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[1] 00:00Translator: Mohammed Basheer Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

[2] 00:12What if I told you that in a month from now,

[3] 00:16you will be able to memorize

[4] 00:19a pack of cards by just looking at it once?

[5] 00:24And that you will be able to do that in under 5 minutes,

[6] 00:30with a little bit of training.

[7] 00:33What if I told you that that is all the knowledge you need

[8] 00:37to fundamentally understand how your memory and your brain works?

[9] 00:43That knowledge will then help you in your everyday life,

[10] 00:45when it comes to remembering people's names,

[11] 00:49commit important information to memory and then do it as a presentation at work,

[12] 00:54or if you're a school child and you want to score perfectly on your exam.

[13] 01:02What if I told you that this knowledge, if implemented in schools,

[14] 01:07would change the way we see the school system,

[15] 01:09not only in Sweden but in the whole world?

[16] 01:16My name is Idriz Zogaj.

[17] 01:19I'm a memory athlete.

[18] 01:21I am not some kind of a superstar; this is my alter ego.

[19] 01:27Before the age of 25, I didn't know anything of what I know today.

[20] 01:31The interesting thing about the age of 25 is

[21] 01:33that at the age of 25 the brain becomes fully mature.

[22] 01:37That is, you are a grown-up.

[23] 01:41Before that I knew nothing.

[24] 01:43I also finished -- well, I knew a lot of things, but --

[25] 01:46I also finished my university studies,

[26] 01:49and I was thinking, what happens now?

[27] 01:51What am I going to do with my life?

[28] 01:53I've always been very interested in traveling

[29] 01:57and getting to know other people, culture, etc.,

[30] 02:00and that requires communication.

[31] 02:04So, I was thinking, okay, I like the challenge,

[32] 02:07and I like to communicate with people,

[33] 02:09so, I'm going to learn a language.

[34] 02:11A new language.

[35] 02:12Something completely different from what I know now.

[36] 02:16I know the Latin alphabet,

[37] 02:17but I want to learn something that I don't understand when I look at it,

[38] 02:20like Arabic, Chinese or Japanese.

[39] 02:23Even Hindi crossed my mind.

[40] 02:26So, while I was looking at courses that I could take at home,

[41] 02:31because I was tired of the university life,

[42] 02:33I accidentally came across a book on memory.

[43] 02:37I was thinking that I wanted to learn this new language

[44] 02:41the way children do it, by practicing.

[45] 02:44Going somewhere and talking to people, and in that sense learning the language.

[46] 02:48I sort of don't like grammar,

[47] 02:50so this was my way of cheating away the grammar studies.

[48] 02:55I thought, if I am going to do it that way,

[49] 02:58I will become prepared.

[50] 03:01So, I want to put a lot of words and phrases into memory,

[51] 03:04and then go to that country, or that part of the world.

[52] 03:07This book of memory was excellent.

[53] 03:10Why not start to read it, and then see what happens.

[54] 03:13So, I ordered the book and started to read

[55] 03:16and then realized it is apparently all about techniques,

[56] 03:21thinking in the right way.

[57] 03:23It wasn't that difficult.

[58] 03:26I was very picky with the language I wanted to learn.

[59] 03:29I was like, reading the book, doing some exercises.

[60] 03:32Several years went by and I didn't find any language to select.

[61] 03:38But in the meantime,

[62] 03:40I was doing these exercises and gradually getting better.

[63] 03:44Another interesting thing about this book

[64] 03:47was that at the last chapter, this person talked about

[65] 03:52that you can compete in memory.

[66] 03:54I was thinking,

[67] 03:56what, they have competitions in memory?!

[68] 03:59This guy, Dominic O'Brien, had won the World Memory Championship six times,

[69] 04:02so he knew what he was talking about.

[70] 04:04I was still, like, competing in memory!

[71] 04:07I was looking at the levels he suggested that you complete.

[72] 04:10Then I realized, hold on!

[73] 04:13During this training, I've actually reached many of these levels.

[74] 04:17So, I thought, OK,

[75] 04:18I will focus a little bit more,

[76] 04:20and that's when I started to train the pack of cards,

[77] 04:23and one of the levels was to do it under five minutes.

[78] 04:27In 2004, I felt ready.

[79] 04:30At the age of 27, I went to

[80] 04:35the World Memory Championships in Manchester.

[81] 04:39Why not think big, just go to the World Memory Championships.

[82] 04:43I came 22nd in the world.

[83] 04:45I also became Sweden's best memory,

[84] 04:48a title I would hold for five consecutive years.

[85] 04:54So, when I came back, my friends were looking at me differently.

[86] 05:00They were like, "When did you become such a brain man?"

[87] 05:05"What do you mean?"

[88] 05:07"Well, come on, you just went to the World Memory Championships and competed".

[89] 05:12"Yes."

[90] 05:13"So..."

[91] 05:15"Yes, but I just read these techniques and adapted them."

[92] 05:18"You did?"

[93] 05:20"And I don't feel different, I mean, I'm the same."

[94] 05:22"Really, but what do you do at the World Memory Championships?"

[95] 05:28"Well, we compete in memory."

[96] 05:31"Such as.."

[97] 05:32Well, every competition is 10 disciplines.

[98] 05:35It can be numbers.

[99] 05:37It can be binary digits: one zero one one zero zero one one.

[100] 05:41Very funny.

[101] 05:45It can also be words.

[102] 05:47It can be names and faces, people's names.

[103] 05:52It can be historic dates.

[104] 05:54Do you know that the world record for memorizing historic dates

[105] 05:58is about the same or even more

[106] 06:01than all the dates you learned throughout the school system,

[107] 06:04including high school?

[108] 06:06This guy does it in five minutes.

[109] 06:09Imagine that, 12 years compressed into five minutes.

[110] 06:13I think it's easy if I show you.

[111] 06:17They would take a pack of cards, shuffle it.

[112] 06:20Not the one that we had before; it's shuffled.

[113] 06:23They would give it to me,

[114] 06:24and then while we're chatting I would start,

[115] 06:26and then after a while they ask me, "Idriz, when are you going to start?"

[116] 06:30Well, actually I'm already done.

[117] 06:31"What do you mean?"

[118] 06:34Take the cards, the pack, and split it anyway you want.

[119] 06:37This is Diamonds of 9.

[120] 06:39What comes after Diamonds of 9?

[121] 06:42What do you mean?

[122] 06:43What is the card that comes after Diamonds of 9?

[123] 06:48Clubs of 2, right?

[124] 06:50And what comes after Clubs of 2? Hearts of 10.

[125] 06:54And what comes after Hearts of 10?

[126] 06:57Two Fives.

[127] 06:58That's good.

[128] 07:00One is Diamonds and one is Hearts. I would say that one is Hearts.

[129] 07:06"So, how do you do this?"

[130] 07:10Well, it's just about adapting techniques,

[131] 07:12and actually I think it's easy if I show you with an exercise.

[132] 07:18Look at these two images.

[133] 07:21Do you see a connection between them?

[134] 07:23I'll give you a hint, there is no connection.

[135] 07:27It's just two randomly picked pictures.

[136] 07:30But here's what I want you to do.

[137] 07:32I want you to make a fun, vivid and animated story.

[138] 07:38Use all your senses,

[139] 07:39see how it looks like, feels like, to connect these two images together.

[140] 07:43And do it in 3D,

[141] 07:45even though you don't have 3D-goggles.

[142] 07:47Your brain is amazing, it can do it anyway.

[143] 07:50It's projected in 3D.

[144] 07:53I'll give you a few seconds to do this.

[145] 08:00Here's how I would see it.

[146] 08:01Let's see at the order of where you're sitting.

[147] 08:04You look next to you and see a big snail.

[148] 08:07It has a door on it. You open the door because it says welcome.

[149] 08:10I mean, you've never been inside a snail cell.

[150] 08:13You go in and say: "Oh it's slimy in here, why they do that?"

[151] 08:17Look at these two images. OK, give you the same, make a story.

[152] 08:26Let's take the stairs where I came up.

[153] 08:29You see a flamingo building a big brick wall.

[154] 08:32We have to climb over it. It's no point but --

[155] 08:39And these three, what do you think?

[156] 08:43We all know why elephants -- because it is a big elephant --

[157] 08:46you all know why they are strong: they carry a lot of weight.

[158] 08:50You see a big giraffe up on the screen and the skier is like,

[159] 08:53I'm going to go skiing down the giraffe neck.

[160] 08:59Look up on the roof. The last one is a bit obvious, right?

[161] 09:03Because you see a reptile, and they like to be in the sun.

[162] 09:06It's quite common, so you might think that this is an obvious one.

[163] 09:09This one I will remember.

[164] 09:11That's a dangerous thing, because obvious things we tend to forget.

[165] 09:16I bet I could find people in this room

[166] 09:18that don't remember what they had for breakfast.

[167] 09:21Maybe today was different because you were going to TED,

[168] 09:24so you had breakfast later or whatever.

[169] 09:26But it's a common thing you do, so it's easy to forget, not registered.

[170] 09:31So, see the snake with big glasses,

[171] 09:34a nice drink and enjoying the sun on the roof.

[172] 09:40And the drink is not spilling.

[173] 09:43So, what did we just do?

[174] 09:47Well, we let our brain have fun,

[175] 09:50and when we did that we focused on the task.

[176] 09:56When we focus on the task, we tell our brain that this is important:

[177] 10:01remember this.

[178] 10:05So, first we enforce the power of remembering.

[179] 10:11What is the brain?

[180] 10:13The brain is a biological lump of neurons.

[181] 10:18It contains about 3% of our body weight,

[182] 10:21but consumes 20% of our energy intake every day.

[183] 10:25It doesn't matter if you're sitting in the audience,

[184] 10:28standing here talking or whatever you are doing.

[185] 10:30It's about the same level of energy consumption all the time.

[186] 10:35So, it has a lot of neurons.

[187] 10:37They like to connect to each other.

[188] 10:40They can make tens of thousands of connections.

[189] 10:44This is also why we are all unique.

[190] 10:46I mean, it's impossible to copy or to make two identical brains.

[191] 10:50So, we are all unique.

[192] 10:52The stronger we make the connections,

[193] 10:55the longer we will remember the information.

[194] 10:59So, we can make weak connections and we forget them,

[195] 11:02because that's a natural thing.

[196] 11:05We always forget, that's a natural thing.

[197] 11:08If you have a normal functioning brain,

[198] 11:10it sorts out information that is not important.

[199] 11:13But you can tell it what is important and what is not.

[200] 11:17The stronger the connections you make, the longer you will remember it.

[201] 11:25With this knowledge, I would say that today students study too much.

[202] 11:33The reason why they do,

[203] 11:36I could say that it's because many students today,

[204] 11:39don't know how to put the information into their brain.

[205] 11:42They study and study and study and it becomes late.

[206] 11:45They go to bed late and wake up tired.

[207] 11:48Instead of putting the information in their brain

[208] 11:51in the way the brain likes to have it.

[209] 11:55Then they can rest, commit time to the hobbies,

[210] 11:58spend time with their family,

[211] 12:00and then do a repetition of the information they learnt.

[212] 12:04But if you don't know that the information is there,

[213] 12:06you don't trust your brain.

[214] 12:09If you don't trust your brain, you study all the time.

[215] 12:18I will prove this to you

[216] 12:20that your brain actually is better than you might think yourself.

[217] 12:24The exercise we did before, I do with five-year-olds.

[218] 12:29But then we use 30 pairs.

[219] 12:33So, don't feel any pressure.

[220] 12:36Look at this image! There's something missing, right?

[221] 12:42I bet your brain fills in the gaps.

[222] 12:49So, if I say weight, you say?

[223] 12:51(Audience) Elephant.

[224] 12:53Thank you. And if I say bricks, you say?

[225] 12:55(Audience) Flamingo.

[226] 12:57And if I say the obvious one?

[227] 13:00(Audience) Sun.

[228] 13:01Thank you.

[229] 13:03If I say door, you say?

[230] 13:05(Audience) Snail.

[231] 13:06And if I say ski?

[232] 13:08(Audience) Giraffe.

[233] 13:09And if I told you to give them to me in the right order, as they came up,

[234] 13:13what will you do?

[235] 13:15You will close your eyes, go to the first place,

[236] 13:17go to the second place, go to the third place,

[237] 13:20the fourth place and the roof is last one.

[238] 13:22Give them to me backwards. You just go backwards.

[239] 13:25This is what we do at memory competitions.

[240] 13:31Now you memorized 10 words.

[241] 13:34That's one of the events, to memorize words.

[242] 13:37You can go to the competition and perform.

[243] 13:40The only thing we do is that we do it faster and longer.

[244] 13:47It's very interesting to note

[245] 13:49that the world record for memorizing a pack of cards

[246] 13:54by just looking at them once as fast as possible,

[247] 13:57is about the same time it takes Usain Bolt to run 200 meters.

[248] 14:04Think of that the next time you watch the Olympics.

[249] 14:09When he starts, you start, and see how many cards you remember.

[250] 14:14Now, I don't know Usain Bolt,

[251] 14:16but I know the world record holder for the cards, Simon Reinhard.

[252] 14:20I know how much he trains.

[253] 14:23I know he doesn't do anything different from what we just did before.

[254] 14:28He just structures the knowledge

[255] 14:30that he puts them into his brain.

[256] 14:33He looks at the information once,

[257] 14:34and he knows it's fixed there.

[258] 14:45It's all about having fun and letting the brain make strong connections.

[259] 14:51Then there's no limits.

[260] 14:53I have a friend who comes and helps me

[261] 14:55to organize the Swedish Memory Championships every year.

[262] 15:00If we would have a scale here over the mat.

[263] 15:04Here is a person who has difficulty with memory.

[264] 15:09Here is the normal memory,

[265] 15:12here's where most people would be.

[266] 15:16And here is where the geniuses are, the super memories.

[267] 15:20So, when she came first in 2009,

[268] 15:22I contacted the [inaudible]

[269] 15:28and told them, why don't we run some tests, some memory tests on this,

[270] 15:31because I like to work with a scientist to show them what we could do.

[271] 15:36Because there's not so much research going on in this area.

[272] 15:39The guy who did the research on her,

[273] 15:43which is actually that guy, Jacob Stohlman,

[274] 15:47he said like, "Idrez, we have to redo the scale because she's over there.

[275] 15:51She's outside of our scale."

[276] 15:54What she did is like way outside.

[277] 15:58How can you do this?

[278] 16:00But you haven't studied what we do,

[279] 16:05because it's like we would invent a sport today,

[280] 16:07and all of a sudden people are running,

[281] 16:10"Oh, they're moving so fast."

[282] 16:13But we're not doing anything else.

[283] 16:15We're just working with the brain,

[284] 16:18how the brain likes to work.

[285] 16:20The techniques are very old.

[286] 16:24The oldest one comes from the Greeks.

[287] 16:26The ancient Greeks, several thousand years ago.

[288] 16:32So, we didn't invent anything,

[289] 16:33we just packed it into this, and it's the training that has done it.

[290] 16:38And you can start your training right here, right now.

[291] 16:41The next time you hear something you want to remember,

[292] 16:44make a fun story of it,

[293] 16:45and you will make strong connections.

[294] 16:48So, happy practicing.

[295] 16:50Thank you.

[296] 16:52(Applause).