becomingagodo, who is Darren Brown, and why is he your hero? Why do you take everything he says as absolute fact?

And intelligence isn't memory. If that were the case, then computers are more intelligent than most human beings, and I'm sure you'll agree with me that that isn't the case.

I read a theory somewhere (I think it was a theory and not proven) that the human brain stores memories in holographic images (is images the right word? I don't know) because (I'm not entirely sure, maybe research this for 100% reliability) a photographic negative stores pictures like a puzzle (for example, if you took a photo of a banana, and took the negative and cut a piece out of it, and developed that piece, you would get a photo of a piece of a banana) whereas a holographic image stores pictures almost like DNA, where every part of the holograph has the info to display the whole pic (so if you cut a piece of a holographic negative of a banana and develop it you'd get a whole banana when developed).

So the brain has a huge amount of space to store info because it's all holographic, so it can just keep small pieces of the memories but still be able to develop the whole thing.

They did tests on mice (this is I know) where they got mice to memorise the path out of a maze (by putting them in the middle of the maze and getting them to find the way out time and time again until they followed the right path every time because they'd memorised it) and then cut out various parts of their brain, and it didn't matter which part of the brain they cut out, the mice still remembered (which might prove in some way the holographic theory).

Now, I can (if I make a conscious effort) remember most things well, like if I'm studying and I'm concentrating on remembering, then when I'm writing my exam I can see the page in my head, and see how the sentence is written, see the marks on the paper, everything. Not always though, sometimes I can see the page and only some of the writing (the part I was concentrating on obviously) or see the layout but not the actual content. I also have a terrible memory for recalling sequences of events, like childhood memories aren't placed well chronologically in my memory.

Anyway I think that photographic memory could be done by finding a way of accessing small parts of the memories, the holographic parts.

As for the memory palace thing, the only place I can remember seeing this was in a book (a movie too) by Stephen King called DreamCatcher. These aliens are trying to get this memory out of this guy (an alien has possessed his body, so he is locked in his mind) and he locks himself in a room in his mind which contains all his memories. Then he organises all the folders and files (that's how his memories are depicted in his head and the book) and burns the ones the aliens are looking for.

Cool hey?