What’s black and white and read all over?
OK, OK, that’s terrible. And it doesn’t work when you read it instead of hearing it. But moving swiftly on…
The idea for this latest hypnotic download session for hypnosisdownloads.com actually came from some work I did with a scientist. This man has a brilliant mind, but he claimed that his recall of written material was appalling. “I just can’t recall any of the contents of entire books I’ve read” were his precise words on the subject. Since he has to peer review reams of scientific papers, this was a handicap. “I have to make notes all the time, and then read and re-read and re-re-read them.” I thought he might be developing a stutter by the time he got to the end of that sentence.
We got to work, and after several sessions of hypnosis he told me that his ability to recall what he’d read had improved so dramatically that he’d actually stopped making notes altogether. One read-through was now enough for him to be able to retain all the information he needed.
Reflecting on this, I realised that actually lots of us have this problem. I know I certainly have had that weird feeling you get when you suddenly realise you can’t recall a single word you just read. Tiredness, distracting thoughts, feeling you have to read it but not really wanting to – all of these can get in the way of decent recall of reading material.
Getting a hold
To recall written material, we need to lay it down strongly in memory in the first place. The more we ‘interact’ with the material when we read it, the more likely it is to be moved more quickly into the safer arms of long term memory. The more ‘passive’ we are in relation to the material, the more likely it is to slip through the grasp of our short term memory – in and out like water though a sieve (to use an over-worked metaphor).
This hypnosis session aims to establish a habit of instant memory retention by encouraging the listener to make the information their own – automatically. This is partly achieved though hypnotic rehearsal of the process of explaining the material to other people. Fascinatingly, although doing this can seem slow at first, it can actually speed up to become pretty much instant as you read. It certainly worked for the scientist I mentioned above, and I hope it will help many other people who have a lot of reading to do too.
Thanks for listening… err… reading!
Mark
