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General Memory Chat
#1

Hello guys,
It’s been a while since I’ve created a topic. 2020 was a difficult year for me and people close to me, covid was unfortunately just one of the many issues.

2021 is gradually getting brighter and I thought I could share a recent small achievement of mine with you all. Currently I am studying for a test that I have to take in a few months, if I pass I can go to college. In order to pass you have to learn around 350 concepts from a civics book with ~185 pages.

I’ve had some trouble finding the motivation to study, 2020 left a decent mark. But I know that the test is important so I decided to slowly built my motivation by doing something fun, as a way to get used to studying again.

I decided to memorize the book, word by word.

Right now, I learned around 150 sentences, containing around 2300 words. It took me around 5-6 hours. I would learn 1-2 hours, leave the book on the table for a week or so and then learn again. This was spread out over 4-5 weeks.

As usual I did this without mnemonics. I could’ve probably memorized half the book by now if I learned daily but this was just for fun. I won’t study the whole book this way. When I actually start to study I’ll only learn the concepts and leave the rest out.

I plan to post more things on the forum again and be more active in the community in general. I actually am trying to figure out if I could organize a small tournament with prizemoney in the near future, it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for some time now. The memory/mental calculation community is the only community that I ever felt connected to and I want to give something back and help it thrive.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to future conversations!

4 Likes
#2

What happens in your head when you do these large scale memorizations, and have you been tested to be a savant?

1 Like
#3

Not much happens. I just do rote memorization when I am learning the text.

The only trouble I have is in keeping the order right but this is often easily solvable by looking at the structure of the text. For example if I memorized a piece of text that said the next chapter is about 3 concepts then I can view the next chapter as 3 parts, seperated by the 3 concepts. Books often have a logical structure to them and that helps me recall the order of information.

Unfortunately there is no general official test for savant syndrome. It is just a name for certain people. However I do fit the description and past psychologists have said that I fall into the category. Mainly because I also have autism.

1 Like
#4

Have you reached level ten in memory league numbers?

#5

No, not yet. I did reach level 7, 40 digits in 60 seconds. I think I can memorize 50 digits but I don’t think I can memorize 60 or more digits in 60 seconds.

My only level 10 is in images right now.

#6

Nice, have you tried memorising a book before?

#7

No, I don’t think so. I have however memorized 100% of texts before like for tests in middle school. Instead of learning a summary, I would often learn the whole thing, just to guarantee that I got a good grade. I procrastinated a lot back then, I was dealing with personal problems and depression. This was before I knew I had autism. Only now do I realize that passing tests by memorizing a whole chapter the night before is not normal. I had classmates who studied hard and had to redo a whole year while I was skipping classes and not even doing any homework unless the teachers forced me to and I still passed, until I dropped out.

#8

Interesting, you could become more famous than daniel tammet.
By the way I saw your mental calculation stream can you do some more

#9

We are not very fond of the DT-word here, haha. His story and abilities aren’t very consistent.

I enjoyed doing livestreams and I’ll probably stream in the future again but I don’t plan on doing one any time soon. At least not a solo stream. I already got offered help from former world memory champion Johannes Mallow with organizing my tournament so you’ll most likely see me live there, if it goes through.

#10

Memory or mental calculation and in person or online?

#11

It will be an online memory tournament.