Does photographic memory exist?

Are there really people with photographic memory literally "taking pictures" of information or is photographic memory a myth?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a photographic memory? All it would require to memorize something would be just taking a glance at it. Memory like that would surely be a real advantage.

Today and in the past people have showed extraordinary memory performance. If you’ve ever looked at the Guinness Book of World Records, you know that some people are capable of what seem to be astounding feats of memory.

What can be done with memory?

There are chess masters, for example, who are able to glance quickly at pieces on a chess board and then flawlessly reconstruct the positions on a new board. Some can also typically play blindfolded chess against several opponents at the same time, easily memorizing many chessboard configurations.

Others are able to read through a page in a book and then recite the page from memory, or memorize hundreds of names and numbers from a telephone directory.

Impressive as these feats are, scientists attribute them to specialized ways of thinking about the information, not to any kind of enhanced visual memory.

Is photographic memory a myth?

Early experiments on photographic memory were intriguing, but could not be replicated. Scientists who study memory phenomena generally believe that photographic memory does not exist and is only a myth.

While one cannot completely discount the possibility of a photographic memory, since there have been some very rare individuals with truly extraordinary powers of memory. Those examples of outstanding memory that have been studied have all turned out to be due to the use of powerful memory techniques.

The memory stunts are performed using truly effective memory techniques, and anyone who wants to put in the requisite time and energy can develop a powerful memory.

What can you do to develop powerful memory?

It is possible to develop a powerful memory and you can do it by using memory techniques. Since they are very simple everyone can learn them. The memory technique that helps you memorize any length list of words in sequence takes less than 10 minutes to learn.

With memory techniques it is possible to memorize things that would seem impossible to memorize without them. Almost every memory stunt is performed by using them. Harry Lorayne memorized phone book of New York and performed every other memory stunt in his career solely by using memory techniques.

Memory techniques can be applied to any memory task. They can be applied to memorizing numbers, words, names and faces of people, foreign languages, speeches and any other information. They let your mind memorize information much better and faster by doing it in a more structured and systematic way.