Interesting about the musical notes and their names. I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while but do you have perfect pitch?
Thanks for continuing to share your journey.
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Yeah, I do.
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Pitiful number memory results today. I even tried it with just regular memory palaces and I still couldn’t do 30 digits.
Tried to see if I could still remember the 9 muses. I could remember 8 out of the 9 very easily; Euterpe took a bit of effort to get at, but I did manage to get her out of the memory bank at last without looking it up.
Finished memorizing the Russian poem without any memory palace or anything - the story of the poem was enough to keep things on track.
Pondering if I want to do a full-scale autobiographical memory project - memorizing each day and reviewing it regularly enough to make sure it stays, like one of the forum participants here. That’s really the thing I want to accomplish the most with all this memory training. Those are the things I cannot just Google.
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Pondering synesthesia and specifically synesthesia as it relates to the days of the week. I was trying to create solid associations between days and colors, just to help me in my mental calendar (possibly preparing for the autobiographical memory project as well). I tried to assign the color white to Saturdays, and realized that my brain would not let me do that - Saturday is brown. No other color felt right, in either Russian or English. I may have to get a brown Scrunchie. 
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I read my way through the Lembransation blog, almost in one sitting, because I’m so fascinated with the project of “remembering every day that passes” and how he did it. I think this may be my next large scale memory challenge. I find the mental “Winter Count” practice (remembering my life year by year) to be very valuable.
Also, I think that the way for me to get good at memory palaces is by doing the word memorization training on this site. I tried it yesterday, and my memory palace got a great workout (even with just 10 words). It felt like a natural way to memorize words, even though it didn’t feel at all natural for numbers.
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That’s wild. I feel I wouldn’t want to do that. But maybe I just think I can’t. I’ve been off this site for a week or so and so interesting to catch up on your brain projects.
I wonder if perfect pitch is a type of synesthesia. The idea of hearing a note’s name is so odd to me. I wonder how perfect pitch occurs in people who haven’t studied music.
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I’m still not entirely sure how I want to do that. In any case, I’m trying this out right now, just casually, and I’m 3 days in. 3 days is easy. I picked a vivid and distinct image for each day and I review them first thing in the morning and then at night as I go to sleep. I’m noting that i have a much clearer memory of July 9 (first day I started the project) than of July 8. I’m liking the idea of it, but I’m still not sure how I will be at keeping the whole thing going for 10 years straight, the way Lembran Sar has done. That seems intimidating.
As for perfect pitch in general, it’s kinda like color vision, really; you hear the note and you know what “color” it is. It’s not really a type of synesthesia in itself, any more than color vision is. But I do think I have some sort of synesthesia related to it, and it’s auditory on auditory synesthesia, which makes it weirder.
I actually participated in a study on perfect pitch and it is a nature plus nurture phenomenon; to develop it, you need to have a gene for it, and you need to “activate” it before age 6 by learning the note names. Both need to be present. I think that if you have the gene but haven’t studied music, you just develop a really good musical ear and sing in tune. Both my parents are like that.
I tried out one of the poems I learned a month ago, and it’s still there. No problem at all recalling it.
As for Hamlet, I’m pretty much done - I need to “place” all the events of the last scene, and that’s about it. (But there are a lot of events in that last scene)
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Oh, and I got an easy 30/30 on the number memorization, doing a melody and PAO. I find that I don’t always manage to get the process done in the time allowed by the training mode on the site. When I take longer to memorize the numbers, I’m 100%. Same thing about the words - when I tried just memorizing 10 random words and didn’t set a time limit for myself, I did great. When I used the timer on the site, it was harder. I’m thinking I might remove the time constraint from my training regimen - I’m not really planning to compete, after all, and I’m more concerned with long-term memory retention than with speed.
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Going on with the “remember each day” experiment. I’m following Lembran Sar’s method fairly exactly - visualizing a calendar (or just looking at the one I’ve got on the wall) and remembering one image tag for each day, starting on July 9, 2021. Using the calendar itself as a lukasa or memory palace or something like that, I guess. I am not keeping any sort of written journal, as part of this experiment, other than the normal incidental record of my daily life (emails, text messages, photos, etc.)
I’m surprised at the immediate emotional resonance of this - each day feels like a priceless gem, which, I guess, it is. We do only get a finite number of days to experience. I am doing twice-daily reviews, one in the morning as I wake up, and one at night as I go to sleep, which is what he is doing. 4 days in, this feels easy.
I tried a full review of Hamlet today, and did decently well. There were a few scenes that were more vague than others, so I reviewed them again, but overall I have a pretty good recollection of the content.
After I deem myself “done”, I’ll probably take a break and memorize a long fairy tale for my kid, and then dive into the Odyssey.
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5 days now for the “remember each day” experiment. The calendar is definitely the “memory palace” for this experiment - I actually do imagine myself moving along the calendar as I recall the image for each day. I’m finding that this is a good practice for my mental health - since the images I “tag” are pleasant ones, this exercise makes me focus on the positive much more than I normally would.
So far, this seems pretty easy. I know it won’t stay that way.
The number memorization challenge was a pitiful fail today. I kept getting interrupted, and apparently distraction is not good for this process.
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14/14 on the word memory training, and I’m developing a more detailed view of my memory palace and a more standardized way of moving around it. I can’t do it in the time provided by the standard training mode, though, so I extended the memorization time a bit.
One of the pleasant side effects of the “remember each day” project is that I walk around thinking “What pleasant thing would be a good memory tag for today?” Not a bad way to spend the day, really.
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28/36 on number memory, using just straightforward PAO in a memory palace. Maybe that’s a better way to go, especially for longer numbers.
The Hamlet memorizing is kinda done. I could add more verbatim bits if I wanted - there are lots more beautiful monologues to choose from - but I think that I’m 99% to the level of memorization I want. This enables me to see subplots and analyze character relationships and generally see a lot more detail than I would see from simply reading it without attempting to stuff it into my head, so I’m happy.
Next - a suitably long fairy tale for my kid, and then the Odyssey.
The day-memorizing project is going strong. I’m using the Dominic Numbers as a memory aid for remembering what happened when, which I don’t think Lembran Sar is doing, but it’s working for me.
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@meepster, I wonder how long it would take you to “do Hamlet” for another person in a storytelling session who has never heard it. Have you tried reciting all the detail that you know of the play to anyone? I’d be interested in knowing how long it took without a break even if you had to find a dog who is interested in Shakespeare to talk to. I didn’t think Hamlet would be PG if done right.
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Hmm, how that you mention it, I have two cats who have never experienced a Shakespeare play.
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It is so fascinating following this journey and the interactions. Lovely!
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Ok, my summary of Hamlet, with some memorized monologues, took me 45 minutes (the cats were not impressed). I want to learn a few more monologues, but I do have most of the plot details down, I think. I hurried through a few scenes more than I should have, so I think that it really should take about an hour if I did all of them to my desired level of detail.
I am missing most of the gorgeous Shakespearean language that way, of course, but that’s kind of inevitable for this sort of experiment.
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Wonderful! You have a future as an actor methinks. Maybe you could involve the cats more with (cardboard) box seats in your theater. Or maybe some props would instill curiosity like kitchen knives. Cats have an affinity with sharp objects. Did you distinguish the characters with different voices?
Haha - I think that will be my next attempt (I wonder what I can use for Yorick’s skull?). I didn’t really do voices because I was mostly just summarizing the story - what happens when and who does what to whom. But I did try to put some expression into the monologues, at least (how can one not?).
Got an easy 14/14 on the word memorization challenge today, and I’m now 9 days into the “remember each day” challenge. Everything is staying stable so far and I do not feel overwhelmed.
I got the Harry Lorayne books at the bookstore yesterday - they were on sale - just because I’d heard them discussed on this forum and wanted to see what it was all about. I can’t say I’m too impressed - so far, I haven’t learned anything new, and I think the Dominic number system is superior to what he’s recommending. I also like my mental calendar/to-do list a lot better than what he’s got. Maybe I’ll use his method for memorizing decks of cards if I ever get into that (I did notice that he had a lovely system for keeping track of what card was missing from a deck - that could come in handy for various card-playing activities…)
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I read his memory book as my first mnemonic book (Moonwalking was a great book and my primer, but it had less technical content and more narrative content so I didnt count it). Rather than contrasting or comparing his system with memory palaces and other encoding systems (he does like the major system though) I find his linking system a helpful additional tool in the mnemonic toolbox.
His tools by themselves are very good for on the fly memorization of minor stuff in the short term. Like remembering to call someone when you wake up in the morning.
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I guess I’ve conditioned myself for using either a body memory palace or a regular memory palace for on-the-fly memorization as well. Anyway, I’m slightly underwhelmed so far, but I do love what he says about paying attention - that you only recall what you pay attention to. One of the “un-stupiding” things I’ve been doing specifically for that has been Dual N-Back - I’m at about D4B or D5B where both modes are visual (image and position). I do find it helpful for memory and for general “feeling sharp”.
Had a very nice “un-stupid” moment for mental math today. I’ve been practicing each day with an app, and today I had to add two four-digit amounts and then divide by two. Before the “un-stupiding”, I would have reached for my calculator. Now I did it easily in my head. I’m nowhere near the mental calculation gurus on this forum, but I’m getting there. At this point, I’m at the level I used to be. Now, onward so I get better than before.
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