The title of this piece may catch you off guard initially, but I am not talking about physically hacking into your own brain. Here are a couple everyday practices that one can do in order to be able to train your brain into developing a keener sense of learning. 

1.    Believe Something Happened That Actually Didn’t

Research has found that our childhood memories are either very inaccurate, or simply did not happen as we remember them. Researchers say that they are just elaborate constructions of a memory storage system that is not good at distinguishing memory from fantasy; such as we saw in the movie Inception, cool huh?

What if I told you that there is a way to do get your brain to believe something that never actually happened?

How the hell do I do it? Well, you are going to need someone else.

In 1995, researchers mentioned four childhood incidences to a group of subjects and asked them how well they remembered them, but, the trick was that one of these stories was bullshit. However, more than 20% of participants came back with vivid memories of the event (which in reality never happened), causing their brain to completely believe the memory and invent details that never existed.

In another test, researchers used photo manipulation software and put people in hot air balloons, 50% of people said they actually recalled the event when it never happened! Similar research made people convinced that they nearly drowned, or were even hospitalized.

The thing is that your brain remembers memories without much details. You remember you hate tomatoes, but you don’t remember the day of the week that you tried it, thus your brain breaks up memories into fragmentation. Thus, the same process makes it hard to distinguish the truth from lies. Click here to learn more about this phenomenon.

2.    Learn While You Sleep

I’m not talking about the bullshit urban myths like putting a book under your pillow, or recording yourself reading out your material and then sleeping to it on your iPod. Scientists found out that the best way to remember is to study 24 hours before your exam and sleep on it.

A study by Harvard university separated subjects into three groups. They were shown images that they were supposed to memorize and be tested on. One group was tested after 20 minutes, the others after 12 hours and the last group after 24 hours. Of course we would expect the 20 minute group to do the best, but then again I wouldn’t be writing this article.

Subjects who slept on it and had 24 hours for the information to sink in did the best and participants that had 20 minutes did the worst.

How does this work?

In order to retain information, you are working on three different steps in your brain: acquisition of material, consolidation and recall. Consolidation is the essential step that occurs in your sleep.

When asleep, your brain is left to process information without the mess of what is going in during the day. Think of your computer when you are downloading something while watching an episode. It takes much longer than if you are downloading something with most applications closed…

3.    Hallucinate as if you went on an acid/LSD Trip

All you need is ping pong balls and a radio….perfectly legal.

It will sound like a really bad practical joke but bear with me.

• First you need to turn on the radio to a station that is playing static’

• Then, you lie down on a coach or bed and tape a pair of halved ping pong balls over your eyes

• Turn on a red light that is facing your eyes

• Within 5 minutes you will begin to experience bizarre sensory distortions

• Follow Spongebob, Mickey Mouse and the Gay Unicorn across the enchanted forest

How the hell?

This is called the Ganzfeld effect. What you are doing is blocking out most of the signals that are going to your brain (hence, ping pong balls and headphones with static). This causes your brain to ignore the radio static and the light from outside the ping pong ball, which leads to your brain creating its own signals. Ta Da! Hallucinations start to come in.  Check here to learn more.

Juan Martinez | Elite.