I find the link method much easier to use than the memory palace and since i can’t leave the house often i don’t have many palaces any way. One thing i do struggle with when I use the link system is that i can’t remember strings with lots of repeating information like pi and the peg system helps but its just too small for my project (Memorise 3000 digits of pi)
Any advice
A couple things here, what system are you using to encode your numbers? Hopefully you have something where you can encode at least 6 digits per mental image.
Last fall I memorized Pi to 4325 digits, and I used a 2-digit PAAO system fully based on the Major System phonetics. This allowed me to encode 8 digits per individual image.
The first 8 decimals are 14159265, which in my 2-digit system encodes to “TaRa TaiLing BoNy JeLLo.” I pictured figure skater Tara Lipinski driving a truck riding up on the back bumper of a car being driven by a wobbly bowl of jello that was filled with bones. The images are memorable this way, and they basically write themselves. Having 8 digits per string, I don’t think I ever encountered a full duplicate string in all those 4000+ first digits. There may be some repeats of individual elements, like you may have several sequences that start with 15 (TaRa) but because the rest of the scene that is constructed is usually very different AND (here’s the key) they are taking place at different locations, I almost never had a problem with confusing one scene for another even with the same main person. It was almost like they became acquaintances in a story and I’d chuckle when I’d encounter RuFio or RoB gronkowski doing various absurd things throughout my journey.
The important part though, and this may not be what you want to hear, is that each image was stored in its own sequential loci in a memory palace. The first scene with Tara took place at the entrance road to a football stadium. This firmly grounds the image, gives it context, and prevents confusion with similar sequences later on because it’s the only thing that took place there. Tara may be doing other things later on in Pi, but just like characters in a movie, you usually can recall the basic idea of scenes set in different locations even if they involve the same characters or actions or objects.
Luke Skywalker flies his X-Wing to Dagobah with R2D2 and also into the trench of the Death Star. I’ll never confuse the scenes and think he lands on the Death Star to meet Yoda or that he fires a force guided torpedo down Yoda’s chimney on Dagobah. The location sets the context for the imagery and brings the details of the scene easily to mind even if they contain repeat characters, actions, or objects.
You’ve kind of identified the big problem with contextless linked number imagery. If they’re just images floating in a vacuum, connected by a set of peg actions, things will get fuzzy and repetitive very quickly.
If you were to use the link method to connect one element after another, you’d need over 1500 interactions (if you’re only encoding 2 digits at a time) that, without grounding in a setting to give them life, will be easily forgettable. Even at 6 or 8 digits per image, that is still HUNDREDS of unique links to make. Why not link them in the most natural and intuitive way possible… by contextualizing them in sequential locations.
I’d really really urge you to not write off or give up on the memory palace technique so quickly! Even if you don’t have direct experience in real life with many locations, you could use video games, Google maps street view, blueprints of famous buildings, even landmarks around your town or on your road.
You can even make up fictional palaces. Imagine a place like an amusement park. You don’t have to have physically visited one to imagine MANY locations that could logically follow each other there. The giant entrance sign, the parking gate, the ticket window, the turnstile, the cotton candy cart, the carnival games, a carousel, a ferris wheel, a sleek loopy coaster, a haunted house, a soda fountain, ice cream vendor, a water slide, a photobooth, a bandstand, the bumper cars, a caricature artist station, a balloon animal guy, a magic show stage, and of course the exit through the gift shop… There’s 20 locations that you may be able to map out and experience in your imagination and boom, you’ve got storage for over 100 digits.
If you spend time and come up with 30 places of 16 or 17 stations each, thats about 500 loci. Even if you only store 6 digits per loci with a traditional PAO approach, that would give you your 3000 digits. Then all you need to do is come up with a sensible reason to link the palaces. Maybe you leave the amusement park and realize you don’t have anything for dinner and that gets you to the Supermarket next. If you have 20 stations in the supermarket, that’s 240 digits locked in. Maybe you leave the supermarket empty-handed and so you decide to just go to McDonalds. If you can come up with 10 stations at McDonalds, you’re up to 300 digits, 10% of the way to your goal.
It may seem a little daunting at first, but try to come up with a few starter palaces that you could design in your mind with a dozen or so loci in each of them. Maybe a sports stadium, a supermarket, a school, a museum, your home, etc.
I was still very new to all of this when I tried Pi last year and I was hesitant as well about the memory palace technique, for similar reasons, but it really made it so easy to memorize! I really hope you’ll give it a shot!
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Not a direct answer to your question, but a suggestion on memory palaces. In addition to Tim’s answer on fictional places, I would strongly suggest using settings from movies and TV.
Do you have a favorite show that you’ve seen many times? Use some of those locations. Like if you watch Stranger Things, use the school, the police station, the kids’ rooms, etc.
Movies, too. Put on Avengers and pause it when they’re in the Avengers building. Imagine walking around Tony Stark’s apartment. Or the schwarma place after the end credits. Or even some scenes, like when they’re all standing together among the wreckage or when they have Loki trapped on their ship.
There’s basically an infinite supply of memory palace locations even if you rarely go anywhere.
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Please forgive me for my ignorance but what is PAAO system?
I am familiar with PAO (person, action, object)
No worries! It’s a Person - Action - Adjective - Object system. By adding an adjective, you can compress two more digits into an image. My words are based completely on the Major System, so that every element in a mental image can be sounded out from those phonetics.
In my post above, I gave an example of how the first 8 decimals of pi would be converted into a single scene using PAAO:
In that example, “BoNy” is the adjective, representing 92, the third element in that 8-digit sequence.
Here’s my complete 2-digit list, including an additional word for a location element for each number: