The following facts show that there is no apparent limit to the capabilities of memory. For all practical purposes the human memory seems to be infinite.
Dreams
Many people have dreamt about friends and relatives whom they have not met for 20 or 30 years. In the dreams, the images are perfect with all colors and details. This shows that there is a huge memory storage somewhere in the brain.
Hypnosis and memory
We seem to remember everything that we see, hear, or feel. For example, a person in an accident did not remember the car's license-plate number. But under hypnosis, he could tell the correct number. This shows that he indeed had the number stored somewhere in his brain.
Surprise recalls
Everyone has the experience of suddenly remembering some long forgotten memory. For example, some very old incident or some friend.
Scientific experiment of connecting wires to patient's brain for memory recall
When scientists connect electrodes (wires) to certain parts of the brain, the patients re-experience certain events from their past. They experience those events as if the events were happening now. This is not just memory recall. This is like re-living the experience. In one experiment, these experiences were as old as 40 years. This shows that the information is stored somewhere in the brain.
Near-death experiences
Many people who were very close to death have this experience. They say that their whole life flashed before them. They mean entire, total life, everything in their life. Even things they had forgotten.
Photographic memory
Photographic memory means people can, usually for a short time, remember exactly and perfectly, everything they see. This memory fades with time. It can be so accurate that a person can even remember 1,000 separate random dots on a paper. This shows that our short term memory can be perfect.
Scientists now believe that most children have this ability when they are young. But we force them to concentrate too much on logic and language and mathematics and too little on imagination and other mental skills. And as a result, children lose this photographic memory.
Rajan Mahadevan: modern Indian famous for memory
Rajan Mahadevan set a new world record by memorizing 32,811 digits for the value of PI (a mathematical function) on 5th July 1981. Rajan is one of the world's few people alive with such a memory. He again set a new world record in 1982 by memorizing 35,000 digits for the value of PI.
According to Rajan, he is able to remember numbers by associating them with real-life situations.
Though Rajan has a wonderful memory for numbers, he is less than average when it comes to remembering faces. He sometimes forgets where he put his keys.
Most famous memorizer: Russian S
The most famous memorizer was a Russian called "S". His memory was so good that if you asked him what happened on a specific day 14 years ago, he would think for a moment and then ask "At what time?" This Russian "S" was studied for 30 years by the most famous Russian psychologist of that time. The psychologist found that "S" was just like any normal person but his memory was really perfect. It was found that "S" had by chance discovered the basic "mnemonic technique" as a child and it became natural part of his memorizing.
The Conclusion for Us
The human memory is huge and practically limitless. This understanding and belief will help you memorize better because you can expect to remember / memorize better.
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