I was stuggling remembering words but I just remembered if I over exaggerate and came up with wacky images it will stick. Can anyone share any thoughts ?
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One of the most effective and quickest techniques for creating vivid and memorable images in a memory palace is to exaggerate the mental images to an extreme degree. Instead of just making the image larger than usual, try to imagine it as being truly colossal, so immense that it surpasses the size of your entire memory palace. Envision the image expanding to the point where it completely dominates and overwhelms the entire mental space, making it impossible to forget. This approach not only helps in making the image more memorable but also ensures that it stands out clearly among other details in your memory palace.
This is especially useful in memory competitions. These events are fast-paced. There’s no time for complex associations. Instead, people can use exaggeration. It’s quick and easy. You can make things bigger or weirder in your mind. This helps you remember faster. You don’t need to think too hard. Just make things stand out in your thoughts.
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My rule of thumb is FEW.
Funny
Erotic
Weird
When looking at the brain and how it works, you find that (to most people) memories are not stronger because of rationality, but because of emotion. You want to use this in your images, make them trigger an emotion.
Exaggeration is a form of this, making it funny or weird. Any emotional effect will do though. Making things scary or sad can equally work, but I find they don’t work well for me, so FEW became my way to go over the years, reminding me of the emotional response and at the same time the simplicity needed to be fast.
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I’ll just add that it may be helpful to include other sensory information along with visual exaggeration. For example, in my palace for the world’s countries, I don’t use any image at all for Syria; the country is represented by the scent of latakia, a type of condimental pipe tobacco I love that used to be produced there.
Visual exaggeration may be sufficient for you most of the time. But if you run into trouble—or are at a loss for what to picture—it’s possible that a smell, sound (music, etc.), or even a tactile sensation (for Angola, I imagine my fingers touching an angora sweater) might be able to fill in any imaginative gaps.
Bob
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thank you
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Thank you for your rule of thumb FEW. I will use it for now on in my memory training. thank you again for educating me.
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I wondering is it possible to use a memory palace to many times for a week. I noticed when I use my memory palace every day for a week it gets harder to remember but when I use a new memory palace it is easy remember do you know why?