Your thought functions (memory, emotion, associations, critical and analytical thinking and so on) are even more effective at facilitating the process of learning, than only using the other sensate functions (sight, hearing etc). You're already subconciously using certain mental processes to learn, but to facilitate learning even further, you either either implicate more mental functions or reinforce the ones your brain is choosing to do subconciously. You do this by setting a concious intention to investigate them, afterwards which you acknowledge them out loud, as that implicates your sense of hearing and other ego-related thought functions (language is strongly correlated to a self because we have evolved both of them in a social environment, and therefore, creating the illusion of being in one by talking further implicates your brain in the process of learning. You learn everything much faster while having a living human infront of you. If you don't, you make your brain think its near one by talking out loud). Being conciously aware of subconcious mental processes makes you subconciously more effective at doing them. Still, your brain is always using only a limited number of mental processes to learn. You have to find the ones your brain doesn't use. For example, even if memorization is subconciously associative, we still struggle with trying to intentionally memorize larger quantities of information because we don't create the right associations for them. Highly bizarre associations are very effective because they're counter-intuitive for your subconcious mind and they first require concious intention in order to be applied.
