Learning how to develop a photographic memory would benefit absolutely anyone.

Imagine having the ability to recall an image of anything you’ve seen in the past. Think
of how easy tests would have been. Honestly, it would basically be a superpower.

For some reason, I’m guessing you’re reading this article because you’re interested in
developing this superpower? While it is possible to develop a photographic memory,
there is a lot of controversy surrounding the subject, so before we dive into it, I want to
clarify a few things.

What’s a Photographic Memory and

Why is There Controversy?
The controversy surrounding photographic memory is largely due to an incorrect
definition and concept of what it is.

The Dictionary (Oxford) Definition:

“The ability to remember information or visual images in great detail.”

The Hollywood/Junk Science Definition:

“The ability to blink and store an image of whatever you were looking at in your head
(and keep it there forever).”

The controversy exists because of the Hollywood definition of the ability. While there are
people who claim to be able to do this, all are thought to be fake as none of the claims
have been validated.

So, if you’re looking to turn your memory into an effortless digital camera, I can’t help
you. If you’re looking to learn the ability as outlined in the Oxford definition above, I got
you. Keep reading.
What its Not: Eidetic Memory
and Superior Autobiographical
Memory
Controversy aside, there are a few conditions that are commonly confused with
photographic memory. There is no way to develop either of the following; you have to
be born with them.

Eidetic Memory
This is a condition where people are able to visualize an image for a brief time after it’s
been taken away.

It has been found in a very small number of young children, and in extremely rare
cases, a few adults. If you’re not born with an eidetic memory, you cannot develop it. If
you’re curious if you do have this type of memory you can take a test here.

Superior Autobiographical Memory

Superior Autobiographical Memory is an extremely rare condition where people are able
to remember almost every moment of their life.

A 60 Minutes reporter, Lesley Stahl, interviewed a 37 year old women with the
condition named Louise Owen. In the interview, Stahl picked a random date from the
past: April 21st, 1999. She then asked Owen if she could remember what she had done
that day.

Her response was incredible. She was able to recall everything she had done that day,
from the concert she attended to what she ate for dinner. What’s more incredible is
that Owen was able to recall details from a day that was 19 years in the past!
Again, unless you’re born with a Superior Autobiographical Memory, you’ll never have it.
Of those who have the condition, many say that it’s a burden. Jill Price, the first person
ever identified with the condition, said she, “feels haunted by the never-ending stream of
memories.” So even if you could develop it, you probably wouldn’t want it.

How to Develop a Photographic

Memory
Alright, so we’ve established what a photographic memory is and what it isn’t. Let’s
get to the practical stuff.

Below are four techniques to help you get a photographic memory. The first is by far my
favorite. It’s so effective I still use it to recall information I committed to memory years
back.

Technique 1: The Memory Palace (or

Method of Loci)
The Memory Palace, also known as the Method of Loci, dates back to the Roman
Empire.

Remember mnemonic devices like, “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”? The memory
palace is a mnemonic device on steroids. It is one of the most powerful memory tactics I
know.

Before we jump in, a note on why it works so well. It’s so effective because it speaks our
mind’s language. What’s our mind’s language?

Put simply, its language is images. Want proof? Imagine something like a grocery list.
When you visualize your grocery list do you see the words avocado, carrots, steak or do
you see images of avocados, carrots and steaks?
This technique works so well for two reasons. First, it converts information into a series
of images. Second, it takes these images and links them to a physical location that
you’re familiar with. These two combined make for one of the most powerful memory
tools out there.

Last thing before we dive in, this technique will seem a little confusing until you read
through all 5 steps. Here’s how to create your own memory palace:

Step #1: Choose a Palace

Pick your memory palace. This is any place that you can easily visualize. It could be
your home, your school or place of work, or the route you take every morning to the
coffee shop.

The key here is picking a place that you’re extremely familiar with. The more details you
can visualize about the place, the better the memorization will be.

To start, I would recommend using your home as your memory palace. This is the place
that most people can recall and visualize the most detail about.

Again, familiarity is key here. Other than your home you could use:

 Your old high school or college

 A friend’s house
 A route that you drive every day to work
 An old home
 A coffee shop or restaurant you often go to
 Your place of work

Step #2: Pick a Route

Once you have your palace, it’s time to choose your route.
Let’s use your home as an example. Your route could be that you walk through the front
door, walk into the kitchen, then into the dining room, then down a flight of stairs into the
living room, turn around and walk up the stairs to a bedroom.

The better you know this route, the better this technique will work. It is also extremely
important to walk the same route every time.

Choose a starting point (I like to start with the front door) and an ending point for your
mental walk through your memory palace.

Step #3: List Distinctive Details

As you’re probably seeing, details are integral to this technique working.

Close your eyes and mentally transport yourself to your memory palace. Visualize
the starting point you defined above (let’s use the front door to keep things simple).

You can see your front door. Now visualize walking through the front door. Look slowly
from the left to the right, what do you see?

In my own home, I see a grandfather clock, a table, a large mounted mirror, a large
plant, and a small entry table

When you mentally walk through a room, analyze things methodically and
consistently. It really helps to define procedures for your mental walk. For example,
when you walk into a room, you always look from left to right.

Walk through every room of your palace. Analyze each room and take note of all the
unique details you see.

The more details that you can visualize, the more items you’ll be able to memorize as
we’ll see in the next step.

Step #4: Link

So you know your memory palace, you know your route and you know all the details
you can see along your route.

Proud of you! Let’s make use of it!

Take each unique detail you’ve listed in your memory palace and link it to something
that you want to memorize.

You can use this technique to memorize a ton of information, but let’s start with
something simple like a grocery list.

Let’s say one of the items on your list is carrots. Make a link between carrots and
the starting point of your memory palace, your front door.

The more ridiculous, exaggerated, unusual, crazy, nonsensical or strange you

can make the link the better. If you create a link that is boring, it’s wrong. Also, the
more detail and information you can apply to the link the better. These two combined
make the item much, much easier to remember.

Let’s use our carrot, front door link as an example. Mentally transport to your memory
palace. As you walk up to the front door, you see a giant orange carrot, with green hair
and long orange arms, opening the door.

That’s it. Try to tell me your not going to remember a giant carrot man opening a door.

The process for memorizing your entire grocery list is the same. Create some sort of
link for each item on your list: bacon, onions, eggs, etc. Be sure to differentiate things.
Right after the carrot man, you don’t want to have a giant bacon man walk out of the
grandfather clock. Instead, have the hands of the clock be made of bacon.

Step #5: Go to Your Palace

Now that the list of items you want to memorize are linked, you need to visit your
palace.
You see the giant carrot man opening the door, the bacon hands on the clock telling you
the time. As you keep moving along your route, you will see more details and will be
able to recall more information.

When you first start using this technique, you should walk through your palace a few
times and recall each item to be sure everything is well linked and memorized.

Final Thoughts

Using the memory palace is a skill that you hone. The more you use and practice the
skill the quicker and easier it will become. Don’t be discouraged if it takes a long time at
first.

This technique really works; I have used it myself for years. As I said above, I can still
recall information from memory palaces I created years back.

The only downside to the memory palace is that you need to go through your entire
route, from start to finish, when recalling information. If the information you’re looking to
recall is at the end of your route, you still need to go through the entire thing to
remember it. You can sort of fast forward the walk through, but it still takes time.

The memory palace technique is great for remember things you want to know for a long
time. For information that changes frequently, such as a market list, I prefer the next
technique.

Technique 2: The Memory Peg

The memory peg is actually quite similar to the memory palace. The difference is that
instead of linking information to items in a physical location, you use a list of numerical
rhymes known as memory pegs.

A common starting list of these numerical rhymes memory pegs is:

1 = gun
2 = zoo
3 = tree
4 = door
5 = hive
6 = bricks
7= heaven
8 = plate
9 = wine
10 = hen
The technique works by combining the above number rhymes with something that you
want to remember. Let’s use a grocery list as our example again.

You could create the following links:

Carrot: Picture a gun shooting carrot bullets.

Onions: Imagine all the animals at war with each other using onion grenades as their
weapon.
Bacon: Imagine a tree full of bacon fruits.
Eggs: Picture a door made completely of eggs.
As you can see, this technique is similar to the memory palace in that you link
something you want to remember to a visual image. The difference is that you use a list
of images that you’ve memorized to link the information.

This is both a drawback of the technique and one of its greatest advantages. You
initially have to memorize the list but you can also create an infinite number of pegs to
help you remember things. For example this site lists 1,000 pegs.

I strongly prefer this technique for things I want to remember over a short period of
time. It is much easier to reuse a list of memory pegs than it is links in your memory
palace.

Technique 3: The Military Method

If you’re really interested in learning this skill, I assume you’ve done some research and
have come across multiple articles that explain the military method.

This is the only technique I know that claims to give you the “Hollywood” definition of a
photographic memory.

The technique involves a dark room, a light, and a sheet of paper you want to
memorize. You essentially flip the light on and off while looking at the sheet of paper.
The idea is that when the lights go out, you’ll have an imprint of the sheet of paper in
your mind. You do this for 15 minutes each day for about month.

I decided not to add a full explanation of this technique as I was unable to conclusively
determine that it works. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try the technique. Our friends
over at Menprovement wrote a similar post to this one that did a great job of explaining
the Military Method. If you want to give it a try, check out their post here.

Technique 4: Improve Your Overall

Memory
Just as our bodies need food to function properly, our memory needs the following four
to operate well.

Giving your memory what it needs will greatly improve its effectiveness and will make
learning techniques 1-3 exponentially easier.

If you want a better memory, work the following four tips into your everyday life.

Tip #1: Sleep

More than anything else you can do to improve your memory, getting the right amount
of sleep will have the largest impact.

Sleep gives our brain the chance to reboot and process the information we take in
during the day. While we sleep, our brain sorts through the memories we have, storing
those that are significant and discarding those that aren’t. This process is known
as memory consolidation.

The take-away point here? Always get the right amount of sleep. When you don’t, you
brain won’t be able to store memories and information effectively.

Tip #2: Meditation

Almost any strategy claiming to teach a person how to develop a photographic memory
incorporates some form of meditation.

Meditation is an exercise that slows down your mind’s processing. When you meditate
you’re essentially training your mind. This training will give you more control of your
mind and your thoughts.

Setting up a meditation routine will pay long-term dividends in general, but will also
greatly improve your memory.

Tip #3: Diet

A combination of proper diet and the right vitamins and herbs, can very positively impact
your memory.

In the same vein as getting enough sleep, our brain operates best when given the right
amount of what it needs. Making sure to maintain a balanced diet will positively effect
overall physical function, memory included.

When you choose your memory enhancing vitamins and herbs, be sure to chose those
that are backed by clinical proof. Be cautious of supplements that seem unnatural or too
good to be true. Do your research and be sure you’re taking something that has been
proven to be effective. WebMD has a great article that lists vitamins and herbs that are
good for memory that you can read here.

Tip #4: Exercise

Along with diet and sleep, exercise is another aspect of healthy living that hugely
impacts memory.

When you exercise you increase your rate of circulation. More circulation means more
oxygen is going to your brain. Studies show that students who ran after studying better
retained the information they studied versus those that didn’t. If you don’t like running
but you love lifting you’re in luck. Both aerobic exercises, such as running, and
lifting have been shown to improve memory.

If you needed another reason to to get shredded, just think about improving your
memory.

In Conclusion
I want to emphasize that practice is key here. It took me months before I was effectively
able to use techniques #1 and #2. I encourage you to try technique #3 (and I want to
hear if it works) and technique #4 is a matter of making life changes.

The good things in life take work and improving your memory is no exception.

Victor Hugo wisely said, “Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is
the servant.”

With this guide, and some hard work, your memory can be something that you control.
Use these four techniques to learn how to develop a photographic memory and become
the superman of memory.