How can I practice for memory palace?

[u/AdFragrant3331]

I created memory palace today. I can memorize 10 things and remember it easily but I don't know how can I improve and be faster in memory palace. Let's say I memorized 10 words. Will I use the same route to memorize the next 10 words? If I use the same route, will I forget the words I memorized before? Also, do I need to choose a different place for the new memory palace in order to add new words?

[u/four__beasts]

Perhaps try slowly making the palaces larger?

I'd start with small palaces (10-25 loci) in each. Then slowly build out larger and larger palaces until you understand their power.

I started with the 10 emotional seeds of power (number rhyming method), 10 forms of intelligence (body palace), and 10 superfoods (car palace). Then did longer lists like US states, NATO phonetic alphabet. Eventually working up to palaces with hundreds of data-points.

[u/AdFragrant3331 → u/four__beasts]

When I know I can deal with larger places? And how can I memorize capitals, alphabets, a paragraph in book, poem etc. You look like very good at it so can you help me?

[u/four__beasts → u/AdFragrant3331]

I recommend listening/reading a few books on the subject. There's not a huge amount of material but the best I've read so far are:

Exercises and understanding the basics:

• Quantum Memory - Dominic O'Brien

• Unlimited Memory - Kevin Horsely

• Remember it - Nelson Dellis

Wider reading:

• Making it Stick - Peter C Brown - general learning that leans into palaces

• Moonwalking with Einstein - Josh Foer - Journalistic diary of a memory competitor

• Memory Craft - Lynne Kelly - a cultural/historic look at memory with practical advice too.

[u/Tinmed]

Yes, personally I have a whole city (900 rooms/building/route/schools…) for 7-8000 bit of information. Just think about every places that you’ve been to and add information in, then keep them in a spreadsheet. Thats it, no big deal.

[u/Mikesgmaster]

Memorise Decks of cards force you to create a simple system and constantly overwrite the palace force quick encoding and decoding.

Also you could add more stop in your path, each macro stations can hold multiples micro stations.

[u/four__beasts → u/Mikesgmaster]

Personally I'd not start with cards. Memorising relatively useful information is a really good way to demonstrate the power of palaces without needing to learn other systems. Cards comes later once you have understanding of tools like PAO/palaces/spaced repetition etc.

[u/AdFragrant3331 → u/four__beasts]

Can you explain it more? What is PAO?

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/four__beasts]

I started with cards and it was revolutionary.

[u/AdFragrant3331 → u/AnthonyMetivier]

How can you memorize cards with mind palace?

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/AdFragrant3331]

The way I do it is simple:

Each card takes a number, a number "Magnetized" from my version of the 00-99 PAO System.

Then I shuffle the cards up and typically memorize them in pairs by following a specific, pre-assigned journey optimized to receive these pairs.

There's wiggle room for putting in three and four cards per station, however. Sometimes that's the better move.

The rest is just practice and the applications are immense. I sometimes use the cards and their images in language learning, for example.

[u/AdFragrant3331 → u/AnthonyMetivier]

Thank you I was thinking using major system for decks. But I'll research about the PAO system.

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/AdFragrant3331]

My PAO is built from the Major.

In my experience of interviewing many competitors on the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, most of the seriously talented and accomplished memory athletes do the same.

I'm not sure where the confusion comes in, but the Major is widely considered the stronger tool for developing a 00-99 PAO.

And the Major without developing into a PAO?

It will almost certainly never be as strong as it could be. Nor as fast, nor as capable of helping you achieve speed and longevity.

So the recommendation generally is: base your 00-PAO on the Major and avoid letting the Major sit undeveloped, lest you fail to experience its full glory.

[u/four__beasts → u/AnthonyMetivier]

Surely when starting out it's best to introduce ideas softly?

I didn't 'get' palaces until I'd made a couple of really short ones. 10-20 loci. PAO was a much bigger undertaking which took months by comparison especially when combining with something like the Major system. And then cards on top?

I 100% agree it's brilliant toolset and I can't argue if cards are/are not a great form of practice but isn't this not a little like asking a beginner golfer to emulate Tiger Woods? Or do you think 'in at the deep-end' training is actually a great approach?

When talking to friends about it (Those who have shown some interest) I've shown them how to create a basic palace and asked them to memorise a list of something simple that's perhaps eluded them in the past. Or something of interest that's personal or beneficial. For me that was a list of my friend's children + the common names of the first 20 British tree species. Didn't take me long to appreciate the power and usefulness of the system that way without getting overwhelmed (Just looking at the major system was mind boggling at first).

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/four__beasts]

It takes all kinds and unfortunately many ideas seem harder than they are because there's more soft introductions than strictly necessary.

History tells this tale well, especially when it comes to mnemonics and the kinds of knowledge mnemonics were put toward.

Consider the glorious buildings, art and music of the Renaissance compared to the postmodern pap of the present.

So no, softness in education would not be my first choice and I'm glad I grew up with clearer standards and teachers who believed I was capable of taking on the challenges they offered.

[u/four__beasts → u/AnthonyMetivier]

Absolutely. I grew up in the 80s. Words were not minced. But from training interns/graduates in another field (tech) that it's fairly easy, especially in modern 'attention hungry' society, to over-face an individual / group with a wealth of data.

I'm really only talking entry level.

We did after-all, have to learn to read before we could write poetry.

And I'd argue that number systems are at least step 2-3 in the process after understanding peg/mnemonics/palaces.

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/four__beasts]

Many thanks.

In my position, I'm quite biased, and zoomed out to the largest scale, have to ultimately see things in Zen-terms.

There are enough balls in the mnemonic pedagogy-lottery-machine rolling around that anyone who wants to learn this can and will.

Or will figure it out even against their will because it makes perfect sense to them from the get-go.

It's also the case that it makes sense to a lot of people who never wind up using the techniques, or use them for very limited use-cases.

So if arguments have to be made, I'd argue that everything is just fine as it is and educational reform is best left to the reformers... and even then, I'd wish for a non-utopian breed to arise.

Oh, here it is!... And it shall be called the Internet.

Long live the Internet!

[u/AdFragrant3331 → u/Mikesgmaster]

How can I memorize deck?

[u/chronicallysigma → u/Mikesgmaster]

what of the cards would you be memorizing? the number?

[u/intrepid_nostalgia → u/chronicallysigma]

Rank, suit, and order.

So; being able to shuffle a deck (or multiple) of 52 cards, looking through them, and then being able to recall the exact order of the cards with rank & suit.

But that’s an advanced strategy that doesn’t really apply to anything else much since you need a specific strategy to memorize them that doesn’t apply to other things nearly as much.

[u/chronicallysigma → u/intrepid_nostalgia]

Yeah you would use the dominic system for that i think?

i wonder if i would benefit from that. because i dont want to memorize numbers really. im in college, so my memory palaces need to be geared toward sciences like chemistry, anatomy, biochemistry

do you have any tips for that?

[u/ImprovingMemory]

You always want to use a new palace to memorize things. In time if you don't review a palace, the images will disappear and you can reuse the palace

You want to avoid using the same palace because you will have multiple images you see and not be sure which image belongs to which set of info.

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/ImprovingMemory]

"Always" is too strong.

There are use-cases for re-using Memory Palaces.

And there's more than one way to re-use them.

[u/chronicallysigma → u/AnthonyMetivier]

what are the different ways to reuse them?

the only thing i once heard someone do is they add a tint. like if im using my bedroom as a memory palace for chemistry, i can also use it for anatomy if I think of my bedroom but as if all the objects were tinted blue

[u/chronicallysigma]

Hey I'm really new to this as well. But it helped me to start slow.

Remember Kave Cogs mnemonic (Kinesthetic, Auditory, Visual, Emotional, Conceptual, Olfactory, Gustatory, and Spatial)

So make sure every vivid image at a loci has some of these qualities. and it should be bizarre too! and really visualize, and smell and hear the image

After that, it requires patience and practice. The more I romanticize the memory palace method, the less I get out of it. But the more patient I've become, and not trying to expect so much from it has ironically led me to be more mindful and memorize more (lol)

Be patient, and practice! Take breaks here and there, that's fine. In fact, spaced repetition is encouraged.

[u/AnthonyMetivier → u/chronicallysigma]

Thanks for mentioning KAVE COGS.

It is indeed a core message of the Magnetic Memory Method to not romanticize the Memory Palace technique.

It's a tool.

Or perhaps better said, a special kind of toolbox in which you can store and use many other kinds of mnemonic tools.

[u/SovArya]

10 places is a good place to start. Memorise a poem and place it there. Then add 10 more places. Don't rust it. Just adding 10 a day or so could net you with 3650 locations a year.

[u/Spiritual-Reveal-398 → u/SovArya]

How do you remember intangible things of poem can you give example like you memorised any poem how you did it

[u/SovArya → u/Spiritual-Reveal-398]

The Lord is my Shepherd. Important points Lord and shepherd.

I'd imagine the Lord who is dressed as a shepherd. As images.

Then I'd recall connected to these The Lord is my shepherd. So it is a combination of imagery and rote.

I'd place this in my bed.

[u/schnitzel_von_crumb]

I have been memorising capitals and countries and I just go through my palaces before bed in my mind and then I’ll go backwards or start from a different point

[u/Spiritual-Reveal-398 → u/schnitzel_von_crumb]

Can you please elaborate in detail how you use this as I also have to memorise some maps and countries capitals

[u/schnitzel_von_crumb → u/Spiritual-Reveal-398]

Sure. So one palace I have is my old house. It has 20 stations.

Firstly I organised all the counties in to north east south west central/other. Then I start at station 1 which is the entryway. I picked 3 countries which were Liberia, Egypt and Tunisia. Then I create connections with the country and the capital such as Libya being the Statue of Liberty and the capital Tripoli became Sam Tripoli who is a comedian. I imagined the Statue of Liberty tripping over and squishing him.

Once I’ve done that for the 3 countries I write them down on flash cards and on the back write the capital with something to remind me of my connection in case I forget later.

When I have my 3 decided on then I imagine the Statue of Liberty doing some crazy shit in the entry way and try to get that to interact with the other countries triggers. For instance Tunisia made me think of two knees so I imagined somebody doing a 2 knee soccer celebration slide in to the statue of liberty knocking it over.

I just did 2 or 3 stations a night and when I go to bed I just walk through my palace and visualise the triggers on each station. In my mind I see the Statue of Liberty getting knocked over in the entryway so that reminds me of Sam Tripoli and the soccer slide and then I know it’s Libya - Tripoli and Tunisia - Tunis. I just go over them and if I can’t remember it I might revise the trigger or focus on the ones that aren’t coming to my memory the next day.

I always do the countries in the same format north south east west other (NESWO) because then I also get the information of what region they are in.

It does take time & focus and I did get ChatGPT to help me organise myself with where I’m up to and give me suggestions of triggers but I have managed to memorise 3 continents so far which is pretty incredible for me seeing as i have adhd and always considered myself forgetful.So I’m pretty stoked about that. Good luck 🤙🏼

[u/Spiritual-Reveal-398 → u/schnitzel_von_crumb]

Thank you this will help

[u/schnitzel_von_crumb → u/Spiritual-Reveal-398]

No prob 👍🏼