The DOMINIC SYSTEM is used by many mental athletes because is very efficient and easy to use.
The creator of the system is Dominic O’Brien, a British mnemonist (eight time World Memory Champion) and an author of memory-related books.
It is a person-action (PA) system which involves encoding 4 digits,6 binary digits or 2 playing cards at a time into images made up of a person and an action, then placing the mnemonic images along a mental journey.
But why use people to memorize abstract things like numbers or playing cards? Here is what Dominic O’Brien say: “People can interact with the stops on my journey, they have feelings and emotions that can turn an abstract scene into something calamitous, joyous, hilarious and so on. Injecting emotion into my memorizations made them instantly more memorable.”
The Dominic System for numbers works by assigning a specific letter to each number from zero to nine and then grouping the number-letters in a sequence into pairs.
The digit-letter associations used by Dominic O’Brien are:
| Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 |
| Mnemonic | A | B | C | D | E | S | G | H | N | O |
What is the logic of these associations? Here’s what Dominic O’Brien says about it:
“One to five take the letters A to E the first five letters of the alphabet. Originally, I decided to give all the numbers their corresponding letter of the alphabet this seemed the most logical approach. However, it wasn’t actually the most natural formula for me, so I went with my instinct instead. I coded six as the letter S, because of its sound. I gave seven the letter G because of the G7 configuration of world finance ministers. Eight takes H for its similar sound, and similarly nine takes N. Zero is coded with the letter O, because of its shape.”
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There are 100 combinations of number pairings (00, 01, 02 … all the way up to 97, 98, 99).
When you have to memorize long numbers, first you have to chunk them in 4s. The first 2 digits are converted into a person, and the second 2 digits become an action.
The unique combination between that person and the action of another person will create a memorable image, that you will place along an imaginary journey.
This method involves encoding 4 digits at a time into images made up of a person and an action , then placing the mnemonic images along a mental journey.
First, you need to learn a 100 persons+actions list ,then you transform any long number into memorable images.When you memorize long numbers with Dominic System system, first you have to chunk them in 4s. The first 2 digits are converted into a person and the second 2 digits become an action.The unique combination between that person and the action of another person will create a memorable image, that you will place along an imaginary journey.
I have created, especially for you, a tool that will help you easily memorize up to 4,000 digits.
It’s an excel document in which you can type or paste the number you want to memorize, and it will be converted to Person-Action images.
You can use Dominic’s list as it is, but to be confident about your own memorization,I recommend you to adapt the list of 100 number-people codes, based on your personal affinities.
You can download it from here (File-Download as-Microsoft excel .xlsx):
After downloading it,you can begin to use this tool for memorizing any long number.
Please note that the document has 3 sheets:
1. Dominic’s Persons+Actions list. You can use this list as it is or you can adapt it according to your preferences.
2. Person-Actions images for your number- where you can type or paste the number to be memorized and it will be transformed into memorable images.
3. Instructions for practicing number memorization with this tool
I hope it will be useful to all of you!
Download the tool directly from my blog: https://mnemobay.com/wp-content/uploads/Dominic-System-tool-for-numbers.xlsx
If you want to learn more about this technique ,I have created a course dedicated entirely to this powerful system: “Memory Experts’ Tools: The Person-Action (Dominic) System” .
You can find it here:
