How to Improve Memory & Delay Alzheimer's with Nelson Dellis

What It Covers

Six-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis joins James Altucher to discuss his book *Everyday Genius*, covering memory palace techniques, speed reading for retention, cold reading body language cues, mental math shortcuts, and remote viewing protocols — all framed around how daily cognitive training may delay Alzheimer's onset and help anyone perform at a higher mental level.

Key Questions Answered

• •Alzheimer's Prevention Through Daily Training: Dellis trains memory daily using software that times card memorization, number sequences, and name-face recall — treating it like physical exercise. His argument: even if genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's, someone with years of structured mental training builds neural redundancy that pushes symptom onset back by months or potentially years. Consistency matters more than any single technique.
• •Speed Reading via Finger-Tracking and Margin Reduction: To read faster with retention, use a physical pointer to guide eyes across the page at a controlled pace, preventing backtracking. Additionally, draw margins roughly one inch from each page edge and read only between them — peripheral vision captures the rest. This reduces eye travel distance while maintaining comprehension through contextual inference.
• •Active Recall After Every Chapter: After finishing each chapter, immediately write down everything remembered without referring back to the text. Then organize highlighted passages and margin notes into a dedicated book journal, organized chapter by chapter. This two-step process — free recall followed by structured note organization — converts short-term reading into long-term retention far more effectively than passive re-reading.
• •Statistical Forcing in Cold Reading: Certain numbers appear disproportionately when people are asked to choose randomly: seven from one-to-ten, three from one-to-five, and 37 from one-to-100. In playing cards, queen of hearts dominates snap decisions while ace of spades emerges with more thinking time. Knowing these statistical defaults allows someone to appear psychic by predicting choices with above-chance accuracy in social or performance settings.
• •Remote Viewing Protocol for Intuition Training: Dellis spent one month learning a structured ESP protocol originally developed under the US military's Stargate program. The process involves recording colors, textures, spatial sketches, and sensory impressions about an unknown target before any reveal. Practiced consistently, Dellis reports predicting horse race outcomes correctly roughly 60% of the time — meaningfully above the 10% baseline for a ten-horse field.
• •Memory Techniques Transfer Beyond Specific Training: Training to memorize 400+ digits in five minutes using number-to-image conversion systems produces a side effect: the brain automatically begins encoding everyday experiences in more vivid, emotionally charged formats. This means general life memory improves without deliberately applying techniques, because the underlying perception process has been rewired to attach stronger associative hooks to incoming information.