The Art of Making Memories

by Meik Wiking

  However, it’s important to note that, even though the participants reported feeling better, they did not score significantly better on the depression scale. Furthermore, since the participants were aware of what the experiment was trying to achieve, it is possible that such a self-reported improvement could be a placebo effect. Nevertheless, being able to retrieve happy memories is a mark of progress and, today, nostalgia is considered a useful psychological mechanism which counteracts loneliness and anxiety and makes people feel happier.

  Evgeny Atamanenko/Shutterstock

  HAPPY MEMORY TIP:

  ENTER THE PALACE

  As I enter my childhood home, the Three Musketeers are fighting in the hallway.

  I duck to avoid Porthos’s swing and roll into the kitchen. Beethoven is there, taking a chicken out of the oven. There is a fireplace in the kitchen, in front of the seating area. Pope Francis is trying to get the fire going, but he gets soot on his white hat and starts to swear. In the room next door, Neil Armstrong is playing the piano. He is wearing his space suit, so each finger hits several notes at a time.

  This is not a dream. This is a carefully curated memory palace. Allow me to explain. Several of the memory techniques we apply today were developed back in ancient Greek and Roman times. One of them is the method of loci (“place” in Latin)—also known as the memory palace. Or, if you are into the BBC crime drama Sherlock (and who isn’t?), Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes refers to it as the “mind palace.”

  According to legend, the method was first used by the Greek poet Simonides in 500 BC. He was also known as “He of the honey tongue” and would entertain with poetry and odes at feasts and banquets. On one of these occasions, after his performance Simonides left the temple where the feast had taken place and, in that very moment, the roof collapsed, killing everyone inside. The bodies were crushed so badly it was impossible to identify them. Yet Simonides was able to picture the scene from earlier that evening and remember who had been sitting where in the room. Later, he reflected on the experience and formulated the method of loci.

  The method is often used today in memory competitions, where one of the disciplines is to remember as rapidly as possible the order in which the cards in a deck fall. In advance, the participants create memory palaces—places they know well, such as their childhood homes or a familiar route. They also assign a character or person to each card of the deck. In my system, the six of spades is Marilyn Monroe. The Jack of hearts is my brother. The King of clubs is King Kong.

  I’ve made it so all the clubs are fictional characters (Robinson Crusoe or Jack Sparrow); hearts are people I know personally; diamonds are contemporary celebrities (Donald Trump or the Danish Queen Margaret); and spades are celebrities or historical figures who are now dead (Frank Sinatra or Cleopatra).

  In addition, for example, all the eights are people who wear glasses (Gandhi); the nines are Germans (because “nine” sounds like the German for “no’); and fours are people with four-legged friends (so Tintin with Snowy).

  The combination of the number of the card and the suit makes it easier to remember; for instance, the nine (German person) of spades (dead historical figure) is Beethoven.

  When the first card is shown, you place the character you associate with it in the first location in your memory palace or route and then create a mental image of the situation they find themselves in. It is more effective if they perform an action—the dirtier, the naughtier, the more politically incorrect, the better.

  So, try and remember: who was taking the chicken out of the oven in the kitchen? It was Beethoven. And who was trying to light the fire, got soot on his clothes and swore? Pope Francis, right? (For me, the ten of diamonds.) Who was playing the piano? Neil Armstrong in his space suit: the ace of spades. One small musical step for man, one lasting picture in your mind.

  A word of warning. As I was working on the mnemonic system above, I was on a flight to Canada. I became so caught up in learning how to memorize a full deck of cards, I left my laptop in the pocket in front of my seat. I am fully aware of the irony. If you have read The Little Book of Lykke, you will know that this is not the first time I have left my computer on a plane. To avoid this happening a third time, I now place one of my shoes in the seat pocket with my computer.

  Using the memory palace, I can now memorize the order of a deck of cards in around six minutes, but the memory palace can be used for more important things than party tricks.

  NOSTALGIA—IT’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

  One of my favourite scenes in Mad Men—the TV series set in a fictional sixties advertising agency—is from the episode called “The Wheel.”

  Kodak has developed a new round slide projector and the company is very attached to the idea of calling it “the wheel” in the advertising campaign. At the meeting with the Kodak clients, Don Draper—head of Creative at Sterling Cooper—turns on the projector and flips through old slides of him with his family. His wife. Their children. Happy moments. Happy memories.

  Don Draper talks about the skills required in advertising and says that the most important idea in advertising is: New! But he also talks about the opportunity to create a deeper bond with the product. A sentimental bond: Nostalgia. It is a delicate, but potent, twinge in the heart. The projector is not a projector—it is a portable nostalgia generator, a time machine that allows people to go back in time, to a place they ache to go to again. It is not a wheel—but a carousel—that allows us to be children again, and allows us to revisit places where we were loved.

  The scene is fictional, but the use of nostalgia as a marketing tool is very real. From expensive watches which promise nostalgia in the future—“You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation”—to chicken nuggets.

  Keith Morris/Alamy Stock Photo

  When McDonald’s removed antibiotics and artificial preservatives from their nuggets in 2016, they created an ad campaign built on nostalgia. A split screen shows a young boy to the left and a young girl to the right. Cue music: an acoustic version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” The young boy passes the things he loves over to the young girl. His bike. His joystick. His toy. As he passes them, they change from an eighties product into a contemporary one.

  If you are a parent, you want to give your kids something better than what you yourself had. At the end of the advertisement the young boy passes a chicken nugget to the girl. He slides over to her side of the screen and he is now no longer a boy, but a grown-up—and surprise!—it’s her dad. The advertisement is very well done. I almost tear up. And I don’t even like chicken nuggets.

  According to Forbes magazine, nostalgia is employed in marketing because “reliving positive memories and beloved icons from the past feels good.” In addition, the article “An Involvement Explanation for Nostalgia Advertising Effects” by Muehling and Pascal published in the Journal of Promotion Management in 2012 concludes that nostalgia in advertising influences how much attention people pay to the advertisement and how positively they view the brand or product being advertised. Consequently, nostalgia is today a natural ingredient in advertising, TV programs, museum exhibitions, fashion, music, interior design and politics.

  We watch Mad Men and The Americans (a spy series set in the eighties). We buy vintage clothes and furniture and vinyl. We visit antique shops and look at fountain pens brought to Britain by German immigrants in the exhibition “Things We Keep” at the German Historical Institute. All while President Trump promises to make America “Great Again.” Nostalgia. It is delicate but potent. But it wasn’t always like this.

  The term “nostalgia” was coined in 1688 by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in his medical dissertation. Hofer considered it a medical or neurological disease. Symptoms included excessive thinking about home, weeping, anxiety, insomnia and an irregular heartbeat. It was thought to be similar to paranoia, except that nostalgia was manic with longing and melancholia and specific to a place.

  “N
ostalgia” is a compound word consisting of nostos (“return” or “homecoming’) and algos (“pain’) and was inspired by history’s earliest and most epic tales of homesickness.

  After emerging victoriously from the Trojan War, Odysseus and his crew set sail for Ithaca, his homeland. There, he would be reunited with his wife, Penelope. The journey between Troy and Ithaca is only 565 nautical miles, but it took Odysseus ten years to complete. Outsmarting Cyclops, resisting sirens and surviving the wrath of Poseidon is rather time-consuming, I suppose. However, seven of those ten years were spent on the island of Ogygia with Calypso. The beautiful nymph fell in love with Odysseus and offered him immortality if he would become her husband. Yet he still longed for home and his wife. “Penelope cannot compare with your stature or beauty, for she is only a mortal, and you are immortal and ageless. Nevertheless, it is she whom I daily desire and pine for. Therefore, I long for my home and to see the day of returning.” To cut a long story short, Odysseus returns home, finds his faithful wife surrounded by suitors and goes Game of Thrones on their asses.

  Johannes Hofer claimed that the disease of nostalgia was often found in soldiers, especially Swiss mercenaries from the Alps who were fighting on the lowlands and plains of Europe and missed the Swiss mountains. Suspected causes were stark differences in atmospheric pressure, which were thought to cause brain damage, and damage to the eardrums and, again, the brain from the constant clanging of cowbells in the Swiss Alps. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some doctors even searched for a “pathological nostalgia bone.” By the early nineteenth century, however, nostalgia was no longer regarded as a neurological disorder but considered a form of depression—a view that lasted well into the twentieth century.

  Today, nostalgia is a subject of scientific study and different scales have been developed to measure people’s view of the past as opposed to the present and how prone to nostalgia people are. For instance, the Holbrook Nostalgia Scale asks people to agree or disagree with statements such as “Products are becoming shoddier and shoddier,” “Steady growth in Gross National Product has brought increased human happiness” and “Things used to be better in the good old days.” Southampton University is one of the leading academic centers in this area, and the Southampton Nostalgia Scale ask questions such as “How valuable is nostalgia for you?” and “How often do you call nostalgic experiences to mind?”

  And there are good reasons to study nostalgia. First of all, it is something we all experience. A lot. In one study of British undergraduates, over 80 percent reported experiencing nostalgia at least once a week. And this is felt universally. Across the world, we reminisce about our loved ones and special events. About weddings and sunsets and the time we stayed up all night, warmed by the fire, and watched the sunrise over the ocean. We are often the lead character in these stories, but they revolve around experiences which demonstrate our connection with people who are close to us.

  Second, there is a growing body of evidence that nostalgia produces positive feelings and boosts our self-esteem and sense of being loved and at the same time reduces negative feelings such as loneliness and meaninglessness.

  Our satisfaction with life—our happiness—depends in part on whether we have, or create, a positive narrative of our life. When we look back, do we see flashes of flaws and failures, or do we see moments of joy, moments of happiness?

  So which ingredients should we put into nostalgic-to-be memories? How do we best preserve and retrieve happy moments from places or events where there are no souvenirs? What are happy memories made of and what makes memories remain memories? Let’s take a closer look.

  Chapter I

  Harness the Power of Firsts

  THE REMINISCENCE BUMP

  You know that song “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen? If not, pass me a few gin and tonics and I’ll sing it to you. I warn you, you might want to cover your ears. If you listen to the lyrics, the song is about how much people enjoy talking about the old times. The good times. The glory days.

  Ask any older person to recall some of their memories and there’s a good chance they will tell you stories from a period in their life when they were between the ages of fifteen and thirty. This is known as the reminiscence effect, or reminiscence bump (both terms are trickier to work into song lyrics than “glory days’).

  Memory research is sometimes conducted by using cue words. If I say the word “dog,” what memory comes to mind? Or “book’? Or “grapefruit’? It’s best to use words that are not related to a certain period in life. For instance, the phrase “driver’s license” is more likely to prompt memories from when you were a specific age than the word “lamp.” You can try the exercise below yourself.

  * * *

  Which memory comes to mind if I say:

  Sunset:

  Car:

  Shoes:

  Watch:

  Fish:

  Bag:

  Raspberry:

  Snow:

  Notebook:

  Candle:

  * * *

  When participants in studies are shown a series of cue words and asked about the memories they associate with those words, and then how old they were at the time of the memory, their responses will typically produce a curve with a characteristic shape: the reminiscence bump. Below is the result from one study undertaken with centenarians by Danish and American researchers. The reminiscence effect seems evident, as does the recency effect—this is the final upward flip in both curves. For example, when asked what memory comes to mind when cued with the word “book,” what people have read recently may pop up more easily than what they read ten years ago.

  Source: Pia Fromholt et al., “Life-narrative and Word-cued Autobiographical Memories in Centenarians: Comparisons with 80-year-old Control, Depressed and Dementia Groups,” 2003.

  The percentage of life-story memories which occurred in each decade of life of centenarians using the life-story and the word-cue method.

  The researchers used the cue-word method but also asked participants about their life stories. They found that, with the life-story method, an even larger share of memories goes into the reminiscence bump but the recency effect is reduced.

  You can also see the reminiscence effect in some autobiographies, where adolescence and early adulthood are described over a disproportionate number of pages. For instance, if you look at Agatha Christie’s autobiography, which is 544 pages long, the death of her mother happens on page 346, when Christie was thirty-three years old. So in the period that covers the reminiscence bump, memories fill more than ten pages per year. In contrast, Christie sums up the events of 1945 to 1965, when she was aged between fifty-five and seventy-five, in just twenty-three pages—a little over one page per year.

  I am a victim of the reminiscence effect as well. If I compare what I remember from when I was twenty-one and thirty-one, it goes something like this:

  I remember visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi on my twenty-first birthday. I remember wondering whether Bill Clinton, Tony Blair or Danish Prime Minister Paul Nyrup Rasmussen would one day have something similar built for them. This was in 1999.

  I remember working as a gardener over the summer. I remember the smell of grass mixed with diesel when I cut the lawns and that the Red Hot Chili Peppers had just released Californication.

  I remember visiting Paris. I remember reading A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway in the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was a hardback and the cover was brown and blue.

  I remember meeting a girl from Seville. I remember spending the afternoon with her at the Musée d’Orsay. I remember that museums cause you to lean in and whisper and that I felt her breath on my ear. I remember that her name was America, that we walked across the Pont de Sully and that her lips tasted like Spanish ham.

  I remember living for three months in Baeza, a small town in the mountains of Andalusia, roughly 100 kilometres north of Granada.

  I remember my room in Hostal el Patio. One bed. One chair.
One desk. I would buy bread and manchego cheese and use a bag outside the window as a fridge. I remember the two books I brought with me—The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and a book on the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard—and reading that “Life must be lived forwards, but understood backwards.” Two books, a mixtape and a Walkman were my entertainment. I went for a lot of walks. I remember returning home one evening to find I had accidentally locked the door and having to climb up the drainpipe to get to the window of my room. I miscalculated where my room was and scared an old lady.

  Meik Wiking

  Meik Wiking

  In the mornings, I would go to Café Mercantil and the waiter would shout, “Un café con leche!” when he saw me, and I’d sit in the corner of the café and write really bad literature in an A5 notebook which was black and grey. I remember writing the question: “Do we leave places, or does a place leave us?” Deep stuff. The coffee was 225 pesetas.

  In the evenings, I would go to a bar called Caché, drink Four Roses whiskey with two ice cubes and flirt with the bartender, who was called Ventura. She wore a black leather jacket and had a dog called Chulo.

  I remember working in a bakery back in Denmark. The shift was from 1:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. I remember the recipe to make 140 kilos of filling for the cinnamon buns: 70kg margarine, 5kg cinnamon . . .

  I remember working at the harvest at the J. Marquette vineyard in Champagne. In the morning, Jacques Marquette would wake us workers with a loud Bonjour! in his deep voice. I remember there was a bell jar of cheese you could help yourself to for breakfast. There was a lot of cheese—strong cheese. I remember how you had to tip the bell jar just the right way so as not to unleash a tsunami of accumulated cheese odors. I remember working in the fields, small strips of land around the village. I remember how much my legs hurt. I remember that cutting myself with the secateurs was not so bad, but getting cut by the guy working on the other side of the vine was really bad. When you cut yourself, you stopped cutting when you felt the pain.