For those of you who may have never heard of the word, mnemonic means memory aid. It's an adjective related to things that help memory improvement. Teaching tools, if you will.

If you are a movie buff, you may have heard of the one called 'Johnny Mnemonic', a 1995 feature involving a data courier. Keanu Reeves is the star of the film. He carries a large data package, 320 gigabytes in size, in his mind. If he doesn't deliver it from Beijing to Newark, it will kill him. I suppose you could call this forced memory. It wasn't his brain that developed this computer chip, this memory tool. It contains a cure for a nerve syndrome of the future and puts his life in danger.

Some mnemonics would seem to be horrible techniques for the person who would prefer not to remember. However, this may be their only solution to overcoming a tragedy, in order to heal them. So, once more, forced memory is put into effect. The person must relive the mentally or emotionally damaging event to be able to move on with their lives and put the worst of the trauma behind them.

A coach, psychiatrist, hypnotist, counselor, pastor, trusted family member, teacher, or close friend may be needed to help give you moral support for the courage to use mnemonic tools.

Hypnosis has long been used as a mnemonic tool. Memory is a process of reconstruction rather than retrieval. Often the mind must be forced through hypnosis to reconstruct events that caused the person to suffer and attempt to protect themselves by choosing subconsciously to forget. Therefore, hypnosis may at times be a dangerous, however necessary, mnemonic tool.

Hypnosis is also a lucrative field. It is often used to help people stop an unhealthy habit, such as chronic nail-biting, smoking, overeating. It can also be used as a form of pain control. No matter how it is used, it involves the subconscious memory.

Mnemonic tools can be a positive way to overcome small annoyances. Suppose your short-term memory loss is disrupting your life in such a way that you are in a constant state of frustration. Small annoyances can add up to one big problem.

You may have subconsciously used mnemonic tools to learn to avoid certain disturbing memories. Like associating an object with someone who used that object to cause you pain. You decide to avoid use of that object to force yourself to leave the memory in the past. Maybe a dreaded uncle always wore purple, so to avoid having to constantly be reminded of the uncle, you decide to never buy an object the color purple. It may become a habit that you do without really thinking about it.

People have used flash cards, music, games, and repetition as mnemonics. Remember the old saying about tying a string around your finger to recall something important? Or placing a rubber band on your wrist, to pop whenever you are faced with a temptation you are trying to overcome?

Whatever the case may be, mnemonics can be very productive in memory improvement.