Hello
I can imagine the images in detail, but my problem is that I can not see these images for longer and focus on it, and therefore I can not create my own mind palace. What do you think I should do to solve this problem?
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Draw your Memory Palaces. That makes them very easy to see and plan.
Explore other sensations. “Visualization” is really about multi-sensory mental imagery, not just “seeing.”
If you want to extend seeing, there are many meditation exercises that can help with this.
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I usually click pictures of my memory palace.
For me it’s very efficient way. sometimes when I free, I look every loci pictures.
well, yeah it’s kind of little awkward, when I go to the city and click pictures of every loci I mean small details, many people staring at me like lol what he is doing, is he mad something. well I just ignored them and complete my memory palace making.
Then I come at my house imagine all the loci in exact order, and 1 time in reverse order in my mind.
After that I write them in my notebook. And what’s after that, obviously when I free I look the clicked pictures.
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Have a got at making the images more abstract and surreal - these type of images are easier to recall. Remember they don’t need to be anything like literal in order to use them as a mnemonic visualisation. Then place these abstract images in a movie location junction (mind palace) and see if you find them easier to recall.
Hi
What are the meditation exercises that help visualization?
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Personally, if I try to visualize something (e.g. a room) in too much detail, it disappears. That makes sense, because the human brain doesn’t have enough RAM to imagine an image in such detail. It barely has enough to remember a string of 10 numbers. When we observe an image in real life (i.e., your eyes are open and you look at something) you’re only really processing a limited amount of information at a time. The rest is interpolated or guessed by various cool processes our brains have to ensure we’re focusing on important details.
However, if I try and do something with the image, e.g. add a bicycle being ridden down the stairs, or add an elephant in the fridge, there’s enough detail there momentarily to process I see. I have the illusion of seeing the full image in all its detail, even though that’s partly an illusion.
So, how to actually get better at visualizing images? I’d suggest to not try to focus on a particular image to “see” it, but rather to do things to the image that don’t require much detail. Because that actually fits within the brain’s RAM. For example:
- imagine a horse
- does it have a mane? If not, add a mane.
- does it have a tail? If not, add a tail.
- What colour is it? Make it light grey.
- Is it facing left or right? Or neither? Makeit face to the right.
- Changed my mind—now make it face to the left.
- Now make it face you, very close.
- Now imagine you’re feeding it an apple.
- Now imagine you’re feeding it spaghetti bolognese with a fork.
- Now imagine it is running around in a circle.
- Now while it’s running, imagine it’s in a parking lot.
- Now imagine it runs in a circle the other way.
etc.
In all of these things, you only have to focus on one particular detail. When the horse changed direction in the circle, did it still have a mane? You were probably not checking, and that’s fine, because your brain can’t think of everything at once. In reality, you know it has a mane because you already saw it, so you don’t need to repeatedly process the same information.
When it comes to making a memory palace, it’s the same. If you’re in your kitchen, and want to put a horse there, you don’t need to know where all the cutlery is or whether the windows are open. You just need to focus on the horse. You can focus on the cutlery or windows later if/when they are relevant to something.
Hope that helps!
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I just completed your exercise and enjoyed it. If there was a deck of memory prompts like this I would buy it.
Maybe to gamify it on the other side of the card there is a question related to one of the many facts like “What color is the horse?”.
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A moment of realization and freedom for me came when I realized I don’t need to perfectly recall locations to create a palace. 60-70% is a just fine starting point and I can make up the rest.
Immediately after realizing this I was able to expand my locations from 5 to 30.
By locations I mean entire houses with about 20 loci each. Is there an agreed upon term in the memory community for the whole house or whole walk? Often when I say “Locations” people assume I am referencing one loci not the entire collection of loci.
What an excellent explanation, Daniel_360
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Thanks
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The root of this problem is hidden in your visual memory, not purely in visualization. So I recommend you to use classic exercises to boost your ability to retain images.
- Look at an object for one minute and after that try to recreate it in your mind. Repeat it several times until get a more vivid mental image. Try the same with a photo.
- Look around your room and try to mentally recreate it.
- Before sleep. Try to recall all events during the past day. Places you visited, people your meet etc.
- Review films in your mind.
I pretty sure you can achieve great results in 3-5 months.
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What do you mean by RAM?
Cognitive load?(Could be trained by prolonged dual-n-back)
Focusing one particular thing is ok for shorter memory palaces, but at the stake of the “bigger picture”. Which would compromise connecting more dots resulting in poor connection of ideas.
The point which I would bring out is that how could we simultaneously have detailed shorter images but not at cost of the bigger one? Is there a way satisfying both?
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Yep—by “RAM”, I meant the working memory of the human brain.
It is fairly uniform between people (my estimates on size) and there is limited evidence to support the theory that it can be improved. Dual N-back is one of the few that might possibly (hopefully) have an effect, as you mentioned.
For the purposes of visualization, an increased RAM within realistic bounds (for example by +50%) would not allow anyone to process the huge amount of data required for faithful image representation. It would need to be increased maybe 50Ă—.
Luckily, our brains are amazing at doing complex things with highly-compressed visuals, so it wouldn’t really matter. For example, when adding/observing things in a memory palace, you need some detailed knowledge about how things look in your long-term memory, but at any moment, to complete one atomic task (like putting a bike on the stairs), you don’t need to use most of this detail.
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It seems a popular strategy among memory competitors is “grabbing” the last few numbers or words and repeating them to themselves until recall begins and noting those first.
Are there currently different levels of sophistication or strategies to grab as many of the final words or numbers possible and hold them in their short-term memory more effectively than others?
I imagine as competitive memory evolves some athletes might have a completely separate system and training routine for their final grabs that allow them to extend beyond what repeating might allow.
Separate specialized training of grabbing reminds me of Olympics swimming when the commentators went on and on about how one of the successful athletes put extra emphasis into his initial launch compared to his core stroke.