The first car is my blue Volkswagen Beetle It was lowered to the ground and very special to me Too bad I wrecked it My second car was an orange Volkswagen Beetle There was nothing particularly special about it, but I miss it even to this day My third car was a silver Ford Fiesta A bizarre choice, but I loved it My fourth car was a blue Chevy Malibu For the purposes of this Memory Palace, each car has 13 locations, which works nicely because each suite in a deck also has 13 cards The locations I use are: The front driver’s side headlight The front passenger’s side headlight The engine hood The windshield The steering wheel The driver seat The passenger seat The seat behind the driver’s seat The seat behind the passenger’s seat The inside of rear window The outside of the rear window The trunk The exhaust pipe For some people, these stations might be too closely compressed together, but this arrangement works very well for me In general, I like my stations to be as close together as possible The nice thing about each car having 13 locations is that I don’t feel like I have to memorize an entire deck Instead, I only need to remember 13 cards per car It’s ultimately rather arbitrary, but it still has a psychological effect that helps the task seem less daunting So, taking thirteen cards, let’s see what the first car might look like: Front driver’s side headlight = of Clubs (Lamb) Front passenger’s side headlight = of Hearts (Fife) Engine Hood = of Spades (Tack) Windshield = of Spades (Dish) The steering wheel = 10 of Spades (Nose) The driver seat = Ace of Clubs (Lad) The passenger seat = Ace of Diamonds (Maid) The seat behind the driver’s seat = Jack of Spade (Nut) (Mime) The seat behind the passenger’s seat = of Diamonds The inside of rear window = of Clubs (Leap) The outside of the rear window = 10 of Diamonds (Cheese) The trunk = of Spades (Tail) The exhaust pipe – of Clubs (Lily) Now it’s just a matter of using location, imagery and activity to weave these images together It’s actually very easy and fun Just imagine a lamb standing in front of the car with a fife in his mouth In addition to the horrible music the lamb is blaring from where he is not standing in front of the passenger side headlight, tacks are firing rapidly over the hood from the fife and smashing into the dish hovering over the windshield Pieces of shrapnel from the dish have smashed into the nose on the steering wheel, which belongs to the lad sitting in the driver’s seat He winds up sneezing all over the maid sitting in the passenger’s seat and so she steals a handkerchief from Nutty Jack of Spades in the back seat who is hitting on the mime beside him She tries to leap through the window, but crashes her head against a huge chunk of cheese and just as she is recovering, she finds herself being smashed in the face by the tail of the dog I hate, Lily It seems like a lot of work, and it is But with practice, it gets faster and easier You’ll even begin to find that you don’t really need all the “training wheels” I’ve described as much as you did in the beginning, though they will still always be there to help you and will always remain the basic foundation of how you remember the cards The best part is that you’ll find your concentration sharpening and your attention for detail widening It’s a great mental exercise that you won’t regret taking up as a habit Plus, it will serve as an excellent part of anyone’s goal of being able to effortlessly remember vocabulary A few notes on this chapter: I not use “ran” as a verb for the Queen of Diamonds Here I am thinking of the Kurosawa movie Ran, which is a samurai adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear I actually don’t picture a woman here, but the old man as he is seen sitting in ceremonial dress at the beginning of the movie Lily, the of Clubs is not a flower, but a dog a friend of mine used to have as a pet I never liked that dog very much, which makes it all the more effective as a memory prompt, ironically Leap for the of Clubs is the one spot where I use a verb I would rather not have, but I couldn’t find any other image that worked for me “Lap” would be a natural choice, but since laps don’t actually exist, at least not once a person is standing, it just doesn’t work for me As a final note to this chapter, I want to tell you a little about what didn’t work for me when it came to memorizing a deck of cards The great magician Juan Tamirez gives a number of strategies One is to sing the order of the deck as you want to learn it Record yourself singing the order and listen to the recording again and again This approach is perfectly fine, so long as you want to remember a pre-arranged deck that is always prearranged in the memorized order Sometimes, this is my preference, since I am adept at appearing to shuffle a deck without disturbing the order of the cards Nonetheless, singing the order never worked for me It amounts to learning by rote Another idea Tamirez gives is to arbitrarily assign both a number and an animal to each and every card This is getting closer to the system I ultimately landed upon, but it still leads one to use rote memorization in place of a system that lets you remember the order of the cards almost instantly Now that I’ve shared with you both what has worked for me and what hasn’t, let me suggest a few … Action steps: 1) Make the commitment to memorize the sound system for the ten digits, – It’s very easy 2) Apply the number sounds to the different suits in the manner described 3) Make a word for each card using the number system Using a written list, Word file or Excel sheet, store the words you create so that you can test your memory of them later 4) Decide in advance where you are going to store the order of the cards you will be memorizing Use actual locations or invent them Since you need 52 for this exercise, it is best to think of how you can compress them into a smaller space 5) Make sure that you are relaxed throughout this process Training yourself to be relaxed while working on memory techniques helps with recall You want to “anchor” the sensation of relaxation so that you know it very well You’ll instantly fall into that state of relaxation at any time you want to with dedicated practice Remember that we also practice relaxation while memorizing so that we automatically fall into relaxation when attempting recall 6) Get out a deck of cards, shuffle it, and begin memorizing it 7) Test everything, but always make sure that you are not falling back on rote memory That is not the purpose of these exercises 8) Describe to someone else the procedures that you are using You not need to show off Simply explain what you are doing and your progress with it Give a demonstration if you like, but focus on teaching the method whenever possible Doing so will enhance your skills Always make sure to demystify these memory techniques as difficult or something to be reserved for nerds or geniuses or people who are otherwise weird Memory skills are for everyone © 2014 Metivier Magnetic Memory Series All Rights Reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder Disclaimer and Terms of Use: The Author and Publisher have strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this book, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Author and Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations are unintentional This Edition, Copyright 2014 WAIT! I have created FREE Memory Palace Magnetic Memory Worksheets and other resources that will help you implement the procedures taught in this book In order to download them, go to: http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/free-magnetic-memoryworksheets/ As a reader of this book, you’ll also have the chance to subscribe to the *daily* Magnetic Memory Newsletter – while it’s still free Subscribe now and get the only information that will keep your memory magnetic for years to come When you subscribe, you’ll also get a free 45-minute interview I conducted with world memory expert Harry Lorayne! ... signals to your unconscious mind your intention to write down your dreams There are two other ways to record your dreams in addition to using a journal, but I ultimately still favor using a ledger for. .. Chapter Two: How to Use Your Dreams to Become More Visually Creative Chapter Three: The Art of Dream Memorization Chapter Four: How to build a Network of Memory Palaces for Storing Dreams in Your Mind... Activities To Boost Dream Recall Chapter Six: How to Sleep In And Still Remember & Memorize Your Dreams Chapter Seven: What To Do If You Simply Cannot Remember Your Dreams Or Backslide On Your Night