Palace/Journey Scheme: Thoughts?`

[memejack]

Ladies, Gents:

Glad to be on board!

I wanted to throw out the particular memory challenge that I’m tackling, summarize what I think my approach will be (I’m new to this), and see what you think.

Basically, I have four fairly discrete areas of information that I need to manage:

• Quotidian matters: names, faces
• Specialized knowledge: music theory
• Specialized knowledge: matters related to the law
• Long passages of text and lyrics

The first three areas are not ordered files of information; rather, they’re collections of facts that I might need random access to depending on the situation.

The last is ordered information; I need it for song lyrics and dialogue (although eventually these words are meant to be rote, mnemonics can get the deeper, performance-level memorization started on the right track).

So I poked around the site and the forum, and here’s how I’m going to tackle it based on some of the stuff I’ve read:

Names, faces: Harry Lorayne techniques

Legal/Music: I was inspired by a reply Mayarra made to a post back in 2016, wherein she describes what she means by “roman rooms”:

@"Mayarra

You can mentally walk around in it without having a certain direction. Like with Simonides, this includes rooms on places like birthdays, where you remember everyones place in the room. Also when making a memory journey, it starts with a roman room, in which you define loci and a route. Most of my Roman Rooms do have predifined loci, but no predifined journey.

Text and lyrics: A standard “memory journey”.

Aside from the first category (faces and names), I thought that I might combine the last three into a larger landscape—two separate palaces on the same road, for instance—as I expect to have more specialized areas of knowledge that I will need add to the overall collection.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this enterprise, or any practical ideas you might contribute.

Thanks for your time,

Meme

[Bezarius]

Hello there!

First of all, it’s great that you have a grasp of the areas of knowledge that most concern you; huge step in helping you organize your mnemonics.

The techniques of Mr. Lorayne are quite useful for name/face recall. You could also consider his linking method for text and lyrics; more often than not, once we have a cue of the content, i.e. how a line begins, the rest towards the next cue-mark tends to flow easily.

Law studies definitely benefit from organized association, i.e. memory palaces (could also use the link method, again, albeit in a less orderly fashion)… Music theory has an inherent structure to it, so if you’re involved in music (that is, you make music in some way), I’d suggest frequent (if not daily) use of the theoretical knowledge, rather than abstract memorization, i.e. play around with it. Though for your purposes, prior memorization could provide a significant boost, so up to you (as, of course, goes for the rest as well^^). Be aware that music theory sustains knowledge that’s linked to other knowledge (e.g. scales go with key signatures which are organized based on the logic of the circle of fifths) , the more you learn (and/or experiment) the deeper your understanding of it becomes.

For what purpose would you combine law, music and scripts into a larger landscape? My understanding of what you describe is some form of merging of the different areas of knowledge into one. Even if you separate the storage palaces based on discernible areas of expertise, the mind has a wondrous ability to connect information that’s definitely related (the basis of association), even when the two pieces of info appear at separate times, seemingly unrelated. Imho, your scheme can work, though with but a little confusion, perhaps, if you know what you’re after and what works for you best. Take care to heed the intuition that tells to keep things to their proper place, however.

A second understanding is placing memory palaces along a road that connects them (like a town of memory palaces), which is pretty decent, of course!

[memejack]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’ll address your questions and add a few of my own (I think I wasn’t clear about one central thing…) I’ll also note that I am a music/theater artist by night and my day job is as a writer on a number of subjects. Right now I write almost exclusively for law firms.

You sound as if you are knowledgeable in music; let me tell you what my plan for the music portion of my system is.

I’m a newbie when it comes to theory, so there’s a lot of up-front, raw memorization that I need to do just to get by (i.e., key signatures, scale structures, intervals, etc.) The main purpose here is to allow me to have these basics more easily accessible for when I’m actually practicing or in class. As you note, frequent use is the key to getting it “in the bones”. I just don’t want to have to fumble for references at every step along the way (what key am I in?! how do I sing that interval?!). So my music theory palace would be an aid for actual real-world practice.

Does the above seem sound to you?

Because I write about the law for a living, there’s a bunch of seemingly random facts that it’s helpful for me to know: The profile of my clients’ service offerings, specific information about legal standards in those areas, important decisions, etc. Placing this info in a palace will make me more efficient when I’m writing because I won’t have to access research every five minutes.

As far as the landscape, I’m not blending the music and law categories together; rather, as I intend to add other subjects to my knowledge as time goes by, I wanted a landscape to house my palaces. I noticed a lot of writing in the forum about having palaces within palaces, but aesthetically I’d like to keep the individual palaces separate—so your “town of palaces” is exactly what I was planning to do!

My plan would be to add palaces to the town as needed when I need to master facts in a new subject (for instance, when I need to memorize facts about a new hobby or facts about a new industry I’m writing for).

It sounds like you think this isn’t too crazy!

Taking my cue from the material I quoted by Mayarra, I’d have a town where palaces can be built. In the case of the first two palaces, the information is categorized but not ordered. So the palaces would be rooms with loci that are not “journeyed” through.

On the outskirts of town, I could plan some space for a garden or forest or hiking trail, which will allow me a journey path for ordered information should the need arise (text and lyrics, as I mentioned earlier—but again, following your advice and making these just an aid to the REAL learning of a song or poem by getting the sounds placed correctly and habitually in my real-world voice).

What do you think? I’m probably going to start with a simple journey memorization (of a poem, let’s say) to practice with ordered information before switching to an unordered palace.

Thanks again for your input, and any further thoughts!

John

[wojnamedal2 (c)]

for names and faces u needn’t use romanian room , but ofc u can use it , generally in normal life we never can’t meet 50persons at one time so romanian room is useless u can only look at something on face ur victim ^^ and fast looking for association to name and connect this 2 things it mean someting on face+association+awerness focus at true name and u 'll easy know , lyric and law is same way to do , just u must read out loud ur text and realize step to step who there happen and check how many inf do u remember ,where u have problems and there fix image , haven’t sense do it word:word:word ;D and i reccomend u put every lyrics and law in same place , because there image 'll only support ur true remember not replace ;D u 'll know normal text and image will be somewhere in back ur head support it , i don’t reccomend u use romanian room like with remember sports , aaa and for face and names i reccomend u just spend 1/2mounths for train it on any aplication to do it and u will able to ez remember everyone in normal life ;D

[Bezarius]

Hello again, Mr.John!

@memejack

I’ll also note that I am a music/theater artist by night and my day job is as a writer on a number of subjects. Right now I write almost exclusively for law firms.

Wow, sounds like you’re one busy person!

The idea of a landscape where palaces are stored (a more environment-oriented memory palace of sorts) is not crazy at all. In fact, it’s a great aid to keep track of one’s palaces! You could also try using a spreadsheet to keep record of the MPs you have built- just in case.

@memejack

So the palaces would be rooms with loci that are not “journeyed” through.

Sure, after all, that is an advantage of the MP; that you can find any info stored without having to browse through the material in sequence. Spaced repetition in sequence is recommended though, for good retention of all stored items (a sort of building maintenance, if you like). Having a general directional scheme helps too (clockwise/ left-to-right, top-down navigation, sides of room to center, angle, perspective, etc.).

@memejack

On the outskirts of town, I could plan some space for a garden or forest or hiking trail, which will allow me a journey path for ordered information should the need arise

Sounds great and wonderfully creative! You could have many forests and other environments to serve for sequential recall, if it helps.

Again, giving it a go will confirm what works best for you!

Have a good one!