I had never thought of this and am really excited by the idea. I am familiar with some of the other ideas, but to fill a memory palace with positive events from your own life sounds really powerful. It is so easy (natural?) to focus on the problems and failures.
I am very keen to hear more about this!
Some memory palace just casually popped into my head and I couldnāt help but notice the feelings of ease, relaxation and coolness. I actually felt comfortable slightly-lower-than-room- temperature. I was creating it based on some museumās google view more than one and a half y.a. while listening to the 9th Symphony and having a fan blow on me. I havenāt revised it since the summer of 2014. Maybe it has to do with museumās interior - the walls, floors and ceilings simply radiate coldness and, perhaps, groundedness, if that makes sense.
Recently I was trying to associate some place at night with alertness and being laid back(ness), listening to the repeating track and stuff - but even though nobody was around, it didnāt really do anything. Maybe I used the wrong track.
After all this time,
did anyone literally make such a memory palace and test it out?
I was depressed-ish lately and got over it.
To do so, I have a few thoughts that I just bring back in my mind when I want to change how Iām currently feeling.
Example : I usually spend time home twice a day ; When I wake up and before I sleep.
When I wake up Iām rather energetic, want to do everything Iāve put on hold, but I donāt have time.
When I come from work, I usually have time, but Iām super beat by my full day of concentration in front of a screen =_=
So what Iām doing lately is just thinking : āHey, remember how you felt that morning, a while ago, where you felt awesome and wanted to do everything? Why did I feel that, could I take that mindset right now?ā
And Iām doing that for a few things, usually when I get a choice of either being passive or active instead.
How ever, thatās the kind of things I usually forget after a few weeks / months. Either I forget to do it because I feel āokā ,or I simply forget the feeling.
TLDR; Iām gonna try to make little palaces for every of these mind-sets, and every thought / feeling that I get and gives me one of these specific mindset, Iād add it to its palace ^^
Iām getting better and better at controlling my behavior, but that kind of palace might just be the final tool I needed ^^
Reading this gave me idea. I have noticed my willpower is too flimsy, especially at certain times, such as at work in the afternoon. This affects me in ways I wonāt describe, but I want to find a way to change that.
So, I have created a list of positive words that I think might give my brain a little added boostāperhaps increasing my willpower sufficiently when I need it most. Who knows?
My plan is to memorize the list, then do mental review of the words around the same time each day to see if there is any positive effect.
In case anybody is interested, here is the list I threw together:
Accelerate
Achieve
Accomplish
Adapt
Adventure
Astonish
Attention
Challenge
Construct
Determination
Discipline
Energize
Engage
Exceed
Excel
Flexibility
Fortify
Fortitude
Kindness
Humility
Nobility
Objective
Overcome
Organize
Prize
Ramp up
Reinvigorate
Resilience
Rise up
Rise above
Strengthening
Strides
Surpass
Thankful
Transcend
Upshift
Regards,
Darn
I did try this out a bit, but found that just walking my memory palaces made me feel really good, so I just kept adding to that. I use my main memory palace for memorising countries of the world, chemical elements and events from 1900 onwards all overlapping in the same place. The other palace I can walk does pre-history and history - I walk through time. Because these are outside and require me to go and walk, and because they are now so full, I am totally distracted from reality. It is total escapism.
The palace with overlapping data - countries, years from 1900 and chemical elements - often gives such weird combinations that I just add and add more stupidity to the stories. But it also includes happy stages of my life once I get to be born. I have added some of those in and now, reminded of this thread, will add some more.
Thanks for the bump of this thread.
I was convinced that I posted here earlier, must have remembered it wrong blush
I too have one of these palaces, 50 loci, each with a āhappy memoryā. I love to sometimes just get lost in the palace, lose the outer world and just walk around in a palace where I am surrounded by positive things. The same palace also helps me get motivated every time.
It seems like āanchoringā the positive emotion that is taught in āNLPā(Neuro linguistic programming)! In the āTimeLineā therapy,I learned something similar to this. You go back to a time,when you had positive experience. You anchor that positive feeling,and use it to heal yourself. We can use āthe locations mind palaceā to put some positive feeling/experience,and visit it again and again to anchor the feeling!
One of the resilience strategies for preventing physician burnout is a formal sort of āgratitudeā exercise. You write down three good things about today at the end of the day for a few weeks each evening. This simple exercise increases doctorsā and nursesā resilience to the stresses of their jobs. Here is an interesting video about the process.
I would speculate that putting the āthree good thingsā into a memory palace, which would really strengthen the memory, visualize the memory, would likely strengthen the effect.
Gratitude practices are widespread, there is some research to support them. Oh, another one is the book 59 Seconds which has gratitude journaling along with some other exercises including recalling something good from past, imagining something good in the future, and writing a love letter to someone (you donāt have to deliver it, just write it!)
I really like the idea of creating an emotional memory palace of memories, feelings, victories, love, etc.
You might want to add certain songs to each palace as trigger the emotions!
Example: Songs trigger emotions!
Personal Palace (Mom Favorite song)
Academic Palace (Motzart)
Itās been a couple years but do you happen to remember the video to the POW prisoner.
I want to know if what Iām experiencing is what youāre talking about. I came here because Iām trying to figure out whatās going on in my head. I just learned this isnāt exactly ānormal.ā Iāve done this since childhood to escape abuse. Mine wasnāt filled with positive memories. I had several spaces. One was a garden which was really a prison but that ones a bit complicated, the other was a big pit I used to just drop balloons into. Theyād just float away into a dark abyss. One is a riverbank full of stones where the stars are, and another is full of boxes in boxes in boxes with items hiding inside. The last is a room with gold gilding and red walls and spiral staircases and it has a few people inside, and it is there that I still see today.
Alright just to build on tarnationās words, generosity, empathy, peace, forgiveness, reciprocation. Those words are honey. Imagine someone treating you like the prince or princess you are. A āhoneyā person, who treats you like metaphorical honey.
So yes such memory palaces are ultra-effective and I recommend it. The best thing though is not just the visuals and not just static memories, but to actively contemplate these words or rooms. Imagine all kinds of stories with the theme of generosity ā for example, imagine someone whoās soooo generous, giving all the best of what they have, and even enjoying it in all their body and soul. Imagine a person giving you food when youāre hungry, āI cooked this for you, if I were hungry I would wish to eat this.ā And imagine itās one of the most yummy things, and imagine that person is sooo happy that you are happy with this food!
And imagine stories with the theme of forgiveness. Also not just imagine, memories are so rich ā remember some times you forgave someone with pure love for them or you asked for forgiveness and they totally forgave you and not only forgave you, they took you right back and invited you to the very best of times with them.
And the reciprocation, just imagine you give someone something small, and they are sooo happy with your gift, they totally give you all kinds of amazing things from all their heart with total love. How amazing is that?
This technique is awesome. Iām a former special forces soldier (British Army). During the interrogation phase of our training, which lasted 72 hours, I was told to build a house, or visualise the sequenece of some other complex task, in my mind. This approach helps reduce fear and anxiety that are inherent in this situation.
25 years later, I can still recall many of the steps I followed whilst building my dream home. Until I read this thread Iād never considered that wider applications of the process.
Pnl
I might make a palace I walk through when I first sit down for a tournament chess game to pump myself up and increase my focus.
I might make another to reset my focus after making a major mistake that is punished but the game isnāt over.
Perhaps a 3rd to walk through when I have a decisive material advantage to remind myself of the proper mindset to eliminate enemy counterplay for a smooth conversion.
You might want to check out a study which has been mentioned before here:
Iāll let you do the click work.
Key words were:
Doctor Tim Dalgleish
Method-of-Loci as a Mnemonic Device to
Facilitate Access to Self-Affirming Personal
Memories for Individuals With Depression
Tim Dalgleish, Lauren Navrady, Elinor Bird, Emma Hill,
Barnaby D. Dunn, and Ann-Marie Golden
Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
Essentially the same as you describe: Emotional changes through recall of events. These were real ones. Yours are imagined. The report suggests strongly that MOL works better than other strategies to recall this TYPE of information/list.
Their methodology is interesting. And worth a long read I thought.
MM (fellow chess playerā¦)
I cam across this on a Google search and have only made an account with the purpose of commenting here.
I have some mild anxiety (runs in my family) and certain major life-changing events tend to trigger me very badly. I spent a few years recovering from an abusive relationship and also getting over the PTSD that came from it. I usually have hobbies as a reliever and cry to get the emotions and feelings out BUT when I am in public and need to look like a normal, okay person, I go to my mind palace.
Basically it is a cathedral that I remember in as much real life detail as possible (I have the place drawn out in sketches to help me recall) and the most central elements are a few characters from a tv serial that bring me comfort and act as:
The most important thing here is to remember that this is all a mental construct of your own making and not allow it to turn into a hallucination. I donāt take any substances to allow me to reach my mind palace, I just use music and keep my eyes closed to induce it.
This coping method has helped me many, many times over the years and I hope that by sharing my experiences it can help others who need it.