A tip for using The Method of Loci

[Slate]

I like to take three images at a time and create a sequential scene. I like to see them all at once and I also connect a part of the scene to the loci so I do not forget the entire loci. But it could be any part of the scene.

This is very helpful, thanks for the insight! Amazing how a little change can make a big difference in memory efficiency.

[woodrow-m]

@LociInTheSky, if you see this post. You won the 2019 USA Memory Championship. Did this technique of linking hold true from the original post in 2013 to then, 6 years later? Do you still feel loci are over-rated and the real strength is in linking the objects, therefore implementing this in your victory?

Thanks

[Nolanus (Yeram Murillo)]

There is an ancient memory technique invented by Hugh of Saint Victor in the middle ages. The method is quite simple, you need a grid of ten or more objects ordered by number, for example an alphabet of objects: A stair, B bow, C a magnet, D a saw, etc. Or in modern times you can use the major phonetic code to have a larger order of objects. The objects follow the order of number. You no longer need places, only a rigid and still sequence of objects of diverse genera. Later you can use in one image, five different places: Center, upper, down, right and left. Azcevedo describes also this method in his text «El Fénix de Minerva o Arte de la Memoria». Greetings from Mexico.

[Zillia]

This is fascinating, I have remembered objects, not even connected to the loci physically by mere association many times, but I never thought it could be used as a method. Will definitely be trying this!

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

@Nolanus

The method is quite simple, you need a grid of ten or more objects ordered by number, for example an alphabet of objects: A stair, B bow, C a magnet, D a saw, etc. Or in modern times you can use the major phonetic code to have a larger order of objects. The objects follow the order of number.

That sounds interesting. Is it similar to this grid system?

[BarKeegan]

@LociInTheSky

Picturing them in the loci has become unnecessary, so it is a waste of cognitive resources

I think this has been a factor holding me back; treating a mentally recalled environment in a ‘too’ logical way. I find it a restrictive hurdle to be overcome

[beau2am]

I play around with a lot of “dream logic” (as I call it) in my mnemonics.

It just needs to make sense to you.

[oelvk]

Read through this post, and I have a few points of clarification about this linking method.

@LociInTheSky

Instead of thinking of the palace as a thing you can walk through while observing/visualizing wild happenings, what if the loci in the “palace” were nothing more than an orderly list of “first objects.” What if it didn’t matter if the loci could be walked through in a linear fashion? What if the only benefit of their existing along a path was that it made it easier to remember which loci followed another?

This idea reminded me of Gavino’s memory palace system, Gavino’s Massive Memory Palace System - General Memory Chat - Art of Memory Forum, which I found quite interesting.

I like this idea of linking images in a kind of “nether space” as I think it removes the limitations that a physics memory palace often imposes upon images that could be more memorable – incongruous images.

My point of confusion, in the second to last paragraph LociInTheSky explains that you don’t need to have to use the traditional method of loci, but I don’t understand what other alternative there is.
How else would you remember the “next object” if it is
a) not linked with the last object of the first loci:

@LociInTheSky

linking the last object of one loci to the first object of the next has become unnecessary.

b) not necessarily in close proximity to one another?

@LociInTheSky

Make sure that the question of why the loci will remind you of the first object is answered by something other than “because I visualized them near each other.”

In my mind, there must be something connecting the last loci to the next one, but maybe I am not understanding the whole point of this method. Can someone clarify?

[beau2am]

My understanding is that this refers to ordered loci.

So you might have a locus that starts with a mnemonic and chains into the “nether”, but the end of that list doesn’t need a direct link to the next list because the next list is already naturally ordered by virtue of it beginning at the very next locus in your memory palace.