Thoughts on GMS

General Memory Chat
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There seem to be a lot of negativity toward this system, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

I became interested in memory techniques after seeing Ron White on Stan Lee’s Superhuman show, and he said he didn’t have any special ability, other than he worked hard to learn some memory techniques. As I was reading various things online I came across the pmemory website that sells the GMS system. I read their manual and found it interesting, and I tried it out a bit. I didn’t pay for the course.

First off, I agree that the guy is clearly trying to make a quick buck, and that GMS is nothing groundbreaking. At the core, it’s the same stuff every other memory system relies on. Mainly, I’d just like to comment on some “criticisms” that I have seen.

“That Crazy Number-to-Letter Encoding: 0=M, 1=N, 2=THZ, etc”. - I see people complain about this, because it doesn’t make any sense and it’s not easy to remember like the Dominic encoding (ABCDESGHN). My thought on this is, if you can’t memorize ten random sets of letters by rote, then you’re either among the laziest people around, or you’re just hand waving because “OMG I know the ‘One True Way’ of the Dominic/Major system and this guy who sells GMS is clearly a Russian terrorist!!!1” Basically when I see this “criticism” it sounds like you’re a 12 year old overly dramatic teenager. Settle down. I promise you can memorize all ten sets of letters using some simple flash cards. It will be okay.

“Emphasis on non-numeric info” - Not sure why this is a criticism, but it seems to me that “non-numeric” more often means “useful in the real world”. Like memorizing data from a book, or from a college lecture, or a company meeting, and so on. There will no doubt be some numeric data, but the majority is typically non-numeric, in my experience. I think this may also be a reason why you don’t see anyone using this for contrived competitions. Memorizing a deck of cards has no real world value, unless you play blackjack.

“The instructors attack other systems and berate their students!!!1” - This basically is not related to the system itself, IMO. This certainly goes back to the guy trying to make a quick buck, but it’s not a criticism of the system itself. It just leads to more hand waving nonsense and is basically not of any value, IMO. If it’s being given as a reason not to purchase the system, I agree with that goal. I don’t think anyone should purchase it for that price. Basically I think we need to separate the marketing strategy from the discussion of the system itself.

“OMG they don’t use the method of loci!!!1 Burn them at the stake!!!1” - When I was reading their manual (and keep in mind I read it before learning any other systems), I found the whole “supporting image” stuff to be kind of a creative challenge. Sure it’s easier to come up with pre-defined journeys, but I have found that to be limiting, because I’m always running out of locations. So that’s great if I’m in a competition, but not as useful to me in real life. The idea of coming up with base objects that become your locations, and doing it on-the-fly, seems very interesting to me. When the emphasis is on some meaningless competition task, it doesn’t make sense, but when the emphasis is on attending a lecture and remembering everything, when you don’t know how many key points there will be, or even how long the lecture will last, the on-the-fly method seems to be attractive. No doubt, it would require a lot of work up front, but I can see it having huge benefits if you can master it. I can see us in 10 years looking back and laughing at the people who used the limited static method of loci. At some point people thought running a 4 minute mile was impossible, and now it’s expected of the best runners. All it took was someone demonstrating it could be done, and the stigma was gone. Wait until the memory championship gets real and moves away from these gimmick memory tasks, and does something “real world” like “watch this 2 hour video and there will be a quiz at the end” with questions like, “when the actor got off the plane and got into a taxi, in the distance there was a sign that read Open 24 Hours. What color was the sign?” Guess what, you can’t memorize every detail of a 2 hour movie with even a few thousand locations. Someone who has mastered the on-the-fly GMS method will destroy the Dominic/Major people in such a real world task. Someone just has to demonstrate it can be done. I’ve found it to keep my day interesting, trying to come up with ways to remember things on the fly as I encounter them. So it’s definitely a ton more work to master, but it also seems incredibly more useful in the real world. Imagine how focused you would be in a boring company meeting if you were trying to play a game with yourself to see how much of it you could remember. If you got good enough at it, and it became instinctual, you would almost have a photographic memory I think.

So anyway, I’m not yet great at memorizing anything myself, but I do find this stuff interesting, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this. Please put down the pitch forks and let’s have an objective discussion, if you like.

Hey Previous member from pmemory
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Here is my concern with the GMS method. Firstly, it advocates static images to be used and no where did I recall it even suggesting you animate your images or make them interact in some memorable way. Secondly, it is somewhat limited as it’s ‘database’ is basically a rehashing of the loci method with a few extra steps that seem unnecessary.
A) find an object
B) break that object down to 5 parts
C) link 5 more objects to those broken down parts
D) break those images down to 5 more parts
E) Add some random image as a ‘base’ and link or associate your stuff to it.

So now I have to navigate down 5 levels in my minds eye to get to what I want and am forced to memorize even more pegs.

I agree, break down an object and associate stuff to it. Sure, my radio can be a radio strap, tuner, speaker, display and I can associate or link images to that in some way…But then they limit you to ‘rules’…It’s almost like learning a second language rather then a method to remember stuff.

1 Like
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I don’t know about the rules of this system, but the idea of ‘zooming in’ on objects and attaching more images to the different parts actually sound very interesting!
In fact, it almost seems like mind maps, where you have one central idea or topic, and sub-topics branching off the main idea.
Also, if you combine this method with loci, it could be a great way to remember the structure of a book: the main ideas of the book can be placed as objects on a journey (to preserve their order in the book), and the ideas can be broken down into smaller images placed on the main objects.

I will certainly try this out the next time I read a book!

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I used their system to memorize the chapters of a book once. It was a poker book, and the author’s online name was “Baluga Whale”, so I used an image of a baluga whale as the base image, and I attached the images of the chapters to the parts of the whale (mouth, eyes, forehead, fins, blow hole, etc). The chapters were enough for me to remember the main ideas, and I didn’t use up any loci to remember it, so I was happy about that.

That was quite a while back and I still remember the chapters. My favorite image was for the chapter “Bet Sizing and Thin Value”. On one of the fins, my image was three beds of different sizes, and in the last bed was a very skinny mobster guy named Val.

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I agree that associating things to a base image is useful as long as that base image is relevant to what you are remembering. I don’t, however, agree that the images should be static. I feel the best way to recall is to give some life to your images, having them interact with the base image in such a way but still follow those basic rules.

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I found that there was a number of positives to the GSM system, but the one overriding problem I have with it is the assumption that merely stacking images on top of each other, or lining them up from left to right without any sort of action or emotion, is very ineffective, and believe me I tried it. I am a strong visualiser, not that I always were, and even for me it takes a lot more effort to get an image to “stick”.

I like the idea of using certain parts of objects as links for memory, as I’m using it already.

The lack of a loci system is a gap, as there is no easier way to fix memories. The amount of research done on the effectiveness of spacial awareness and spacial memory makes this obvious.

I think the major issue with the whole system is that a lot of people feel that the techniques you are paying for is simply a renaming of current techniques and systems, renamed, painted and sold for twice the price.

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a lot of the things i read about GMS runs counter to what i read from many other reputable source, (i.e don’t make the images move, don’t make it weird, don’t have a background, don’t invest emotions)- assertions without evidence- i only managed to complete lesson 1 but gave up after that, partly because it’s hard, more importantly because it doesn’t engage the imagination as much. it reeks too much of indoctrination, with its prescription of set “images” for the days.months and numbers. in addition, the explanation given over how it works is someone elusive, and a lot of the forum posts seems like plain marketing message to me.

i have never got myself into studying any memory systems seriously, though i did once entertained myself with the alphanumeric system of the GMS and convert car plate numbers into the letters. But then, the lack of effectiveness can be inferred from the lack of any masters in memory competition and how the creator’s english is still substandard despite him being a memory meister one would think that gaining prestige at such memory event would serve as a good proof to his credentials.

there are also flaws with the alphanumeric codes for example NoSe which supposedly is 17 according to the code is included in the booklet as 1, there are a few other of these examples , and according to what i read, it was mentioned that flexibility is needed, but then again, if this is so why can’t the major system be adapted? according to the admin, their system is the best and which provides the most number of images,which for me is hard to believe really…

in the end, there’s no single magic pill and anyone that tells you that is suspect. i am going to start anew and that’s a good thing i guess :smiley: time to seriously work on the major system… at least its tried and tested :slight_smile:

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Mattias Ribbing is a Swedish Champ, he uses GMS