Questions about memory techniques

General Memory Chat
1

Hello, there are a few questions on my mind that I would appreciate your help with.

  1. Aren’t memory techniques fundamentally designed to help transfer information into long-term memory? Does this mean that once the information moves into your long-term memory, you can reuse the same Memory Palace for different topics?

  2. How do you increase the number of loci (stations) within a single Memory Palace? Is this something that naturally expands as you master the skill and practice, or are there specific techniques for it?

  3. Do you ever use smaller “nested” Memory Palaces inside the stations of a larger one? For example, if you need to add extra details to a topic, you go to that specific station—how do you embed that detailed information right there?

  4. Can the same Memory Palace be used for multiple subjects or topics simultaneously?

  5. How many times can we reuse visual alphabets or number-object systems to store information? For instance, if I link the first image of my visual alphabet to a location alongside its information, use up my entire visual alphabet and number-object list, can I reuse them after a meaningful time gap, and would applying this across different locations cause any issues?

  6. Does the body peg system work effectively depending on the context or across different Memory Palaces? For example, if I use my hand to store information in Memory Palace A, and later use my hand again in Memory Palace B, how many times can I repeat this? Or can I reuse the visual alphabet system I mentioned across many different Memory Palaces?

  7. How do you usually find or source new Memory Palaces? If I remember correctly, some people have over 100 Memory Palaces; how is that possible? Personally, I believe that using a Memory Palace efficiently is far better than simply having a high quantity of them, but I wanted to ask your thoughts on this as well.

  8. What does using a Memory Palace efficiently mean to you? Which types of Memory Palaces do you actively put to use? For instance, would you ever use a slightly blurry or unclear Memory Palace?

  9. What do you think is the best mnemonic device book for acquiring practical knowledge?

  10. Is creating the imagery more important, or is anchoring (nailing) the imagery to a specific location more important? That is, I could associate information with something and throw it randomly into my head, or I could use a Memory Palace and anchor it in place—which do you think is more important, or are they both equally important?

  11. Aren’t textbook materials already chunked up? They are divided into units, which are further divided into smaller subheadings. Of course, a bit more organizing can be done, but would it be illogical to memorize them strictly in unit order?

I will be looking forward to your answers. Thank you very much.

1 Like
2

Hi. I don’t know much about palaces but I’ve read what people say about it. From what I understand of it’s said here you can nest one palace in another or not. Seems different people does different things. People seems to use a lot of palaces because they use to memorize different things for example capitols. The people I understand that says that is not good to reuse fast one palace. You could do that after a time. Like if you use one to memorize capitols and a time has past. You could reuse that palace for names. But not using the same place for different things now. Thats why they have so many.

2 Likes
3
  1. absolutely. there are some complications here, and if you ever want to review it you’ll need to just do flashcards or something if you’ve reused the palace. but yeah! i wouldn’t recommend it, generally, it’s easier and better to just make a new palace
  2. however makes sense, but also this isn’t generally something i’ve personaly found worthwhile. some people have palaces with hundreds or thousands of loci, but as more of a memory enthusiast from a competition angle, my palaces cap at 26. @LynneKelly has written a good bit about really long memory journeys.
  3. adding information to a loci, yes, adding loci that aren’t visible at a “glance”, i don’t.
  4. wouldn’t recommend
  5. if you reuse them you’ll likely both forget some of the first list and confuse the second list if you want to retain both.
  6. i would generally not use one specific locus for multiple distinct things.
  7. i have a few places i’ve lived or been but it’s more and more video game levels for me lately (Hitman and Blue Prince, currently.)
  8. i don’t really have an opinion on this
  9. i have no idea what “practical knowledge” means, but Remember It! probably. my personal favorite is Advanced Memory Palaces by occasional local poster @joereddington but that is because i’m a big old computer nerd.
  10. the imagery is much more important in almost all cases. think about how many absolutely random things you know and retain because they’re memorable, not because you’ve put them in a palace. “righty tighty, lefty loosey.” “jingle bells batman smells”, “roy g biv”. whatever your favorite car is. if you were to take 20 things that are very memorable already and put them in a palace you would remember them really well, if you used an extremely good palace to place 20 kind of half-formed images it wouldn’t work very well.
  11. they are! doing them in order is probably the best way.
4 Likes
4

Hi, so far there is only one palace where the information is so completely ingrained in my mind that I no longer need the memory palace itself. That is the 100 people and their actions in my Dominic system. Other than that, I have never experienced this.

1 Like
5

1- i agree, making a new palace seems better because it doesn’t seem clear when the info will transition to long-term memory and when you won’t need the memory palace anymore. i looked into this a bit and that’s how i understood it after reading.
2- i read lynne kelly’s book and liked it a lot. i heard it from her again that people have thousands of loci and stuff.
3- i also think adding info to a locus is better, but if you want to detail the info, it feels like you either have to put it around the locus or create an image to understand there’s a locus inside the locus and connect to it.
4- i kind of agree with this too, but it needs to be tested.
5- i’m not totally sure about this, but for some reason it feels like you’d get confused at some point.
7- i think i’m going to do this too because taking locations from games makes a lot of sense.
10- i’m not totally sure about this. we think we’re not putting such info anywhere, but we probably associate it with a place without making it obvious. not totally sure, but for example you can probably remember where you learned such info. you kept it in mind more because it was easy to remember, weird and funny, and even if you didn’t mean to, you associated this info with the place you first learned it. i remember such info being put in random locations, i think dominic’s language learning system was like that. but fundamentally both seem very important.
11- i think so too.

1 Like