hello everybody,
I am a newbie, I want to build a memory palace but I don’t know how I do. I don’t have anything concepts. May you help me?
first read the getting stated guide in this site… if u want a good concept on memory i would suggest you to read this book “moonwalking with einstien” by joshua foer…
The basic ideas are quite simple:
First, select a location that you can divide into different stations.
Then, make sure that the journey you make through the location starts in such a way that you don’t trap yourself. You want to be able to move forward and add new stations, rather than find yourself facing a dead end.
Along these lines, try to construct your journey in a way that you don’t cross your own path. This can lead to confusion later. The point of memory palaces is to eliminate frustration and things that you have to think about so that you can focus on recalling the target information.
Now comes the association principle.
Let’s say you want to memorize “carrot” at station number one. You’ve already located the target material, so now you’ve got to make it memorable. Make the image huge, vibrant and add action. The carrot could be enormous, glowing and orange and banging its head against the wall. Something like that.
From there, you just proceed to the next station, taking care to make the next image also bright, large and associated with some sort of bizarre action.
If you’re not a particularly visual person and struggle with picturing things in your mind, you still have options. I have loads of material available for free to anyone who wants it. Just send me a personal message for details on how to get it.
I hope this helps!
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stephanotrieu - take not of metivier’s advice! 
Remember, it’s not about “making up” a palace in your mind, but rather, taking a real place, and making it usable for a palace!
Indeed, Suncover.
For starters, take a building that you know well, your library maybe or your own home and use that as your first palace.
As Al Pacino said in The Devil’s Advocate, “advice is the worst vice.” 
That said, be wary of anyone who would tell you that you cannot use a virtual memory palace. Although I agree that palaces based on real locations are generally superior, only you can decide what works best for you. That comes through testing, testing, testing based on research into every aspect of these methods.
Let us know how you do.
Indeed, I did not mean to say that you shouldn’t use a virtual palace, but, I believe it is certainly not the easiest way to do it for a first palace Experimentation encouraged!
Ronnie White suggests creating loci in multiples of 5 per area. 5 Loci in a linear path for each of five rooms arranged on a linear path, for instance. This has been very helpful.
The first memory palace should be real. The catch with a memory palace is that you have to be able to recall it naturally. Memorability and association. Nothing wrong with using a virtual memory palace provided you can recall it easily.
I am working on building a virtual memory palace. I am attempting to make a tower, stairs, an obelisk, monuments, pilasters(google it), statues, furniture, paintings, paths, a garden, a separate orchard, canals, pools, waterfalls, walls, platforms, a couple of decent sized but not too big buildings, and a dungeon. Every fifth location marked. Might use five as an organizing theme. Not going to be too much of any of those, but it should give me a vast amount of loci.
I personally found Chambers for a Memory Palace helpful though not all of it works for me.
I hope that was helpful. Good luck.
The first memory palace should be real. The catch with a memory palace is that you have to be able to recall it naturally. Memorability and association. Nothing wrong with using a virtual memory palace provided you can recall it easily.
I am working on building a virtual memory palace. I am attempting to make a tower, stairs, an obelisk, monuments, pilasters(google it), statues, furniture, paintings, paths, a garden, a separate orchard, canals, pools, waterfalls, walls, platforms, a couple of decent sized but not too big buildings, and a dungeon. Every fifth location marked. Might use five as an organizing theme. Not going to be too much of any of those, but it should give me a vast amount of loci.
I personally found Chambers for a Memory Palace helpful though not all of it works for me.
I hope that was helpful. Good luck.
I have started using the same 5 locations in every room for new locations, previous to that I have used places I can walk along and know well. but I start to run out of places more quickly when I do that. Now I pick a room and number 5 places in it in this order The ceiling the walls the door the floor and the fifth object is floating in the middle of the room. I don’t use the newer places very often but I can quickly add new places along a path and as long as I know where to go next I know my locations, and can quickly come up with their number position if I ever need it.
I can’t really judge the success of this I don’t use the new rooms very often.
I have some materials to share that will teach you how to discover hundreds if not thousands of memory palaces and locations within those memory palaces - send me a PM if you’re interested.
Start here https://artofmemory.com/wiki/Getting_Started
I’m interested, may you help me? Sorry, my English’s poor. Thanks a lot…
Why do you suggest me 5 loci of building memory palace? Why don’t more 5? If I only memory 5 loci, so for others, how do I memory? Instance, I learn 5 words English today, so tomorrow how I learn more 5 others, how do I memory them? Thank you very much…
I use 5 loci in each room of a house.
1 Bedroom has 5 loci,
2 and bathroom has 5 loci.
3 living room has 5 loci
4 kitchen has 5 loci
If I want to know what is loci #12 I know it is 5x2+2
If I want to know what is loci 17 it is 5x3 + 2
The math is easy for me using 5. Some places do not have 10 good loci.
You can use the number that is easy for you.
De Herrenium implies that groups of 5 are a good way to go. It makes mention of gold and silver images at 5 and 10 loci intervals.
Hi Brian,
I understood how to choose 5 loci. But I have more a question, ‘if a case, I memory fully 20 loci of 4 room, how I keep 20 loci of 4 room and memory others? Example, I memory 20 words, so how I memory others?’ Thank Brian, you help me very much.
Are the things you are trying to learn different or similar ?
If you take 10 loci, and use it to memorize 10 movies or books, and then use the same loci to remember 10 friends you will probably be able to remember all 20.
If you want to remember 10 numbers or P-A-O sequences you will probably not be able to keep the ideas separate.
Using memory techniques in day to day life I seldom need more than the 26 loci I use to remember cards. And I usually use less for most things in daily life.
Research and personal experimentation is the key, along with speed of implementation. When you read a new approach, try it out as quickly as you can and/or integrate it with what you are already doing.
For instance, someone might teach you the “one is a gun” memorization scheme. If it works for you, run with it. You might prefer to see one as a candle and use it as an associative construct that way (2 as a swan, etc).
Same thing goes with memory palaces. Just experiment based on the principles. It’s like getting a used bike. Any brain can use mnemonics. You’ve just got to adjust the handle bars and raise or lower the seat according to your needs.