@Ella's journey system

[thinkaboutthebible (Doug)]

"Line Method" New ultrafast memory technique

Welcome to this memory place. I’ve learned a lot here. I have several different memory places, 10 rooms in my house (with 10 locations in each room). One room of the house is the 30’s another room is the 40’s and so forth. The path in any room is always the same (I learned this from someone who posted here): Walk in and the corner to the left is #1, moving clockwise the middle of the wall is #2, then the next corner is #3… Until I reach #8 which is the door I entered through. #9 is the ceilin…

@Ella, you have some very strong systems there. You are using Dean Vaughn’s method of a cube or numbered room system (He swaps the #9 and #10 in his book How to Remember Anything: The Total Proven Memory Retention System). It’s an excellent system to use anywhere for one room and as you are doing and he teaches, have as a foundation for a 100 loci/location journey.

But your main journey is more original and is something I very much like personally. I have always thought that designing a PAO system was difficult because of the action part. And just like @katiek, you place a person in each location of your journey. I thought it was original and useful that it needed a name so I called it:

@thinkaboutthebible

Katie’s Locus+Subject (KLS) system

She combines a few (I think 3-digit) items with each stop/stage on her journey to remember a sequence. You use your locus+person as a conversion more like a PAO system. The action and item are combined so that the item really just becomes an elaboration of the action in my mind, another issue with the PAO designs I’ve seen. It’s really the piece of paper that is being signed as an object and the pen is an elaboration of the signing action.

So would you reimage your 394439 as Mr Bean using a pen to sign the handle of a mop? In my mind you are trying to avoid the trap of isolating the action in the extreme to where it makes no sense at all. You just can’t have people standing, sitting, appearing out of nowhere and similar generic actions. But the action is more important that any bizarre imagery you can think of according to psychology so getting a fix on a strong action with an associated object like you do is a great thing to do visually.

@carljalal’s line method is quite different so this is why I started a new topic. That is a conversion system of mapping item locations to a shape where the initial data is lost just like an acronym drops all but the first letter of a set of words. You might call that a loci acronym.

Do you find that the speed of the system is increasing as you use it and it’s not too complex? Thanks for sharing it!

[Ella]

@thinkaboutthebible Hi Doug! THANK YOU for the info, I’ll reread all that you shared, I very much appreciate it! And I like the name . I developed my particular person-location journey in order to remember the BIBLE! So it’s nice to be getting the thumbs up from you.

My Locations are the Books of the Bible: For example “Numbers” is a museum along my journey of buildings from Gen. to Rev. As you know, it’s the 4th Book of the Bible so the person who “lives there” is “04-Sally Ride" (an astronaut). Her personal item is a space helmet.

The book of Isaiah is the 23rd book of the Bible so Nelson Mandela “lives” at location 23 which is a government building. His item is a colorful shirt.

People STAY at their locations. Nelson and the government building are always Isaiah. The items, however, move around and they are always chapter numbers: Nelson’s colorful shirt on Richard Simmons would be chapter 23 of Matthew.

Sally Ride is number 4 and her space helmet is chapter #4 EVERYWHERE. Richard Simmons in a space helmet would be Matt 4. Nelson Mandela in a space helmet would be Isaiah chapter 4. Sally Ride in a colorful shirt would be Numbers chapter 23.

Thus I have 66 people in their own locations and that’s where the action takes place. To add a verse I use the major system. Isaiah 4:5 would be Nelson Mandela flying up in the air in the space helmet trying to avoid a cop (5=law). The storyline of the verse gets associated with Nelson in a space helmet with a cop.

“Numbers 23:19” ? (19=tub). The story becomes something like: Sally is putting on a big astronaut stunt show in the colorful shirt (that we know belongs to Nelson) She wouldn’t LIE about that stunt that she said she’d perform. It’s high-diving into a tub!!! No Sir, she’s not a liar. Shall she say it and not do it? No way. There’s a crowd around waiting to see if she’ll really high-dive from the top of that museum (where she “lives” which is Numbers).

I try to make up a story that ties the verse in (as above). This system doesn’t get me to the verbatim word-for-word memorization, but my post has grown long and I’ll save details on that for another time if anyone is interested. I draw cartoons or put verses in rooms… whatever works.

Thank you so much for your kind words and also the info on Dean Vaughn. I’m super-glad to meet people interested in memorizing scripture!!! Yay. Not everyone understands the passion. One gal told me “Why don’t you — just remember?” Oh yeah, hey great idea, thanks, I’ll “just remember.” Ahaha. Sorry if that’s not funny, I got a kick out of it.

Apologies if I’ve “over-explained” the obvious - I often struggle to be clear and hoped anyone new to memorizing could understand the system.

[FluffyRibbit (Roman Alexander Davis)]

I am very interested! Please continue.

[thinkaboutthebible (Doug)]

And me too @Ella. I tend to have long posts also. When you think you are being overly clear, it’s probably just barely enough for someone who doesn’t get it. Keep up letting us know what works and what doesn’t.

There’s an awful lot of machine behind the curtain to make this mnemonic magic happen so people just don’t get that it takes more than just turning the machine on. If God wanted us to “just remember” the Bible, he would have put a switch in our brains that we could flip. I haven’t found it yet.

[Ella]

Thanks Doug for the encouragement; Love that brain with the switch! And Roman, I appreciate your interest too. My natural memory ability is zip, nada, squat-diddly. Sooo, I am out of my league here. Still, I work at it, and if I’d be consistent I’d do better.

I use “BibleMemory com” and I like their system. If you go there, look me up. At the moment I’m level 70 Rank #2549 and my profile is: Ellie
The level and ranking constantly changes but that’s where I am at this moment. The points mean nothing but (for me) that meaningless points “reward system” helps? LOL. I see others passing me so I type-in more verses so as to keep-up, lol. Leap frogging other anonymous users that probably don’t even notice is…? Aaaanyway. One can type just the first letter of each word and various settings are available. It’s basically repetition but somehow fun.

The most helpful thing for me for multiple verses, say in a Psalm, is to put them in a room (or their own location) with the major system items, for example: Psalm 121:1 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help?” So there’s a necktie in that first corner and I lift it up… Noah… Ma… Each verse is associated with the appropriate major system hook or peg, I’m not sure of the proper term.

I haven’t been inside all the buildings that are on my journey system and the memory people are outside, so I often put the action outside the building too. Matthew is the 40th book of the Bible: (40=RS) (RS = Richard Simmons). He “lives” on top of a barn and his “item” is a pair of silk exercise shorts with hearts on them! Lord forgive me, ha. BUT it’s memorable to “see” him interacting with chapter and verse items on that barn roof.

Matt 6:28 for example: “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” Item 6 = a computer (because 06 = Steve Jobs), 28 = NF= knife. So Richard Simmons is on the barn roof spinning a laptop on the tip of a knife as if in a circus act. Obviously he’s pretty kicked-back and not too worried about anything. Even “lilies of the field” sort of fits into that country barn circus-like scene.

I can guarantee there’s no confusion with Luke 6:28: “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” Luke is the 42nd book of the Bible. 42 = RN. RN = Ralph Nader. He lives at an auto body shop. So Ralph is looking on a computer about how to repair a vehicle, but the angry vehicle owner is cursing and stabbing the engine with a knife!

The Matt and Luke scenarios for “chapter 6 verse 28” could never get mixed up.
Still, I sometimes remember the addresses but FORGET the verses. Dolly Parton (19th book of the Bible) is at her law office (location 19) in a glittering evening gown (that belongs to person #55). Dolly throws the glittering dress at a nun (verse 22). I know this picture! Yet I’d repeatedly forget the verse. What did Psalm 55:22 say?! I needed a better tie-in.

More DRAMA, more danger or ridiculousness? Just more repetition? Grrr. It should be simple but I’d keep missing it. So when that happens one way out that seems to work well for me is drawing cartoons. Long ago, on this site, I heard about Jerry Lucas of Memory Ministries. I already had my journey, and my numbering system is different than his, so I didn’t exactly follow him. But the toons idea really helped.

For example, he has an actual rope knot for the word “not” and he puts legs and eyes on things. I keep my drawings simple and use a mix of colors and sizes… Just the very act of physically drawing helps to seal the images into my brain. The 10-15-20 minutes of making a drawing might seem like a lot, but it has paid off. I got Romans 8:38-39 down in about 20 minutes by drawing pictures. The pictures don’t have to be good-looking. I think it’s just the act of thinking-through putting words into images and actually drawing them that has helped me.

That’s not the only thing I do to remember word for word, but it’s what works the best when I have a brain-blockage? (eye roll)

So tell me, where would I go for a super-simplified tutorial on what the memory games are all about? What are the systems that you all are using to remember the Bible?

Are you memorizing entire chapters or single verses or what? Is there a group here that is active in memorizing the Bible together? I started a group at the BibleMemory site but nobody is in it, LOL. Nobody knows about it, for one thing. But now you do. If you go to Biblememory com let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions for groups or games or something let me know. THANKS!

[thinkaboutthebible (Doug)]

@ella, most people here I know brag of their weak natural memories before they started learning the mnemonic techniques. For instance, I never ever memorized any scripture before a few years ago. I forgot my students’ names as soon as the class was over and sometimes sooner. Phone numbers? Forget it.

I never was on that biblememory.com site. It looks like a great way to do review. For me, doing rote memorization took too much time and I wanted to create a system that stuck in my head better. I think like a programmer because that’s what I taught. Programmers will spend days to automate something that would take them a few minutes to do but they know can be done faster with a little code.

So, I’ve been designing and refining my system of mnemonics, the 7711 system after Psalm 77:11, over the last several years. I got up to 100 verses but I changed my system and now the images have faded and I can start building again. The biblememory.com site uses gamification, our natural inclination to compete and compare to others, for the incentive to review and makes it fun. I get sucked in to some of those types of sites for language learning with all the animations and sounds, but I have to step back and ask if I learn and am I learning the right way.

I published all my work on the 7711 that I have for now, a Major system dictionary, and just about everything else that I’ve come up with on my own on my github site. I still have a large document of techniques and examples as well as some exercises but I’m editing those slowly. I want to really add more detail to the 7711 document so it becomes usable but I’m testing out my ideas on Matthew before getting too far invested in any set of rules.

Like Matthew 6 has a special place as part of a larger journey that is easy for me to go to right now. It’s an outdoor patio of a university building where smokers go on breaks (6 = ash). I’ll add an item of a knife (my default pegword) maybe to memorize Matt 6:28 somehow. Throughout Matthew I keep a common subject of a math professor I had who lived in his office cave, rays of light streaming in from the large windows, surrounded by dusty books on all four walls and spoke gently to me when I was a complete idiot in his class. Then I hook up the verse and book themes from there. I needed better tie-ins also and the themes helped out as well as having a connected set of backgrounds and reinforcements for each book and chapter.

Psychology tells us that what makes an image more memorable is action. It doesn’t have to be dangerous, dramatic, or looney-tunes. Drawing out an image is good, but I find that describing it in detail in writing, and then telling someone your stories (if you have someone who even cares) really helps.

Memory games are the training grounds for the competitions that people have both one-on-ones and as a regional group. There’s lots of info here on the competitions because that’s what drives most people as a goal to do better. There’s a few people I’ve met on the site who are memorizing scripture but they come and go. Life tends to get in the way. I have a habit of finding a subject and not letting go until I fully understand it and can do it.

Do you have any people at church who also memorize scripture? Maybe you could start a small study group for that? I’m going to toss that idea out to my pastor after I get my system a little further developed. I love games and have developed many little games for reinforcing mnemonic techniques in my exercises. But I haven’t got to scripture memorization games yet. I have a vague recollection that monks used to quiz novitiates on scripture by sticking a pin through pages and asking what the scripture was at each location of the next few pages. That doesn’t sound like fun to me.
[edit] The pin stuck in a book was a mnemonic feat carried out by Jewish scholars using the Talmud recorded in a 1917 journal called the Psychological Review.

It’s great chatting with you! Use this topic to help us keep up with your progress on memorizing scripture. I’ve changed the topic categories to a memory training journal since it’s a great place to store your progress and get feedback, and added the bible-memorization sub-category also. That will help others in the future find this topic.