Dominic O’Brien has matched his memory against the greatest memory experts in the world and has come out victorious many times. He has won the World Memory Championship eight different times, come in second twice, and was sixth in another. He is also recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records, 2002 for repeating a random sequence of 54 decks of cards (2808 playing cards) after looking at each card only once.
What makes O’Brien’s feat even more amazing is that he was diagnosed with dyslexia as a student and has had difficulty with reading and writing. O’Brien learned to compensate by excelling at visualization.
O’Brien has three main ingredients he uses to memorize so well. First, he uses imagination to transform new information into images he can easily recall. Then, he uses association to connect these imaginative images to what he already knows. Finally, he uses location to anchor these associations to his mind.
O’Brien does not believe that his dyslexia has held him back in any way, and he believes that anyone can do what he does with proper training.