How Do You Create a Memory Palace?
A memory palace is the easiest, most efficient method of memorizing anything.
It is also the oldest method of memorizing. First taught in 80 B.C by unknown authors, the memory palace involves associating data such as a number set or a verse of text with familiar memories like one's home or the way to work thus utilizing existing pathways in the brain.
Recalling one's kitchen layout is pretty simple, yet it's not thought of as the easiest way of memorizing on the surface. You know when someone was in your bedroom while away because a red solo cup was left on the dresser or your pen sits atop your book horizontally instead of vertically like usual. Your palace is well know to you. The memory palace utilizes existing memories to recall something with little additional skill or pathway building.
Afterall, memorizing anything is a difficult task in of itself, at least when committed by brute force like conventional methods such as flashcards or repetition, which dulls creativity, but that's another blog post. No one wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "I want to memorize something and a lot of it!"
Recalling one's kitchen layout is pretty simple, yet it's not thought of as the easiest way of memorizing on the surface. You know when someone was in your bedroom while away because a red solo cup was left on the dresser or your pen sits atop your book horizontally instead of vertically like usual. Your palace is well know to you. The memory palace utilizes existing memories to recall something with little additional skill or pathway building.
Afterall, memorizing anything is a difficult task in of itself, at least when committed by brute force like conventional methods such as flashcards or repetition, which dulls creativity, but that's another blog post. No one wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "I want to memorize something and a lot of it!"
But people do enjoy memorizing. Competition exists for the best memorizers to test their skill. They are given a deck of cards and are tasked with reciting the entire deck of 52 back, timed or a list of 252 random digits or pie. It's called the U.S.A Memory Championship. People of all walks of life and careers compete regularly.
Every time the competition happens major news publication writes about it like NPR and the Guardian, most recently, the New York Times here, last year about this period, and here, and Vox through their nifty video methods on how to practice it.
Anyway, memory athletes are no different from people who do not like or cannot memorize. These people do not have a photographic memory nor do they have additional gray matter in their brain. The memory palace uses the brain no differently than not using the memory palace.
This new thing called research here and here backs this claim (no fake news here). As reported in the New York Times, 80 percent of those who took part in a research study published by Duke University Medical Center recognized the images that were asked to be memorize a few hours earlier. Humans are excellent at associating memories with images, so when images from everyday life are related to what needs to be memorized that memory will be recognized 80 percent of the time, or so the study says.
Before the age of computers and photography, ancient Greeks had to memorize important records-- ones typically stored thanks to modern technology nowadays.
I decided to build my own memory palace. The preamble to the US constitution is the objective. To do this, I broke up the sentences into three to five-word phrases. Then I recalled my parent's kitchen, a place where many hours of my life were spent growing up. Finally, I placed those words in a sequence around the kitchen and ventured that path from memory. Once the memory palace is forged completion of memorization is a matter of time and effort. Such as when there is down time simply go for a mental stroll to Mom and Dad's kitchen where the preamble is scattered about.
But, I cheated for the task of memorizing the preamble was done once before in seventh grade. Nevertheless, I forgot most of it, so I figure starting with this was a good way to test the memory palace. Moving forward I will have a follow-up blog post on using the memory palace soon.
What I did was not easy for memory palace standards. Ease of memorization is dependent on the task at hand. Memorizing for the sake of memorizing is not as easy as remembering all 26 bones in the foot if you're a student in medical studying for an exam.
Effective memorization is simple as associating commonly found images from life to what must be committed to memory. It's like reading literature or daily exercise-- tedious, but fun if done correctly and respectively. You, too, can memorize the preamble to the US constitution of the entire periodic table of elements with just a few simple images and effort!
-Tyler
Every time the competition happens major news publication writes about it like NPR and the Guardian, most recently, the New York Times here, last year about this period, and here, and Vox through their nifty video methods on how to practice it.
Anyway, memory athletes are no different from people who do not like or cannot memorize. These people do not have a photographic memory nor do they have additional gray matter in their brain. The memory palace uses the brain no differently than not using the memory palace.
This new thing called research here and here backs this claim (no fake news here). As reported in the New York Times, 80 percent of those who took part in a research study published by Duke University Medical Center recognized the images that were asked to be memorize a few hours earlier. Humans are excellent at associating memories with images, so when images from everyday life are related to what needs to be memorized that memory will be recognized 80 percent of the time, or so the study says.
Before the age of computers and photography, ancient Greeks had to memorize important records-- ones typically stored thanks to modern technology nowadays.
I decided to build my own memory palace. The preamble to the US constitution is the objective. To do this, I broke up the sentences into three to five-word phrases. Then I recalled my parent's kitchen, a place where many hours of my life were spent growing up. Finally, I placed those words in a sequence around the kitchen and ventured that path from memory. Once the memory palace is forged completion of memorization is a matter of time and effort. Such as when there is down time simply go for a mental stroll to Mom and Dad's kitchen where the preamble is scattered about.
But, I cheated for the task of memorizing the preamble was done once before in seventh grade. Nevertheless, I forgot most of it, so I figure starting with this was a good way to test the memory palace. Moving forward I will have a follow-up blog post on using the memory palace soon.
What I did was not easy for memory palace standards. Ease of memorization is dependent on the task at hand. Memorizing for the sake of memorizing is not as easy as remembering all 26 bones in the foot if you're a student in medical studying for an exam.
Effective memorization is simple as associating commonly found images from life to what must be committed to memory. It's like reading literature or daily exercise-- tedious, but fun if done correctly and respectively. You, too, can memorize the preamble to the US constitution of the entire periodic table of elements with just a few simple images and effort!
-Tyler
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