I have been trying to memorize my notes on various science subjects and I only have 18 memory palaces. This is far short of the amount I need and since reusing a memory palace is not an option, could someone please recommend a way to have more memory palaces.
Sure! I gathered a lot of palaces quite quickly, and this was how I did it:
I went through my life inside and outside upside and down by different ways of trying.
First I went through it kind of time-wise. I made palaces for all of the schools I’ve studied in and houses I’ve lived in.
Then all of the friends that I’ve ever been to makes for POSSIBLE mmp:s, but most of them were not good as I hadn’t really been around the whole house nor really remembered enough. So mainly the better friends. The friends I also went through class-wise to begin with.
Then came all of the hobbies… Doesn’t matter what, chess, different sports, etc, club houses, home pitch, away pitch, etc… I really got creative with this one, and I think that there are still a lot to be done. I even made jotted down some video games and computer games, of which I’ve used only one.
Familly… Grand parents, aunts, cousines, etc.
Vacations: Does the family have a vacation house? Can you remember any of the hotels or other buildings you’ve been in while travelling good enough?
What about subway stations? Restaurants? work places that you’ve worked on? In the meantime, with each of these things, there might be something other popping up, for example maybe you have a work place, but not only that… the travell there can make a great journey, and another company that you used to visit with that work can make a great mmp aswell… I don’t know, things like that are impossible to predict, so just use it to get ideas.
Then I basically just did this over and over again, and with each time I remembered another school, another club house, another friend who I haven’t spoken to in 15 year’s house, another football pitch, another hobby that I had forgotten that I once had… I also have filled a big radius around my house with journeys. If you don’t know how things look in atleast a 500m radius from your house, start walking or jogging and everytime choose a different path.
Ok, after that, I’ve started to make a point out of looking more closely and be more present and aware of my surroundings when I travell. I also make a point to visit more different places. With every thing that I kind of wanted to do before, there is now the added benefit of being able to extract an MMP. I have started to go to museums, so far some have been great, and some pretty boring, if it wasn’t for the fact that I will have some great material to use for MMP.
With this I managed over 50 palaces no prob, and I don’t feel like I’ve really been super active in my life, no huge social circle, not a big family either. I haven’t counted them yet. But the real number might be closer to 100. Just sit down and go through the list and don’t give up until you get atleast one more.
TL;DR: personal life history, schools, work places, friends, family, vacations, hobbies (sports, games…), utility buildings (restaurants, subways…), official buildings (museums, libraries), stores (book stores, clothes stores…) and shopping malls (Actually added a couple of extra things that weren’t in the text.)
See also the memory palace tips wiki page for a list of links to related discussions.
Take long walks and make note of what you’re seeing as you walk. It’s not sufficient just to take the walk, you need to be mindful along the way. I suppose, you could also use google street view and take an impression of each intersection for use.
Chances are that if you really think about it, you can remember enough locations for the memory palaces you need. Unless of course, you didn’t ever move and rarely go outside. In which case, you might be better off using movies or video games.
Don’t use places you’ve never been just like that. It’s very hard. Walking through a town you don’t know for instance is extremely difficult to get reliable memory palaces. You got to practice those first (so maybe start taking a 3 mile walk every day and make the exact same memory palace 10 days in a row, after that, it will probably be strong enough in your mind, but don’t just walk it 1 time and think that that should do the trick.
(I learned this the hard way, hundreds of loci, gone…)
I think it really depends, it’s not really that much harder than some of the other methods that people use. And you have the ability to take the images and quiz them from the convenience of your own home.
But, yes, you are correct that it’s going to be a poor substitute for actually walking the route. While walking, you’re getting more or less 30fps of images with sounds, motion and even smells to work with. But, you also have to walk the route a lot and for a lot of people it isn’t realistic to walk for that kind of distance with any regularity. If the OP can make due with a shorter route or patch together several shorter routes that can be walked, that would of course be superior.
One thing that helped me a lot was that: google streets.
Not for “new” places, but to review important details of well-known places. With it, you can double the storage-points of some pallaces.
Specially if you prefer open places to keep important information, you really can use google street to “review” childhood places, avenues and so on. Its really good and also nostalgic(which, hier, means "with strong connections with lymbic system and easy to remember)
In spite of the fact that your question asks for NEW memory pallaces, I think that the increase in efficiency of old ones would work quite well. Specially if you are storaging massive information for long term use.
Ah, and really good post by Okiol, by the way. I have never thought about many of these possibilities…