^Tutorial 1 - Association of Ideas\

For your first exercise in Association, let's assume you want to memorise
these ten everyday, unrelated items, in sequence: banana, car, newspaper,
sausage, pen, tree, watch, tie, television, football.  In order to do this,
you are going to consciously apply the basic memory rule defined in the
Introduction, but with an an important addition - You Can Remember Any New
Information If You Associate It To Something You Already Know $In Some
Ludicrous Way.\

First, picture a ^banana\ in your mind.  You can't apply the rule yet.  But
now we come to the next item - >car.\ If we assume that you already know ^
banana,\ you can now apply the memory rule.  You simply need to create a
ridiculous picture, or image, in your mind's eye - an association between
^banana\ and >car.\

In order to do this you need a ludicrous, far-fetched, crazy, illogical,
absurd, - picture or image to associate the two items.  What you <don't\
want is a logical or sensible picture.  For example, a sensible picture
might be - someone sitting in a car eating a banana.  Although this would
not be something you would expect to see every day, it is in not in any way
bizarre or impossible.#

An impossible, crazy, picture might be - a gigantic banana is driving a car
along the motorway, or you open a car door and billions of bananas tumble
out and knock you over.  These are ludicrous, illogical pictures.

What you need to do is select one of these pictures, or a crazy image you
thought of yourself, and see it your mind for just a fraction of a second.
Be careful not to picture the %words\ banana and car. You need to see the
<action\ you've selected - the huge banana driving the car, or the mountain
of bananas tumbling out of a car, or whichever image you've decided on.  See
that picture in your mind's eye for just an instant, ^right now\.

The next item on your list is ^newspaper\. Assuming that you already
remember <car\, you now need to form a ridiculous association in your mind
between <car\ and ^newspaper\. For example, you open a newspaper and a car
leaps out of the pages and knocks you over.  Or you are driving a huge
rolled up newspaper instead of a car.  Or you are driving a car when a
massive sheet of newspaper appears in front of you, which the car rips as
you drive through it.  Choose one of these images, or one you conjured up
yourself, and picture it clearly for a split second.#

$Sausage\ is the next item to remember, so you now need to form a ludicrous
association between >newspaper\ and $sausage\. You could picture yourself
eating rolled up newspapers and eggs for breakfast instead of sausages and
eggs, or you are reading a gigantic sausage which has lots of news printed
on it, or a paperboy is walking along a street pushing very long sausages
through letterboxes instead of newspapers.  See one of those crazy images.

Next on the list is <pen\. Associate it to $sausage\. See yourself trying to
write with a sausage instead of a pen, or you cut into a sausage with a
knife and fork and gallons of ink shoot out of the sausage into your face.
Picture one of these scenarios clearly in your mind.

The next item is |tree\. Picture millions of pens growing on a tree instead
of leaves, or a colossal fountain pen is growing in your garden instead of a
tree.  Be sure to see the image clearly.

%Watch\ is the next item on the list.  Picture a tree with lots of branches
which are wearing giant wristwatches, or you look at your watch and see that
there is a tree growing out of it, with roots curling up your arm.  Select
one of these images, or one of your own, and see it for an instant in your
mind's eye.#

^Tie\ comes next.  See yourself wearing an elongated wristwatch instead of a
tie, or an enormously long tie is tied around your wrist instead of a watch,
so long that it drags along the floor.

The next item to be remembered is <television.\ You might picture yourself
with a television hanging around your neck instead of a tie, or you switch
on the television and a vast, horribly spotted tie bursts out of the screen,
unrolling itself for yards and yards.  Select a crazy association between
>tie\ and <television\, and see the picture in your mind.

The final item on the list is $football.\ See a football match where the
players are kicking around a television instead of a football.  Or you are
watching a football game on television when millions of footballs suddenly
burst throught the screen and hit you in the face.  Picture one of those
images.

If you have $really\ tried to see all those pictures, you will now remember
the list of ten items in sequence, both forwards ^and\ backwards. Press
Page Down to test yourself on how well you have memorised the ten items.~