Memory Palace : How to not get lost

General Memory Chat
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Hello,

I read some information about the Memory Palace. If I understood correctly, they are based on scenes that we create mentally by linking what we want to learn to things in our mental palace.

But how do we remember our own stories that we create in the memory palace? How do we remember our own mental palaces? Also I wonder how not to be confused with the number of mental palaces that we must create because of the many information that we have to remember.

I know that’s a lot of questions, if someone can help me.
Thanks in advance !

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I haven’t used the memory palace technique for a long time, so what I’m saying might not apply for everyone, but one key aspect about making your memory palaces and loci stick is to make the stories graphic, exaggerated, weird, bigger, smaller. Utilize your fantasy, in other words.

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@gaby7575, welcome to the forum! You’ll find lots of information on how people use the different types of mnemonics here. In fact, you can find some great introductory information on this page. One of the items there talks about the method of loci which is a general type of memory palace. You can always search for memory palace also.

So the short answer to your question is that the mnemonic structures like the palace and the MoL are ordered by a rule and therefore you don’t have to create a story. The rule guides you along to the next location and there you have an association to the information you are storing in your memory. Maybe you are walking around your house in a clockwise fashion. Maybe you’ve chosen a walk on a mountain trail from north to south. Each stop you make has a different and unique look and feel to make a scene for you to use.

The palace is an ordered set of locations that start with the first peg and that’s all you need to remember to continue the sequence. It’s a cue. Learn a few of these to use and reuse and you’ll find you don’t really have a problem remembering how many you have. They will be very familiar to you after awhile.

Good luck to you!
Doug

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My preference is to create written references in excel and 2D drawings on graph paper.

I would have forgotten half my palaces from infrequent use if I didn’t have these references.

I name each memory palace and place them into networks together based on the project in alphabetical order.

Airport - Baseball Stadium - Lake Cornelia - Dick’s Sporting Goods

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As far as remembering the memory palaces themselves …

If I were already good at memorization, I’d have some memory system to memorize memory palaces. But there is a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem there.

I could probably write out (by hand or typed) the memory palaces. But since I’m a programmer, I started working on writing a program to help with creating a database of memory palaces. Hopefully it will be worth the effort.

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