Out of the blue, I was messaged by a new member on this site, I answered his question, he gave me ~20 more, I answered those and he gave me a three thousand word reply, with lots of questions, so I answered those as well
I think it will be helpful to others. Feel free to comment. (just DON’T ASK ANY MORE QUESTIONS(jk, feel free to ask questions))
I’ll number them to make it easier to reference. I will also keep my comments from being too long
I find your posts really insightful. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them.
Answer: What’s it like? It’s like any place you can visualize. Except ten or 100 times as detailed(for my main memory palace). That’s the result of spending so much time in it, creating every piece and focusing on detail. Plus, I created that one from scratch.
How much info? I have ~100 memory palaces connected to my main palace(which basically stores all other palaces). Some of them are filled out. I have the usual things people memorize. All the countries, alphabetically, to which I connect info that I hear about them in the news and such. All the presidents(U.S.) and term dates, significant things they accomplished, stuff going on at the time. The periodic table of elements(that’s actually the staircase of my main memory palace, each step being an element, I don’t know whether I mentioned that anywhere).
I also have my summary of a movie called history of the world in two hours. Here is the post . I have recently started memorizing books. I just write down a one or two page summary of the most important points, or the most useful points, of SOME books, then memorize that. Not all. Just the ones I feel really deserve it, and that I want to remember in the future. I’m also memorizing the titles and authors of ALL books I read, just to see how many there are(I read quite a lot). Numbers, cards… I try to memorize names and faces of everyone I meet(doesn’t always work but it’s better than my natural memory for names). Random facts, some videos(Not really using memory techniques. I just visualize the speaker in a certain place, I might even use the same stage that he was on, and feel him giving the speech. Works well if it’s a good speech, that energizes you…) Quotes… etc
You didn’t ask, but a pretty important topic is review. I review twice right away, and another one or two times later in the day. Twice the next day. Then once 3 days after, once a week or two after, then a month or two. It’s not as structured as that, I just get a feeling that I should review. Plus, usually, it’s information I want to either share or use, so I count recollecting it as a review.
Welcome to the site
Your main palace is imaginary? Have you found that it’s more or less easier than a real place? I would imagine that after you get everything mentally constructed it would be about the same.
Answer: It’s just as easy to use, but took a lot more effort to construct. But I like it, I chose everything about it… You could also just MOLD an existing place, give it different coloring, and shapes, but have it based on a real place. Might be easier.
100 palaces seems a lot to me. How long did it take you to make them all usable for memory? Also, how many loci do you typically get out of each palace?
Answer: I didn’t even have to create them, or go out purposefully to get them. I just looked into my memory. I used to spend a lot of time playing video games, mostly shooters. You play on “maps”, and you do so for hours, and it’s just ingrained into your memory. Takes maybe half an hour for each, to go over as much as I can remember, walkthrough, decide on a path. A little more for ones that I couldn’t remember well, had to look up videos on youtube and such. Usually 50-200 loci, average like 100. Depends how deep I want to go. How close I want the loci to be. Since I have a lot, I just tend to space loci out comfortably, none being too close nor too far. I could easily double the amount on pretty much any map, but it would be too close for comfort.
When you store info about countries, what does the image usually look like? Does it have to be super specific or do you find that your mind will just “fill in the gaps”? Could you possibly give an example of info about a country or something a president accomplished and the image that reminded you of it?
Answer: Countries I just chose the first thing to pop into my head, usually whatever reminds me of the country, or something that sounds like the county name. After a while, it just sticks. Angola is an angel, Anguilla is a sick(ill) angel, Afghanistan is a Cable Blanket, I heard it somewhere on these forums, someone basically connected the capital (Kabul) and Afghan Blanket. Worked for me, so I used it. Then those images themselves serve as a “mini-palace” to connect stuff to. As in, I don’t think of them in the context of the journey they are in, when attaching other info.
Nigeria(Just a gear, theres two other countries beginning with Ni, so I just skipped that sound) for example I have a school inbetween two of the top uhh spikes? of the gears. I have noses(200) hopping on top of the school, on the roof. That’s all I need to remind myself of Boko Haram kidnapping over 200 girls from a school in Nigeria, of people protesting about it, etc etc. I’ve read a bit about it, and have seen Boko Haram in other news, so I don’t need that much detail.
Read more about my main memory palace here . Pardon the sanctimonious tone of voice thorough. BTW, sanctimonious was simply sank-the-moneys for me, some dollars sinking…
For the term dates of the presidents, are you using a 2 digit PAO system, or some other number system? And for stuff going on at the time, do you put some sort of time-stamp so you know when it happened? Do you “take it out” of your palace after awhile to make room for new current events?
Answer: Term dates, I used either the object(more often) or the person in my PAO system. I just needed the last 2 digits, could figure out the rest. I now have a 1000 object system, check out my account if you wanna see that… So I could memorize the last 3 digits in one image, but no point in going back now, I know right away what century it is in. I don’t put a timestamp, just the president involved is enough, I don’t want specific dates. I don’t take stuff out, I don’t see the need to yet. After a while(maybe like 20 reviews), its in my long term natural memory, and I don’t need the image, but I just leave it there.
When memorizing the periodic table of elements, do you have to use an image to remind you of the ending sound (i.e. “ium”), or did you find that memorizing the beginning sound was good enough? Also, how many stairs does your palace have? Seems like 118 stairs would be a lot.
Answer: Elements, it depends what thing I could think up to match the sound of the elements as closely as possible. With elements too, since I used stairs, I often had multiple images for each sound, just to fill up the stair. They were all pretty much miniature. Yttrium for example is ET in a tiny room AND with some rum around. Holmium is Holmes(sherlock), and he’s fighting a mummy, who falls into a hole. Simply Holmes would probably be enough, but I like to fill up the whole step.
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Here, this is the start of the 3000 word reply, so I’ll skip stuff that isn’t really relevant, and just post the actual questions. Also, apologies if I didn’t adequately answer some of the questions, it’s pretty hard to have to scroll up two feet every time I answer a question, scroll two feet back down, and remember the whole thing.
Stuff like this are my comments/summaries
What made you decide to construct an imaginary memory palace, as opposed to just picking a large, already existing palace that you’re already familiar with? What made you feel that a palace to hold your other palaces was necessary?
Answer: Well, I have ~100 palaces, mostly from video games. I needed to organize them. A museum seems too repetitive, a zoo too outdoorsy, what else is there? I really liked the idea of opening a door and stepping into another palace. Ever see “The Matrix”? I think it was the matrix reloaded, but there’s this one scene where there’s a long hallway with every door in the world. And you can go anywhere by opening doors. Here, I’ll link to it. Plus, I love order, everything being the same distance apart… And yeah, I know every detail of it as I created it, so I understand it better than real places. And I like it better than just having images to remind me of the palace placed in a corner, then on a wall, then in the other corner, etc. Like this, it’s beautiful.
Reminds me of this one North Korea war prisoner, he created a house in his mind, knowing EVERY nail, every board, every inch. He would count them. He would then alter it, what if he moved the fireplace to this room, and recreate everything. Good ending- he was let go, and did in fact create that house.
Have you ever gone to a place for the sole purpose of adding it to your memory palaces? Or at least to give yourself a bit of a “refresher course” on the finer details of it? Talks about coming back to a journey and missing loci
Answer: I did. As most of mine are from video games, reviewing them is very easy. Just look it up on youtube Smile. I don’t write down my loci, only time I did it was the first time I memorized a deck of cards, I needed 52 loci in my bedroom. I still remember some of the images Tongue Left pillow, right pillow, corner above bed, far side of bed, left curtain, left window, right window, right curtain, top of closet, clothes hanging in closet, bottom of closet etc.
Talks about spending a lot of time playing/watching others play video games, thus knowing video game maps very intimately, maybe more than real places. Also heard about people using minecraft. (Of using minecraft ) , as it’s my understanding that a palace of a reasonable size takes quite some time to build. Also, do you think it’s more/less effective than using real memory palaces?
Answer: wouldn’t recommend using minecraft. Unless you can find a pre-made huge building, there are tons of those. But to me, it’s usually pretty repetitive. There are only so many types of blocks… As I’ve said, most of my palaces are from video games. I find them better, because they have clear borders, are usually big, at least 50 loci up to 300 or more. And you can review them very easily. Not repetitive, most of them are pretty interesting, vivid imagery etc.
What do you think of the idea of using google maps, virtual house tours, etc. as palaces? Scott Hagwood, houses from magazines, pictures are never the whole room, don’t know how rooms connect, etc
Answer: I made a small post about using tv shows . In short, I couldn’t find any suitable ones. I tried some real estate flippers, millionaire’s mansions etc. But the problem is, those ones always skip, they never show you everything from every angle. Theres a link to virtually explore the Taj Mahal in that post though. Might be useful.Here I realized I didn’t read the whole question, and he said the same thing I did
As far as space between loci, how much distance do you generally go for? What happens if they get too close? Does it just get confusing? What do you think of the “Nook and Cranny” method? Talks about always thinking he can have more loci per palace, and being too selective about storing info
Answer: I still have never worried. It’s just so easy to think up on new places. A walk in a park… I think pretty much the same thing as you on Nook and Cranny. I haven’t used it yet. Unless a room is completely empty or something, I don’t see reason to use it. I do use corners and walls though. I usually keep 4-8 feet in between loci. It wouldn’t bother me THAT much to have them closer, and I can always fit more info inbetween them if I want. In my world history memorization, I kept maybe 12-16 feet inbetween loci, so I can fit more stuff if I learn it.
I recommend being selective. Why store useless junk? You can always replace it, but why store it in the first place.
Your approach to countries is basically what I do as well.Do you have something to let you know when you get to a new letter, or do you just have them in alphabetical order and that is enough? Do you have markers or milestones in your palace so you can quickly navigate to a specific number? I remember reading about the Greeks recommending something like that. I believe that was in Derren Brown’s book “Trick of the Mind” in his chapter on memory. I hope I didn’t remember that incorrectly. As you said, mnemonists worst nightmare.
Answer: I don’t have anything separating different letters in my countries list. Didn’t feel the need to. I automatically know where most of the countries are, and I can jump to them to find the other ones. I only have separation in my world history memorization, for different time periods. I read that book. I think. And I have heard of the Greeks recommending that, in this one old text…
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For the past couple questions, and the next ones, I was pretty mentally exhausted after answering all these ******* questions, so I answered them pretty succinctly, and not always completely. (No worries :))
Question 25(Almost every sentence is a question :P):
Would you recommend that I do the same thing with the history of the world movie? Has it been useful to you so far? If so, do you still have the list of facts?I think it’d save me some time and give me a good start. If not, no worries. As far as your reviews, are they timed? How many reviews do you do in the first week of memorizing something? Do you have an app or something to keep track of it (like spaced repetition software), or do you just review as you feel necessary? Anyway, when you say that you used a map, I assume you’re referring to a video game map, yes? And when you’re trying to find a particular piece of information, is there a structure to it that allows you to find it easier?
Answer: Here is the list of facts for world history movie. I skipped the last uhh 20 minutes because they didn’t seem accurate, and weren’t comprehensive enough. Memorize it if you think it’s interesting or useful enough.
Reviews, I don’t really structure them. I just have this feeling I should review. No timing. In the first week, roughly 8±1 times. 4 in the first day, 2 in the second, then a couple more. I never felt the need to structure it. I did in my first message back to you say what the rough schedule is. No app. Yes video game maps. There isn’t real structure, other than whatever format I memorized it in. I usually keep different types of data separate though.
For most books, do you just summarize the chapters in a few sentences and they remind you of the contents of the whole chapter? Is just the chapter title enough sometimes? Also, if there’s a specific quote or fact within in it that you want to remember, do you just place it in a “sub journey” of that specific image? Memorizing books is very useful, great, easier with palaces, using your own words is better etc…
Answer: I’m pretty sure I didn’t say I memorize the outline of a book. Its certainly possible, I just never felt the need to. As I’ve said, I take what is most useful, summarize it, and disregard the rest. It would be pretty good for movies and books that are fiction, to be able to recite the even top 10 events in order. So many things we see are simply forgotten. But with memory palaces, I at least remember the title and author, which somehow subconsciously also gives me more information that was in the book. Or I remember the whole summary, which is even better.
I don’t try to memorize the entire book, in order. I read it, write notes of things I want to remember. That’s it.
On those three: motivation, entrepreneurship and business, books that I recommend… Motivation; definitely Tony Robbins. I read Awaken the Giant Within, the first 1/4 is amazing, and most useful. Entrepreneurship, I wanna say the Millionaire Fastlane… Or 4 hour workweek(plus the other 2 Tim Ferris books). Business; anything by Donald Trump.
The unstructured random facts makes sense. But what if I wanted to just store random, literally unrelated pieces of information? Would that even work? Because a lot of times, the thing that allows me to easily find the association of my image to the actual info is the context. If I know that I’m going through my palace that contains the periodic table of elements, I’d be more likely to be able to recall it correctly. But if the info was just completely unrelated and unstructured, I think it may cause some problems. What are your thoughts?
Answer: Unstructured info: After a while, maybe 10-15 reviews, it’s in your long term memory. You pretty much don’t need to see the images anymore. It will just pop into your head.
That’s generally the same number of loci that I use for average length quotes. What kind of links do you use and what do you remember with them? The source and author and what not? Ed Cooke, Ron White, etc
Answer: I’m pretty sure Ed Cooke said it here . Could be wrong though.
I do agree about it being nicer to have things organized in palaces. But are you sure about there being no limit to natural memory? I hope it’s true, I’m just not sure. Is there any scientific research related to this?
Answer: Well, there is a limit. It’s just practically impossible to reach it. Hey, some guy memorized 100,000 digits of pi. Another memorized an entire dictionary. Don’t worry. I don’t know about scientific research. The problem would be with reviewing the information so it sticks.
I agree with you with regards to reusing memory palaces at the same time. Especially not by adding fire, rain, etc. It’s just not different enough. It’d be tough. But I do think that if the info is different enough, it would probably work fine. Sorta hard to test though.
Answer: Doesn’t seem hard to test. Memorize a deck of cards, and 50 digits in the same route.
One last question: what do you think of spaced repetition software like Anki and Memrise? I’ve started using them fairly recently and I quite like them.
Answer: Never used any software. I don’t mean to sound all “New-Agey” but I just go by whenever I feel I need to review. Or I forget, and lose a couple, but the info is written down somewhere.
Well thank you so much for being kind enough to answer all my newbie questions. Haha. It does sound like we are quite similar in that regard. Whenever I get interested in something, I go all out for weeks and months and sometimes years. It very quickly becomes an obsession. But I’m thankful to be that way. I think it allows me to have a wide array of knowledge on many topics and subjects. And, of course, teaching others is great. The true test of understanding something is being able to teach it to others.
I’d be more than happy to participate in a forum post, but I think there would be a lot of content. But you’ve been here longer than I have, so it’s up to you. Also, I am just realizing how long my reply is. Wow. Hope it’s not too much. Haha.
Answer: Yeah, no problem newbie Smile It was very long. I’ll make a post about it, I’ll try to connect questions with answers.
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Feel free to comment, quote, or add questions.
Good Stuff!
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No problem, and thanks for commenting
Hello Bateman,
I have some questions as well:
-When you’re memorising a book, are you storing every book’s content in a different locus? Do you have seperate memory palaces per topic (like business book in one memory palace, motivation books in another etc.)
-I want to learn world history as well, however the one-way journey didn’t seem to be an efficient way to do it if you especially want to deepen and extent your knowledge later. I mean you learn general ancient greek period from the movie, but what if you want to extent greek mythology, art, phlilosophers etc. Are you going to open a new door to that period and extend the knowledge from that point? I imagine a tree-like structure, main branch will be the world history but sub branches would include details and leaf would mean a particular event (or person etc.) Is this the system you’re using?
-Do you get overwhelmed with the amount of information you’re storing?
Akilligelisim,
I do, but the books that I summarize take many loci, usually a room or two. Books that I don’t want to memorize and I just store the title and author are in a separate journey from the summaries.
Basically, a book that I read falls into one of two categories. Either I just want to know the author and title of the book, or I make a summary and memorize that.
You’re probably right. I’m not really sure what the best way would be. Maybe creating a journey for every major civilization? And then one for events, like that movie. I haven’t added much more info to it yet.
No. I’m not in a hurry to store it, so I get plenty of time to review and such.
Bateman
No problem
I’m thinking I’ll soon try what Lance said in another post; memorize a whole book using one image per paragraph.
Bateman
Thanks for the replies bateman… It was very insightful info specially for us newbies learnt a good deal of info from your replies… Also the newbie asked some good questions… Thanks a lot again I don’t have any question now but will pm you if I get any . Ha ha
You can also make a new forum topic or just post the question/s here. If you post it here, I’ll definitely reply, and some others might also join in if they have some thoughts. If you make a new forum topic, I’ll comment if I have something to say, and others might also post their thoughts, giving you more perspectives/ideas.
Bateman
This is great information for us still learning, thanks a lot Bateman! By sharing this you end up mentoring not just 1 but, MANY other newbies, as we all have questions similar to these. He really did ask good questions haha! This is a really great community, I think that definitely helps motivate me with the learning process.
rsahel
June 2, 2015, 6:14pm
17
Bateman,
As a newbie, very informative !
So informative! Thanks Bateman!
I asked him if he would mind me sharing this conversation, he said go ahead. I’ll try to post question then answer in order.