The Method of Loci

For those interested in the topic, also read, &quot;Moonwalking wtih Einstein&quot; by Joshua Foer (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Moonwalking_with_Einstein" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Moonwalking_with_Einstein</a>).<p>It is a really entertaining look at the world of competitive memorization by a journalist who started out looking into this area and then ended up competing in the 2005 U.S. Memory Championship.<p>The writer goes into detail about how &#x27;method of loci&#x27; or memory palace techniques work and theres also plenty of humour in the book as well.

I love this technique. I can still remember memory palaces from over a decade ago with perfect clarity. It&#x27;s amazing that when you work with the brain on what it&#x27;s good at, such as geospatial awareness, or chunking (to cite another memory technique), what wondrous things we can do, in fields not just in memory but others as well. Work with the system, not against it.<p>Note that the method of loci might not work for people who have aphantasia, or the disability to not be able to visualize in the &quot;mind&#x27;s eye.&quot; It seems like whenever this is mentioned that people discover that they have it and can&#x27;t believe that people can literally visualize in perfect clarity in their mind the same as looking out a window [0] [1].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;todayilearned&#x2F;comments&#x2F;8rx0fi&#x2F;til_an_estimated_one_in_fifty_people_suffer_from" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;todayilearned&#x2F;comments&#x2F;8rx0fi&#x2F;til_a...</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;tifu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;c4i94n&#x2F;tifu_by_explaining_my_synesthesia_to_my_boyfriend" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;tifu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;c4i94n&#x2F;tifu_by_explai...</a>

The most popular community for art of memory is: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.artofmemory.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.artofmemory.com&#x2F;</a><p>Quite a few famous athletes are members. Memory palace is one of popular methodology. The moderator of the forum seems to be a software professional using Vim and Perl

I&#x27;ve found memory palaces useful for public speaking (remembering main bullet points), cramming for exams, remembering trivia, and strings of numbers like credit cards and phone numbers. My nine year old daughter also memorized the US presidents with a memory palace app on the iOS store.

What I&#x27;ve always wondered about this method is, how do you remember the memory palace you design? Is the idea that a mental place is easier to memorize than raw information?

I never gave it a dedicated efforts but I don&#x27;t feel like this memory technique comes naturally to me at all

For people who are aphantasic (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Aphantasia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Aphantasia</a>), this technique is impossible.