Daniel Knecht

John von Neumann once calculated that the brain could hold 280 quintillion bits of information. That’s 280,000,000,000,000,000,000. More recent research suggests the number is in the trillions rather… It’s still a lot!

In The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D., Dr. Wenger discusses a method that can be used to access the vast archives of the mind. For those of you interested in brain exercises that purport to increase intelligence, one such method detailed extensively in the book is called image streaming. The name is a bit of a misnomer as image streaming would more aptly be termed multi-sensory streaming as it involves the processing of taste, touch, smell, feel, and imagery. Having read the read the book a few times before, it never dawned on me how important this difference is to employ the technique successfully. All five senses are required. Dr. Wenger references A.R. Luria’s work from Mind of Mnemonist where his patient “S” has perfect memory recall of every word, phrase, and event – even to the extent of remembering a massive matrix of nonsense syllables 8 years later. S was able to accomplish these feats involuntarily by an automatic enmeshment of sensory impressions tied to each sound. Synesthetes are well known to possess this sort of superhuman memory ability where taste, color, touch, smell, and sound often get paired together when contemplating a word or sound. A meshing of senses that massively increases both the creation of memory as well as its future recall. Intuitively, what is happening in the brain is a process by which memory is encoded using much greater number of neurons, firing and wiring them together in such a way that makes them much stickier.

Fast forward to the image streaming technique. Without getting into the details, our brains squelch an enormous number of bits of data every moment from all number of our sensory inputs. Some of the information gets encoded, others pass through. We also operate simultaneously at a conscious, subconscious, and unconscious level. Conscious awareness can only track so many things at once, beneath our perception we are breathing, our hearts are beating, our organs are operating efficiently, but we are also perceiving things such as non-verbal communication outside of our awareness. Our brains are filtering this information through networks of meaning via the trillions of synapses between neurons. Intuition, dream recall, and invention taps into these networks without conscious intervention. Image streaming provides the mean to tap into an enormous supercomputer between your ears.

Ask a question, then close your eyes and describe out loud to a tape recorded or friend what images, sounds, tastes, feelings, colors come to mind. If you see a mountain, how does it taste, what does it feel like, is there a soft wind blowing or a strong gust or storm? The technique needs no more than 10 minutes to derive enormous benefits. Once you have the information captured, you can analyze the imagery to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you. Forget about asking AI for advice on what you should eat for dinner, why not try asking your subconscious supercomputer instead?