ceiling. Repeat the process of visualizing an object in each of the ten locations within the room. I usually demonstrate a forty-digit number.
A 100-digit number would fill five rooms. Because you will be using your rooms to store the objects, soon you will be able to mentally move around each room very rapidly. When doing the long number exercise, you don’t need to think of the locations as being numbered. Just start at the ceiling, then the back left corner, then the left wall, and so on. Soon, you will automatically visualize the ceiling, back left corner, and left wall, in sequence without much thought.
As you visualize objects in each of the locations within your rooms, include in your image everything in that area of the room. For example, if there is a TV in the corner of the room, then you should associate the Key Word (or whatever data you are storing) to the TV, not just to the corner itself.
I use the kitchen of a previous residence for my 30s room. My location 37 is not really the back right corner—it is the refrigerator that was located in the back right corner. When I associate any data with location 37, I do not associate it with the back right corner in my kitchen, I associate it with my refrigerator that was located there.
Every time you use the Cube system, it will be easier. You will never have been more aware of your rooms and the things you have in them than when you begin using the Cube system.
Every time you store a long-digit number, it will be easier because you will become more familiar with the 100 objects represented by the Key Words. Everyone thinks they are giving you a long-digit number to remember. Actually, they are giving you your own objects that you can place in your own rooms.
The nice part about taking a long-digit number is that there can be no surprises—not if you know all of the Key Words (00-99). There will be those who will try to trick you by giving you the same number twice. Relax! If you can see a net on the ceiling, you can see a net at any other location!
Nearly every time I demonstrate a long-digit number, which is usually forty digits, the audience will give me combinations like 01 followed by 10. They think that I will be confused, but you and I know that 01 ( s ui t ) looks nothing like 10 ( t oe s )! After I have demonstrated a long number, I wait a few minutes and then recall the number backward.
When taking a long-digit number from others, you must always be in charge! Don’t let anyone rush you. Never take the next set of two digits without clearly visualizing the one you have just heard.
Occasionally, you will be asked to immediately take another long number. If this happens, don’t use the same room or rooms for the next demonstration. Why take the chance of seeing two objects in the same location? You can use the same room(s) as often as you wish, as long as it is not done immediately. I woud not try to store two long-digit numbers in the same room within several hours of each other.
I consider a long-digit number a mental exercise. It is not something I want to keep any longer than it takes to call it back to the person who gave it to me. It is temporary information, and I treat it that way by ignoring it after I have recalled it. The information will remain for several hours or days whether I want it to or not. Unless you plan to recite the number again, don’t try to remember it.
Long-term and short-term information are treated alike, but with one exception: short-term information is simply ignored immediately after it is used. Long-term information should be reviewed immediately after it is learned, then periodically with greater time between each review (the next day, one week, one month, six months, and so on).
Most students use my suggested 100 Key Words, but prefer to create their own visual images for each of them. Your own images will be much more real than any illustration I can give you in a book. If, for example, you use c a r for 74,