I have a small obsession about human memory. I’ve watched many YouTube videos about savants with profound memory and the things they can do. Videos such as “The Boy With The Incredible Brain” and “The Real Rain Man”. These people who can remember anything with perfect accuracy are fascinating.
My obsession pushed me to learn about memory techniques. I found out that even though, my memory is nothing to be proud of, using a few tricks I was able to memorize the order of a deck of 52 play cards! At my peak I was able to memorize two full decks in less than 15 minutes. I believe, that almost anyone who practices that can achieve the same results in a short period of time.
In one TED talk, Daniel Tammet, who is a savant, talked about synesthesia. He described synesthesia as one of the key abilities for outstanding memory and many other astonishing creative abilities. Synesthesia, is a cross between senses, for instance, perceiving numbers as colors or sounds. I instantly saw that as an invite to try LSD, as it’s known to be one of the side effects of the drug ;)
Daniel Tammet, also claims that everyone has synesthesia of some level, and that it’s also an acquired ability to some level.
On my very little free time, I’ve started working on an Android app for helping “stimulating” synesthesia. The idea is simply a big size Simon game. Simon is a kind of a memory game. In that game a player is given a series of tones and lights and requires to repeat the series. Usually this game has four colors. My version of the game has ten colors, each one corresponds to a number from Zero to Nine. In my game the series of tones is not random, and it corresponds to string of numbers the user wish to memorize. Currently I use 50 digits of Pi, but I will add an option to enter arbitrary number, or choose phone number from the contact list.
If anyone has more interesting links about these kind of memory techniques, or any unbelievable savant stories, please share it down in the comments.
If anyone is interested in the Android app, or wants to help please do it on GitHub on the following link:
Warning, this is my very first Android app, I’m more used to see Android apps in IDA...
Cheers,
Assaf
