Memorizing numbers

Text can be associated with stories, links but numbers being abstract are a different beast.

The "major system" and the "dominic system" are 2 techniques used by great memory masters to convert long sequences of numbers to visual images that can be linked and then recalled.

I have an interesting procedure to visualize numbers that treats numbers as a set of two digit numbers. The first digit in a pair will stand for a noun and the second for a verb. In other words you would be remembering a 2 digit number as a "Person/Animal/Something performing an action". You would need then to just visually associate each pair and link all of them to form a image for that number.

In order to use this method you need to learn and map the following table completely.

1 - A - Arnold
2 - B - Bruce Lee
3 - C - Clinton
4 - D - Dracula
5- E - Elephant
6 - F - Frog
7 - G - Giraffe
8 - H - Hitman
9 - I - Iron Man
0 - J - Jackson (Michael)

Now for the verbs,
1 - A - Adding eg . (Alcohol to replace the Pacific ocean)
2 - B - Boiling eg . (blood in a sauce pan)
3 - C - Cutting eg. (salamanders)
4 - D - Deep Frying eg. (themselves in a teaspoon of oil)
5 - E - Eating (planets from their orbit)
6 - F - Feeding eg. (men to sharks)
7 - G - Gunning down eg. (bacteria in the society)
8 - H - Hiding eg. (behind mosquitoes)
9 - I - Investing eg. (in bandages)
0 - J - Jabbing eg. (the Mt.Everest)

Lets say you want to remember the 10 digit number,[ 9677266972 ]

we have the following images
Iron man feeding men to sharks - Giraffe gunning down bacteria - Bruce Lee Feeding electricity to aliens - Frog Investing in bandages - Giraffe boiling blood

Lets see how we can visualize this into a story that will stand for this number,
"The IRON man FED men to sharks that then gave birth to a GIRAFFE that sole purpose was to GUN down bacteria in the ocean. One such bacteria was named BRUCE LEE who had the power to FEED electricity to aliens. The aliens looked like FROGS, they got into a fight had to INVEST in bandages. The alien frogs then caught the GIRAFFE and BOILED its blood.

Memorizing facts

There are many great ways to memorize facts. Transforming a piece of information or text to a story, possibly a ludicrous one, is a great way of doing it. The downside of this method being that, if you have a lot of text to remember your imagination may start overlapping.

One technique that really works for me and yet not mentally taxing is the idea of selective distortion.

What you essentially do is retain much of the text as it appears but work on specific verbs/adjective transforming them to other verbs/adjective that are out of place or ridiculous in that context. The sense of the absurd will cause you to retain the information for a longer time.

Suppose you wanted to remember the following piece of information,

Talc is the softest mineral in the world
Change the adjective softest to say quadruped
(an animal that walks on four feet) and read the text as,
Talc is the only quadruped mineral in the world .
Dont worry about not remembering the original adjective, the brain will take care of the association.