Chapter 4. Making Your Own Mental Images

In the last chapter, we spoke of the importance of exagger­ation in remembering an image. Another factor is action.

Why are actors so furious when some minor character steals a scene by the simple device of walking across the stage? Because it is an old truism in the theater that the eyes of the audience are always attracted and held by a moving object. In the same way, your mental images will be more vivid to you if you can put some action into them.

The more violent the action, the more attention it will get and the resulting mental images will be stronger. You never forget an accident, especially a bloody one. The smallest details of the picture remain in your mind for years. For this reason, gruesome, even terrifying images make a deep impression on the mind, and should be used as much as pos­sible.

To show how you can put action into these mental images, let us memorize another list of five items. Even though you feel you already know the first five key words thoroughly, this practice will help you.

In this list we turn from geography to death. Here is a list of the five principal causes of death in the United States, in order:

Heart disease

Cancer

Apoplexy

Pneumonia

Accidents

1. HEART DISEASE. The alarm clock ticks like the heart. A red valentine heart hung over the alarm clock. Heart trouble—alarm clock.

2. CANCER. Cancer is eating up the trousers. Cancellation marks on the trousers. Cancer—trousers.

3. APOPLEXY. Apples are mashed on the chair. See the apples mashed all over the chair; the juice from the apples is running down the legs of the chair. Apoplexy—chair.

4. PNEUMONIA. Someone is lying on the table and can barely breathe on account of pneumonia. New-mown hay is scattered all over the table. You pour ammonia over the person on the table. Pneumonia—table.

5. ACCIDENTS. Big headlines in the newspaper with a pic­ture of a big wreck. Five people killed. Maybe you see blood on the newspaper from the accident. Accidents—newspaper.

Read these associations carefully again. Now fill in the spaces below with the causes of death:

2……………………….
5……………………….
3……………………….
1……………………….
4……………………….

By this time you are probably asking a question that often puzzles my students. "If I use the same key word over and again, won't I get mixed up? Won't the mental pictures from one list pop in another list where they don't belong?"

Actual practice shows that this doesn't happen. The very fact that it doesn't shows what a wonderfully sensitive and ob­liging instrument the mind is. When you name your five larg­est cities, you are thinking cities, and the city associations pop up like figures on a cash register. You will never confuse the associations for cities with the associations for these causes of death, provided you are thinking of what you are doing and have formed vivid mental images in the first place.

Better check yourself again on the list of five principal causes of death in the United States, this time filling in the key number opposite the cause of death:

apoplexy is No…………………………………
HEART DISEASE is No……………………….
ACCIDENTS IS No…………………………….
PNEUMONIA is No……………………………
CANCER IS No…………………………………

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