Learn the eye-accessing clues! Pretty important, huh? For the sake of this trick, you will be having people remember three things: an old friend, a favorite piece of music and a time they were in pain.
An old friend is considered a visual image. A piece of music is an audible sound. And pain is considered kinaethetic, which refers to touch.
When a right-handed person is really concentrating on a visual image, from YOUR perspective by looking into their eyes, the eyes will shift up and to the right. For audible sounds, the eyes will shift to the right, but stay level. For memories of touch or pain, the eyes will shift down and to the left.
Hand the spectator a pen and three strips of paper. Have him write down the memory of an old friend, a favorite piece of music and a time he was in pain.
Tell the spectator to read the memories out loud. This won't help you at all, but it engages the spectator and can help break the ice.
Instruct the spectator to throw two of the memories away, but not to reveal the third one that was kept.
Look him in the eyes without mentioning that the eyes are the key, and tell him to think of the kept memory and really focus on all of the details. If you have these eye-accessing clues memorized, this should be easy to figure out. Plus, since you knew the details of the memory, you can wryly insert them.