I’d like to see more research on how to improve the memory palace, I haven’t found it in many places. It would be interesting to have a place that concentrates various experiments on MP. Have you done anything? Please share. If not, do you have any ideas you’d like to try out? We could get together to test the most interesting ideas.
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I get a lot of ideas from Dr. Lynne Kelly’s book, Memory Craft.
I test a lot of things for myself and try new ideas often. I suspect that most of my extensions on memory palace ideas come from me trying to solve a particular problem I’m encountering.
I don’t know other ways to test these things since memory (and what’s maximally effective for it) seems to vary a lot between different folks.
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I think the similarities outweigh the variations. What do you do that has improved the way you memorize?
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While I am mainly talking from a competitive standpoint. I think there’s a few things that help.
1- There is no difference in my performance with real life palaces or fictional(video games, real estate websites)
2- Creating memory palaces from scratch in my mind has been a total a failure.
3- Direction is huge. Make the angles nice and sharp but not necessarily going the same direction. Throw in some turns.
4- Different levels. My first palace had everything at eye level, this is fine, but now I like to leap around, up down. Be high in the air, go to the ground mix it up.
- 3D. This is a personal perference but I need to be “inside” the palace with my environment being 3d and I rotate at as I go, like a video game. If I create one from an image, I cant just imagine it as flat, I need to go inside the image.
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Man, I feel this:
If I create [a memory palace] from an image, I cant just imagine it as flat, I need to go inside the image.
nods
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You might want to check out this relatively recent study called “Australian Aboriginal techniques for memorization: Translation into a medical and allied health education setting”
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That’s right, when I took a memory course, the professor said that the Greeks had more than 10x more memory that those born in that generation after 1900, because we are more used to storing things on technology devices… @metivier
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I love stuff like this. Thanks for sharing, Anthony! And of course they quote Dr. Lynne Kelly’s work.
The aboriginal technique taught reminds me of some of my memory palace wandering (much inspired by the work of Dr. Kelly and hence inspired by aboriginal techniques!).
I particularly like and am inspired by the student quotes on learning the citric acid cycle using the aboriginal techniques. Badass, my friends.
Also, hat tip to you Dr. @metivier !
Your November interview with Anastasia Woolmer was the straw that broke my camels back to begin memorizing Python programming language documentation, including object oriented programming concepts as well as rekindling an old desire to memorize networking concepts!
Four weeks after y’all’s interview, I couldn’t hardly believe how much of the documentation I had down! I’m definitely a fan of yours! Cheers!
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Personally creating my memory palaces entirely from scratch.
before going to bed I’m just thinking about an atmosphere, a place that I would like to start to create a memory palace.
I start to create the first LOCI and so on. It works pretty well for me, I Can use every powerfull LOCI I want and make them really strong. I create palaces that I like, yesterday it was in a christmas market that I created from scratch, the other day it was in a kind of Mario world.
I create them by 13 because it is equal to a numbers memory league event or a colour of cards, Then If I create 4 of them It’s like I have a palace of 52 like a pack of cards, I really like this Idea. Every 13 LOCI I have a kind of gate / door / magical portal or whatsoever to make a separation then if I want to change the order, I can.
I really love it and I will definitely continue like this.
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I think youre a beast
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Interesting topic.
A concept I’m currently looking at incorporating is something I’ve not read anywhere (but may be in use, these things are rarely original) and that’s the concept of using port-keys within memory palaces. If you’ve not familiar with Harry Potter, a port key can be any object that when you touch it transports you to somewhere else (the first encounter is they touch a boot and get magically transported to a sports game). So for example, you could a loci within a memory palace might be facts - like memorising the states of America I have a loci of a guy I know well who’s surname is Montgomery while he’s playing sweet home Alabama on a guitar. Great I know that there a a state called Alabama and its capital is Montgomery. If I touch the big key in his pocket, this would then take me from the Palace I’m in to another Palace that is about Alabama/Montgomery.its a way of creating a web of Memory palaces with little effort.
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You may want to give this post a look.
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That’s actually a great tip. A 52 loci journey is sometimes a daunting task to create. But it’s a small effort to make a 13 loci one.
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i’ve been thinking about this and am very curious.
Can you give an example or two of how you get started?
I’m thinking: okay, an atmosphere, but how do you develop the “structure” of the palace? How do you pick your shapes of areas, decorations, etc.
I really want to try this. Can you share examples of thoughts you’ve had to develop the atmospheres?
I start by thinking to myself " what kind of environment I want it to be " then let’s say a jungle. Then I’m starting by the first point, let’s add a big totem in the middle of the sport, and then? How and where to put my second loci to avoid the totem ( I don’t want the 2nd Loci being just behind the 1rst one, you should try to avoid to passe through your loci ). Then I’m like okay let’s add some stairs on the left ( try to be inside your palace and imagine yourself jump between one place to another ) . Now let’s jump from the stair to go on a hot air ballon in the middle, from this airballon you fall down in the pool, and in the pool where you can add some stuff in the pool, right after the pool you can add some sand, what could be in the sand? a beach volley ground. And you go on and on and on.
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Thanks! I’m going to play around with this idea.
Use of abstract geometry to follow ideas and form imaginary paths in a pragmatic and fast way.
1 center = A and 4 corners E, I, O and U, the image is formed from the center going through the 4 corners using a character that goes through the whole story. Example: in the center (A) a cave from which comes out a homosapien that goes to the corner (E) from which he takes a backpack that is on a chair and some coins fall and runs in a straight line to the corner (I) and falls from a waterfall between the aungle (E/I). He leaves the waterfall and reaches the corner (I) where he meets a horse, etc.
The narrative creates the places in pre-established angles, you can take a real place as a frame but the best thing is that your own mind creates the most convenient paths for the plot as if it were a dream. You can connect the lines between them, the plot can be varied in the same imaginary place for example I observe that the homosapien moves from the angle (I) towards the center (A) and stumbles on a rock screaming in pain, he gets up with difficulty and returns to his cave, etc… The four corners create places by themselves.
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Atomic sites expanded to become as effective as ordinary ones. Atomic sites are specific or supremely specific loci such as a cup, chair, etc…
I will use a cup to illustrate how I use it:
I enclose the cup in 6 angles, top, bottom, front, back, right and left.
In front of the mug is will smith and his wife warming themselves at a campfire, Behind is Johnny deep hanging from the handle of the mug while being beaten by Brad pitt with a stick, Right is Ryan reynolds climbing to the top of the mug, Above is Deadpool bathing in boiling coffee. Anyone can determine the angles and after your memory sorts them out you can start from any angle although left to right or right to left is recommended.
This one is not that difficult, but it can become equally difficult and it is using circles within circles, this is something I use for thoughts and things to memorize because it adds depth of thought, I use it in the following way the outer circle is the first one in which I start from right to left because it is the way in which the words are read naturally, well I observe the images in a plane but the objects inside are three dimensional, it is like a wheel that covers others as far as you want to stop, the difficult thing is that if you go too deep in the circle it will not be easy to know in which wheel is what you are looking for, for this reason I use 9 colors, the colors give me a lot of different images because with the red = 5 I can observe apples, blood, lacer stripes or subjects that have this color like deadpool, etc.
With memory you can use as many methods as you want, nothing is so small that it cannot be used, since memory can expand it to unsuspected levels, there should only be variety for the reason of natural memory confutation.
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Hi icelegend. I was just wondering if this is something you still like to do? or do you stick to real journeys?
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