The essence of the Cicero method

In order to know a lot, you need to read and memorize a lot. But not every person can boast of a good memory. There are many ways to develop it. One of them is the Cicero method or "Roman room".

One of the most famous statesmen of the Roman Empire, Mark Tullius Cicero, who lived in 106-43 BC, became famous for his unsurpassed oratorical talent. At the same time, he possessed an amazing memory, reproducing in his speeches many dates, names, facts, historical events, without using any records.

The way of memorizing the text "Roman room" (Cicero's method) is named after him, but it was not invented by him, but much earlier. Cicero only used it in order to prepare for public speaking and thereby made this method famous. In preparing his speech, Cicero divided it into parts. The rehearsals for each of them took place in different rooms of his large house. Already during the speech, he mentally walked around all those rooms in which one or another part of his speech was perfected, and it was this technique that allowed him to remember everything to the smallest detail.

The roots of this mnemonic technique go back to Ancient Greece, where, like Cicero, the poet Simonides used it successfully... According to legend, once a building collapsed where a great feast was taking place. Simonides, who was present there, managed to get out from the wreckage alive and almost unharmed. He told from memory to the people taking apart the rubble where each of the guests was at the time of the collapse. This helped the relatives find all the bodies of the victims and bury them according to custom.After this incident, Simonides realized that this accidental discovery was very useful and continued to develop it.

Memory training according to the Cicero method occurs on the basis of spatial imagination. What does it mean? Imagine all those home furnishings and outdoor objects that you constantly see. These are all visual images that form your natural associations at the subconscious level. The connections between these images are formed in our head automatically and do not require work on memorizing them.

This fact is precisely what determines the method of Cicero, the essence of which is based on the principle of memorizing the sequence and repeated repetition of images that have been familiar to us for a long time... That is, the information that we need to remember well and then reproduce must be mentally distributed over objects that are well known to us (for example, on pieces of furniture in an office study, in a bedroom or living room) in a clearly defined order. When you remember this room, the necessary information picture will easily appear in front of you, and you will only have to reproduce it.

One and the same room can be used for memorization an unlimited number of times. This method makes it possible to remember not just individual words and phrases, but voluminous informative texts. You can use this mnemonic technique in any conditions, it is important to concentrate and not be distracted by external stimuli. When the time comes to voice the necessary information, imagine the room in which you worked on memorization, and the process will go like clockwork.

The Cicero method includes various exercises. To begin with, you need to consider your home or office from the inside with your mind's eye. If you have chosen your home for memory training, then mentally distribute the sequence of all its rooms around the perimeter, depending on the layout. For example:

• hallway;
• restroom;
• bathroom;
• pantry;
• living room;
• canteen;
• kitchen;
• bedroom;
• children's;
• loggia (or balcony).

Then concentrate on the first room and inspect mentally all the objects in it. It is advisable to do this always in one direction, preferably clockwise.

Then go to the next room in line and examine it in the same way. Etc.

1. If this is your first time trying to work according to the Cicero method, then for a start, focus on only one room. You will switch to the rest later, when you are already well trained. In the meantime, select, for example, a hallway and select several stationary objects in it.
2. It is not necessary to use only familiar building spaces. Can turn your attention to street objects that you often meet. For example, shops, bus stops, cafes, schools, kindergartens and other similar places.
3. After preparing the "Roman room" in your mind, proceed to placing in it the information that you need to remember. For example, you want to memorize a list of products that you need to buy in a store, and you have chosen a hallway for this. When you enter it on the left, you see a wardrobe. Place bread and milk on the shelves, and hang potatoes and washing powder on a hanger bar. Place tea, sugar and biscuits on your nightstand. Etc.

When you enter the store, mentally imagine the hallway with its furniture, and the necessary information will be clearly drawn in your head.If you need to remember a large amount of information that is unlikely to fit on the objects of one room, then feel free to move to the adjacent rooms.

In order to memorize any specific text, prepare for a public speech, work with Cicero's method as follows:

• read the text and understand what it is about;
• break it down into several semantic parts;
• remember each of these parts in a separate room of your home;
• then pronounce the entire speech aloud, sequentially reproducing in memory the images of those rooms in which parts of the text were memorized.

Such training is recommended to be carried out regularly., since this will improve such an important instrument of consciousness as memory. Thus, you will move forward in your success, and the result of your activities will go up.

Before you start working with the memorization of information, it is better to actually go around those rooms that will act as a "Roman room" for you. The objects represented (for example, pieces of furniture) should not be repeated, only the names of these objects (wardrobe, table, bedside table, chest of drawers, etc.) can be the same. And the objects themselves should be different (for example, a wardrobe in the hallway and a wardrobe in the bedroom, a table in the kitchen and a table in the study, a bedside table in the nursery and a bedside table in the bedroom). It is also possible to divide one object into several zones (parts). For example, a chest of drawers may not be considered a single object on which we will "place" units of memorized information, but divide it by the number of drawers in it.

The sense organs play a significant role in improving the memorization process. It's important to get them to work and not only mark what you see, but also what you feel (for example, smells, tastes) or hear (different sounds). For a more effective application of the Cicero method, it is necessary to attach units of memorized information to objects in brightly lit rooms. And you can also change the size of memorized objects or images (for example, imagine a mouse the size of an elephant and vice versa), come up with interesting and mobile transitions from image to image, from object to object. For example, imagine a sofa in a brighter color than it actually is, and the adjacent chair dancing rhythmically.