I see a lot of people using PAO or just PA
If someone says I’m using PA or PAO, are they referring to the Dominic System?
or any other system?
Is Dominic O’Brien the founder of PA or PAO?
or has it existed well before him?
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The Dominic System, like the Major System, is a system of assigning sounds or letters to digits, so that you can then convert a number into a word (and therefore a memorable image). PAO, or just PA, refers to the way you place your images on your loci. In Person-Action-Object, you assign a person to each number 00-99 (or 000-999), which can be done using either the Dominic or the Major System (there are others). Then you assign a logical action and object to each number as well. For example, if your 15 is Albert Einstein, the action might be writing, and the object might be a blackboard. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSl9iK1xFzI&feature=youtu.be
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The short answer is, no, nope, absolutely not. Dominic system and PA/PAO are two very different things.
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Dominic O’Brien created the PA system, and I think that other people expanded it to PAO.
There is also a blog post for that video: how to memorize numbers.
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That was very informative, Thank you. I like the video as well!
With the Dominic system, it is very easy to create a Person using the initials along with their own natural action and the object that usually belongs to that person/character.
How’s this done using the major system?
What is the usual process of creating a person with an action and an object using the Major system?
When using the Major system, do we create a person with his/her action as default?
When I try to practice the major system, I don’t know how to create a person with it, because in the major system, each 2 or 3 digits numbers creates a word of either a tangible object such as “CaP 71” or an intangible one such as “Botherer 0144”
This is where I am confused with the major system. How do I create a PA or PAO with these words that major system creates? How do I link 2 objects such as “Ball 95 with Fish 86” using PA or PAO with the third object?
I can do PA or PAO using the dominic system easily as each 2 digit number is naturally assigned to a person action and object, but a lot of people say that using the major system is much faster with numbers and playing cards, I assume it would also be faster for binary numbers too.
So I decided to start practicing the Major system and perhaps find a way to use both system integrated somehow.
I understand the basics of the major system, but I really need to understand the full logic behind it and how to use it as PA or PAO with it Or however the Major system is used with it’s best Method to get the best results.
Lately, I’ve joined the Memory League website where I can practice. I’ve seen Alex Mullen there beating his own records, He memorized a deck of cards in 14 seconds! He did that with numbers too, it was 80 numbers in 15 seconds.
I’ve heard that Alex was using the Major system and if I can remember correctly, he was using PAO or PA, so how is he doing this with the major system other than the hard work he put into it to get to that speed?
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I found all my own answer here. It may help others.
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Erol, that thread is very good. Just to clarify, in case you’re still confused about things: If you decide that you want to use the PAO system, you first have to come up with 100 people (to assign to numbers 00-99). This can be done using either the Dominic System, the Major System, the Category system, or no system at all (just assigning arbitrary people to the numbers). The reason the systems are helpful, though, is when memorizing them initially, you can work backwards. If you used the Dominic System, then 15 = AE, and an obvious choice is Albert Einstein. When committing your people to memory, if you are practicing and you get 15, you can recall that 15 = AE, and that’ll prompt your brain to remember that 15 = Albert Einstein. The Major System only differs from the Dominic System in that it uses phonemes (sounds) instead of letters. In the Major System, 1 = the /t/ sound (or the /d/ sound), and 5 = the /l/ sound, so 15 might be “Tall” (you add whatever vowel sounds you want), and so your image might be a giant, or a professional basketball player.
Once you have all 100 people, regardless of what system you used to make them up, you then assign each person a related action and object. You don’t need the system for this part. For Albert Einstein, the action-object might be “writing” on a “blackboard”, and for “Tall”, the action-object might be “dunking” a “basketball”.
In practice, it goes like this. Suppose that you decide to use the Dominic system, and that in addition to 15=Albert Einstein (writing on a blackboard), you have 44=Donald Duck (jumping in a puddle), and 64=Sammy Davis Jr (singing into a microphone). During memorization, you have the following string of numbers: 154464. In your first location (locus), you’d imagine Albert Einstein (your person for 15) Jumping (your action for 44) on a Microphone (your object for 64).
Once you are very familiar with your system of assignments, your system you used to construct those assignments will fade away, and you’ll no longer need the “crutch” of the system. You’ll simply remember that 15=Albert Einstein. This is when you’ll really get more proficient and faster.
Many top mental athletes, like Nelson Dellis and Shijir-Erdene Bat-Enkh use PAO. It was popularized by Joshua Foer’s book “Moonwalking with Einstein”, although the system had been around for quite some time before he started using it. Alex Mullen actually doesn’t use the PAO system. He, and many other top athletes have a system for numbers using 000-999, and he used the Major System to make these 1000 assignments. They can be anything, most likely a mixture of people, objects, cartoon characters, etc. During memorization, he puts two images on each locus and makes them interact with each other in some fashion. For example, if 145 is “teller”, and 995 is “bubbles”, if he’s trying to memorize the string 145995, he might image a bank teller blowing bubbles. And he’d imagine the teller blowing bubbles to the right so that when reviewing in his mind he will see the bank teller first, and he’ll get the sequence correct of 145995.
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That’s brilliant. Thank you for your efforts to explain it in a lot of details, I appreciate it.
"During memorization, he puts two images on each locus and makes them interact with each other in some fashion. "
When you say “He puts” what do you mean by that?
How do you “Put” that image in a locus?
What is on the locus? A Peg? such as a TV?
How do you put the image with a TV? Make it happen in front of it? Or Make the TV do something with the image as well? When I make the image do something with the peg, It really slows me down, it’s like an extra step.
This is a problem I really have a hard time with, connecting the created image with the peg in the room.
How’s this done?
Would you use a room with pegs in it? and if so what do you do with the pegs?
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Be careful not to confuse the “Method of Loci” (also called "Memory Palace, or “Mind Palace”) with the Peg System. They are two different ways of memorizing things. You’ll find that most memory athletes prefer the Method of Loci, but the Peg System is perfectly usable. Just don’t mix up the two methods.
For the Method of Loci, you first choose a place that is VERY familiar to you, like a room in your house, and pick a sequence of items in that room to be your loci (locations). For example, if you choose your master bedroom in your house, your loci might be: 1. Bed, 2. Nightstand, 3. Closet, 4. Bathroom, 5. Chest of Drawers. Always go in the same sequence in your mind. When you are ready to start memorizing, you imagine your first image on your BED, then imagine your second image on your NIGHTSTAND, then your third image in your CLOSET, etc. When you are ready to begin recalling, you go through the sequence of loci in your mind, and you’ll probably remember which image was on which locus. That’s what I mean when I say “put” an image on a locus. You simply imagine the image on your bed, or in your closet, etc. It sometimes helps if you make the image interact with the locus. For example, you might imagine your first image jumping on your bed, and making the bed collapse. This makes it more memorable.
For people who put two images on each locus, you simply imagine two images on each locus, so for example, if your first two images are an elephant and a car, you might imagine an elephant spraying a car with his trunk, all on top of your bed (your first locus). You would need to make sure you clearly see the elephant on the left in your mind, so that you get the sequence correct. If you see the car on the left, you’ll get your sequence of numbers backwards.
The Peg System is a different animal. You have images associated with the number 00-99 (or 000-999 if you’re ambitious), and those images, once established, don’t change. Maybe 1=pencil, and 2=swan, 3=sloth, 4=horse, 5=hand, etc. When you are memorizing something, you make your images interact with each peg in sequence, so your first image will interact with the pencil, the second image interacts with the swan, the third image interacts with the sloth, etc. When you are recalling your images, you go in sequence order of the pegs, so you say to yourself “What image was interacting with the pencil (your peg for #1)?”, then “What image was interacting with the swan (your peg for #2)?”, then “What image was interacting with the sloth (your peg for #3)?” In the Peg system, you don’t use rooms because the Peg system is a different way of memorizing than the Method of Loci.
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Fantastic! Thank you so much for your efforts to explain it further.
You’ve identified my weakness I didn’t even know I had. Thank you!
I will admit I was confused with the Method of Loci and the Peg System. Well, I thought the pegs were the items you placed in the rooms. And I always wondered why we were thought all these pegs and always ended up using the items in the rooms instead. Now I understand the difference. I bought my first memory book about 4 years ago, I never knew why we had so many pegs and why we never used them. It was always like Make a list and use your body list, for number 1, use a pen, 9 balloon, etc. I bought books on Dominic and Major Systems but somehow I must have missed the reasons behind the Peg system and the memory palace. I guess it’s because there are so many of memory terminologies such as Memory Palace, locus, loci, pegs etc, It’s very confusing.
Anyhow, I’m going to go back to basics and try to become brilliant at the basics, that way I’ll have less questions to ask and more time for practice 
Is there a list of all the terminologies where I can read?
The question and my issue is still the same though,
I can connect the item or a peg with the image I create, like you said, make them jump on the bed and the bed breaks in half, I can usually do that no probs, but that adds an extra step and takes extra seconds, my problem is it really slows me down, I’ve seen people at the Memory League that can memorise 80 numbers in a matter of 30 seconds or even less.
If they are using PA or PAO, it still takes at least a second or two to visualize the image with it’s own action, and I can’t seem to understand how they can also use the peg or an item in a location to connect the image as well, because even if I create an image in a second or two, it takes me another 3 to 5 seconds to create something with the peg or the item in the room. So it makes me a really slow memoriser. I can’t even get down to 5 minutes for memorising a deck of cards, because I struggle with connecting the item with my image, so I always wondered how they can do it so fast other then the hard work they put into practice, there must be technique used to do it so fast. I don’t mind practicing and I love practicing, but I’d rather practice a technique that is tested and tried and works well so I know I am not wasting more time for something that is never going to improve my speed. How can I overcome this? What do I have to do?
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My answers are going to be about loci because they are better than pegs in almost every way. If you are doing speed memorization especially, there’s no need to continue thinking about pegs imo.
In all likelyhood the majority of top memorizers that can memorize 80 digits in under 30 secs don’t use PA or PAO, but that is beside the point.
I can say though that visualizing an image at a location can become incredibly fast. I’ve been practicing with memorizing 35 words in a minute and it’s clear that, at least for my mind, rapid visualization is the easiest thing to get better at. I still feel like I’m not hitting my limits at encoding, the real problem is recall. It may sound unlikely to you right now but as you continue practicing I would expect you to find the same thing. Your imagination is not bound by the things possible in reality, you can memorize an action at speeds several times faster than they occur in meatworld.
I would suggest you try out speeding up your encoding. Attempt to memorize much more than you can actually recall. This, from my experience and from observations of others, is the best way to improve.
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Thank you.
So if they don’t use PA or PAO, would you happen to know what they use or do?
That is the issue I have, using a loci is slowing me down, I can do a PA within 2 or 3 seconds, but when I use a loci It adds another 3 to 5 seconds and sometimes it takes even more time to memorise the whole image, and recalling is very difficult if I don’t use a loci. Essentially I am memorising 3 pieces of data even tho I know what my locis are, the item at the location and the PA, I can’t seem to increase my speed. I am probably not doing something I should, once I figure out what it is then I can practice it that way.
When you memorise, what is the process you use?
Do you think of and see the loci first and then do the PA?
What is the first thing you see in your mind and the next things etc before you move on to the next and repeat the process?
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Learn to trust your brain. Go faster than you think you can. After you visualize your PAO combination on a locus, go on to the next one. Use a metronome if you need it to force you to go faster. Get on either Memocamp or Memory League and practice going faster.
Maybe start with fewer items. For example, maybe work on memorizing 12 or 15 cards, but force yourself to do it 10 seconds faster than you are used to doing it. You’ll make mistakes initially, or totally blank on an image, but that’s OK. Your brain will adapt to the faster pace.
Also, work on recalling your assignments faster. For cards, go through the entire deck not memorizing, but just trying to recall the image. Track your time doing this. You can do this many times/day because you don’t need a memory palace for that.
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Thank you. That’s a lot of great advice!
- Go faster than you think you can. Trust my memory!
- I’m already a member to both memocamp and memory league.
- I’ll practice the 10 seconds challenges and work on just memorising the cards and numbers without a palace.
- I’ll need to work on associations with my Locis and images. I need to educate myself more on this as that is my weakest point.
Thank you!
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If I were you, I would focus on increasing the speed of your visualisation. It really shouldn’t taoe 3-5 seconds to use your loci. Make sure you aren’t imagining your image first, and then attempting to link them with the loci. Instead, just imagine them on the loci in the first place.
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Well identified! I’ve been doing it wrong…
For some reason my mind goes straight to the first and second image instead of the loci.
Look like I have to change the order of my thinking and visualise the loci first. I’ll put some time into practice.
Thanks for your advice.
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Hi tracym,
So, the PAO system is sort of like a Dominic System, added to a Major or other System?
My 100 major pegs are almost reflexive at this point, but I tried for several weeks trying to convert it to a Dominic system, unsuccessfully. The problem is that most of the Major Pegs are objects, but a few are people. I was able to create actions from only about 30 of them, and finally decided it was a waste of time.
Let me use an example, to see if I have this right, about how to extend the Major System, into a PAO system:
My Major System peg for 14 is Tire. The peg for 65 is Jill, an old friend.
So for 14, I might associate a famous GoodYear Tire person. And the action would be rolling that tire down the road, and it starts to get away from them. The object would be the Tire, the person would be the GoodYear salesperson, and the action would be rolling the tire.
Then for 65, I might associate Jill’s cat (not really a person, but the same purpose). And the action would be that cat jumping on a couch, and missing the mark. Then the ‘object’ (sorry, Jill) would be Jill herself, the ‘person’ would be her cat, and the action would be jumping to the top of a sofa.
Then when the number 1465 has to be memorized, I would imagine the GoodYear tire person throwing a tire at a couch, which then crashes through the window? 6514 would be Jill’s cat rolling Jill down the road, while she threatens the cats (by waving her index finger) with no more treats?
Is that the way the PAO system is generated, from the Major? It’s obvious how to do it, from an existing Dominic System, but I’m confused about extending the Major System past 100 numbers.
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MemoryWhatAmDat,
I want you to take a deep breath, because I’m about to attempt to undo this tangle you’ve made of different methods. It’s totally understandable, because when you’re new at this you hear about all these great systems and methods, and you jump in the water before you’ve really learned to swim.
First, forget about pegs. Don’t even use that word anymore, because it is confusing you. When you say your Major System “peg” for 14 is Tire, what you mean is your IMAGE for 14 is TiRe, and that you used the Major System to form the word Tire because 1=t and 4=r in the Major System. The fact that you’ve committed all 00-99 to images and have them memorized is a great start. Now comes the part that is confusing you.
I want you to use the Method of Loci. Simply use a room in your home as a starter memory palace. Choose ten things in your room, like 1. Bed, 2. Night stand, 3. Chest of Drawers, 4. Closet, etc. Once you have all ten locations (loci), go over them in your mind over and over until you remember the sequence perfectly. This is your first memory palace.
When you want to remember a number like 1465, place an image of a Tire (14) on your first locus (bed). Then place an image of your friend Jill (65) on your next locus (Nightstand). Maybe have the Tire bouncing on your bed, and maybe have your friend Jill standing on your nightstand. When you’re trying to recall the numbers, in your mind always follow the sequence of the loci you set up, so say to yourself “What’s on the bed?” “A Tire”, and since Tire = 14, your first number is 14. Then you go to the next locus in sequence, the Nightstand, and say to yourself “What’s on the Nightstand?” “Jill”, and since “Jill” = 65, your next number is 65. That’s how you memorize and recall the number 1465.
If the number is 6514, you’d imagine Jill on your bed, and the Tire on the Nightstand. You can make this process more efficient by putting TWO images on each locus, instead of just the one. If you choose to do this, you might imagine a Tire falling onto Jill, who is standing on your bed (locus #1). When recalling this in your mind, you’d see the Tire up above falling onto Jill, and that would remind you that your number is 14(Tire)65(Jill). Then you’d take whatever your next four digit number is, and use those two images on your Nightstand (locus #2).
Get proficient at this method before thinking about PAO. It is a different way of memorizing, and I can help you with that when you get good at this other method. I won’t go into detail here, because I don’t want to confuse you, but if you eventually decide that you want to try PAO, you’re going to have to rework your 00-99 assignments so that they are all people. If/when you do this, you can use the Major System, Dominic System, Category System, or no system at all, to make those assignments.
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“but if you eventually decide that you want to try PAO, you’re going to have to rework your 00-99 assignments so that they are all people.”
Ok, I understand. And of course, I understand the use of loci, and linking up these different images. I’ve done that, in fact I use that for quick memorization, most of the time.
If we absolutely had to build a PAO from this Major System, then the few person-based images would have to be thought of as objects.
Forgot that PAO is a 3-image system. So we would be dealing with 6-digit numbers like 146514, or 651465.
Because most of my memorized images are objects, it would make some sense to memorize each PAO object in Object-Action-Person form. When the numbers are recalled, it would be in standard PAO form.
So
14 represents, in Object-Person-Action form, Tire-GoodYear Person-Roll down hill
65 represents, in Object-Person-Action form, Jill-Jill’sCat-Jump on Sofa
Then, in Person-Action-Object form,
146514 = GoodYear Person-throws to the sofa-Tire
651465 = Jill’s cat-rolls down hill-Jill.
It seems convoluted when written like this, but it doesn’t feel difficult to do, mentally.
Anyway, like you said, it would be better to just create a 100-person list, before proceeding to either PAO or Dominic. Maybe these people could all be tainted bluish, to help avoid interference with the existing Major System. (Always open to suggestions, on this).
Food for thought, thanks tracym.
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Save yourself some effort and just don’t use PAO. It is overrated and not required for using memory techniques. Most top memorizers don’t even use a PAO system so if you are trying to jump through hoops for it maybe that effort isn’t worth it.
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