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In the modern world of omnipresent information access, memorization is almost a thing of the past.

And this shift has occurred very quickly. Little more than a decade ago, it wasn’t uncommon that a person had to memorize a sizable list of phone numbers belonging to partners, siblings, parents and close friends.

Now Many Of Us Forget Our Own Cell Phone Numbers!

 

Despite this, there are situations in the modern day that still require memorization. Perhaps phone numbers and historical facts are better left to Google, but not everything can and should be searched via a computer.

A notable example which is becoming conversant is “language” – which requires that you memorize a huge amount of vocabulary and grammar.  Until now, there isn’t a technology effective enough to replace human ability to learn and master a language.

In the past, having to memorize information was not optional because information wasn’t easily accessible. Up until the 19th century, paper was expensive, especially for quantities required to make a book.  To add to it was that not many people could read and write so the ability and need to memorize and recall information was critical.

 

Why The Greeks Adored Memory Palace Science

 

That’s why a powerful memorization method was adored by the ancient Greeks. This technique is used even as at today by memory experts to commit huge amounts of information to mind. And thanks to have an abundance of Ancient Greek facts that have been handed down, anyone can learn to use a Memory Palace at any time.

One such memory expert, used it to memorize Pi to over 100,000 digits. This memorization technique is called the Method of Loci, or more commonly the “Memory Palace”. It is a memorization method that not only has held the test of time, but has been shown to be effective through modern-day studies.

You may even have heard of the Memory Palace technique without realizing it because it has been featured in multiple books and media.

 

The Silence Of The Memory Palace
In Fiction And Movies

 

For example, the technique was employed by the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the novel series “Hannibal” written by an American author Thomas Harris. In several passages of the novel, Lecter was described as mentally walking through an elaborate Memory Palace to remember facts. That’s the basics of the Memory Palace technique.

Although relatively unknown, this method can be a game-changing technique for people who want to improve their ability to retain large amounts of information. You might be a student trying to master information for an exam, or an aspiring polyglot trying to learn Italian. You might be aging and finding it more difficult to recall routine information.

Whatever memorization challenge you face, the Memory Palace technique is a proficient way to finally help you achieve your goals.

 

How the Memory Palace Technique Evolved

 

The origin of the Memory Palace technique was traced to ancient Greece. As mentioned earlier, in the olden days, people had higher incentives to create effective methods of retaining information. Writing and writing materials were difficult to access.

The Memory Palace technique was introduced to the ancient Romans and the world via Greek rhetorical treatises.

The Roman Cicero described the Memory Palace technique in his writings on rhetoric, called De Oratore.

In De Oratore, Circero claims that his Memory Palace method originated from the Greek poet Simonides. Simonides was commissioned to recite a poem praising a group of nobles at a banquet. After the recitation, Simonides left the hall and shortly after the edifice collapsed and killed all the people in the banquet.

The bodies were so badly mangled that not even close relatives could identify the corpses of their own people. However, Simonides was able to identify each of the corpses by name based on their location. Based on this experience, Simonides devised the Memory Palace technique (Bower 1970).

Whether this story is reality or myth, it illustrates the basic idea behind the Memory Palace technique. Luckily, you don’t have to attend a tragic banquet to master the technique and start using it to improve your information retention.

For a true story that will rivet you from beginning to end, check out The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.

 

How to Create a Memory Palace

 

The basic idea behind the Memory Palace Technique is to associate pieces of information with a location that you are very familiar with. A prime example would be of your home.

If you’d like some free Memory Palace worksheets and a concise memory improvement video course, do this now:

 

If you close your eyes right now, you can probably picture your home with a high degree of detail. You know where the furniture is found, what colors the walls are, and even where small objects are placed.

The Memory Palace technique has to do with associating information with specific areas of that familiar location. As you walk through that location, you place pieces of information that you wish to memorize in specific areas. When you want to recall the information, you go through that mental route, and the information will be easily accessible.

The technique is made more effective when you add surprising or out-of-the normal features to the information.

For example, assuming you would like to memorize this sequence of words:

• hero
• drill
• spacecraft
• music

You could imagine yourself at your front door, with a hero standing next to you. Here you’ve made an association between your door and a hero.

You can increase your ability to memorize and retain this by making the memory more distinctive or unusual. For example, you could imagine the hero opening the door for you, or banging on it before you enter.

You then walk down your hall, and before your feet is a drill. To increase the power of this imagery, imagine that it is turned on and you have to leap to avoid being hurt.

You then turn the corner and see a spacecraft flying out of the window leaving behind itself a trail of glitter.

Finally, you sat down on the couch, and as your bottom touches the cushion, your favorite song starts playing. You might even imagine the word “music” written on the cushion before you sit.

 

The Memory Palace Technique Is Not Necessarily Visual

 

As you can see, the technique seems to require a vivid visual imagination. However, when done correctly using all of the Magnetic Modes, you can memorize a very large amount of information relatively quickly without necessarily seeing the Memory Palace in your mind.

Here’s an infographic to teach you all about the different ways that your brain perceives information:

Keeping the full range of your Magnetic Modes in mind, you can use any home or location with which you are familiar.

You can even use small areas, such as the inside of a broom closet. You can even use your own body, attaching information to different limbs.

Just keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to see the Memory Palace. You can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it and even just think about it.

If any of this seems odd, continue reading to be convinced of how seriously well the Memory Palace technique works. You might want to see just how well the Memory Palace can work in combination with Mind Mapping too.

 

The Science behind the Memory Palace Technique

 

Many studies have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of the Memory Palace technique. It’s all based on the scientific fact that your brain and spatial memory perceive space as a kind of image.

Check out this lecture for more information about how that works:

Cool, right?

The answer is a resounding “yes!”

Even better:

In a study conducted by J. Ross and K. A. Lawrence in 1968, the Memory Palace technique was tested on a group of 40 students. The students were asked to memorize a list of 40 items. They were given only a few minutes to do so, yet were able to recall an average of 38 out of 40 items upon immediate recall.

The next day, the average recall rate dropped to 34 out of 40 items – still very impressive!

Nature Magazine did an investigation of so-called superior memorizers (SM) in a 2002 paper (Maguire et al). They studied a group of 10 champions who had competed in the World Memory Championships.

The researchers first wanted to know if these SMs had some special natural advantages that other people do not have, such as a higher IQ.

They first found out that SMs did not have exceptional cognitive abilities. In fact, they did not even show superior performance on visual memory tasks (for example, the recall of faces).

The paper further investigated the brain structure of these SMs, and found out that their brains were not significantly different from average brains (Maguire et al 2002).

The scientists also performed functional MRI scans to see if the SMs brains were activated differently when actively memorizing. Here the SMs brains differed from normal brains – SM’s brains activated particularly when memorizing (Maguire et al 2002).

Significantly, scientists found out that SMs all used mnemonic techniques to aid in their memorization. Nine out of ten of these subjects were specifically using the Memory Palace technique (Maguire et al 2002).

Note: Some of people call it the Mind Palace method, but the basics are the same.

Plus, the different activation patterns observed were associated to the fact that SMs used mnemonic techniques, namely the Memory Palace technique, to memorize information (Maguire et al 2002).

 

No Need For A Huge IQ To Use A Memory Palace!

 

It’s not that SMs are smarter or have bigger brains than the rest of us. It’s that they use mnemonics, and specifically the Memory Palace technique to memorize information. That is the secret behind their impressive abilities. And because these SMs had been practicing the technique for a little over 11 years on average, they were really good (Maguire et al 2002).

This suggests that anyone with average abilities can use this technique to improve his/her memory.

And once you know the drill, it’s really just a matter of spending some time with a few solid Memory Palace training exercises. Like these:

Even if you are not seeking to learn large amounts of information, the Memory Palace technique still has something to offer. There is evidence that the Memory Palace technique can help maintain a healthy brain during old age.

 

Benefits of the Memory Palace
Technique for the Aging Brain

 

As we age, our memories become weaker. In elderly people, this might lead to a frustrating situation where they are struggling to recall routine information.

There has been much study on age-related memory loss, but so far not many effective solutions to this problem.

Happily, the Memory Palace technique holds promise in aiding the enhancement of memory in the aging brain.

One study conducted in Norway in 2010 employed expert instructors, who taught the Memory Palace technique to 23 volunteers. The average age of these volunteers was 61 (Engvig et al 2010).

After training, these volunteers were able to memorize a list of 30 words in sequential order in under 10 minutes – impressive!

A control group, a set of volunteers of the same average age, sex and education was included in the study. They were not trained in the Memory Palace technique, and were instructed to memorize the list as well (Engvig et al 2010).

Afterwards, both groups were released into the world to live normally for eight weeks.

When they returned to the study, researchers challenged both groups to a recall task.

They first flashed a list of 15 unrelated words, each for only a second. The volunteers were then instructed to recall the words in order.

Researchers then showed them a list of 30 words. Half of these words had been displayed in the initial 15 word list while the other half was completely new.

The volunteers were asked to pick out words that had previously appeared and also identify their correct position in the first list (Engvig et al 2010).

Volunteers trained in the Memory Palace technique outperformed the non-trained volunteers for recognizing the position of the words (Engvig et al 2010).

The study also measured the amount of brain thinning that occurred in the trained versus untrained groups of volunteers. Normal age causes the brain to shrink. The brain of the individuals showed thickening in areas of the brain which were key for visual abstract memory (Engvig et al 2010).

 

Why The Memory Palace Technique Is Not Snake Oil

 

This research and others like it have shown that the Memory Palace technique is not snake oil.

Sadly, most adults in the modern world are not encouraged to use their imagination. It might therefore be slightly challenging for someone newly using the technique to really get into it, especially if they don’t have the kind of Memory Palace example you can get when you take my free memory improvement course.

However, after practice, many find out that this memory technique is not only effective in memorization, but is also very engaging. Certainly more engaging than the traditional rote memorization technique.

With some practice, you’ll be impressing all of your friends and family with how good your memorization has gotten in no time.

 

References & Further Resources

 

Bower, G. H., “Analysis of a Mnemonic Device: Modern psychology uncovers the powerful components of an ancient system for improving memory” American Scientist, Vol. 58, No. 5, pp. 496-510, September–October 1970 Web. 21 Jan. 2016..

Engvig, Andreas, Anders M. Fjell, Lars T. Westlye, Torgeir Moberget, Øyvind Sundseth, Vivi Agnete Larsen, and Kristine B. Walhovd. “Effects of Memory Training on Cortical Thickness in the Elderly.” NeuroImage 52.4 (2010): 1667-676. 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Fan, Shelley. “Can a Mnemonic Slow Memory Loss with Age?” Scientific American Blog Network. 20 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Maguire, Eleanor A., Elizabeth R. Valentine, John M. Wilding, and Narinder Kapur. “Routes to Remembering: The Brains behind Superior Memory.” Nature Neuroscience Nat Neurosci 6.1 (2002): 90-95. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

The post Memory Palace Science: Proof That This Memory Technique Works appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

Travel is awesome, right?

You bet it is.

The only problem is that most people don’t maximize the value of their vacations. Instead of going in prepared to remember as much as humanly possible, they accept what they can get from the default settings of the muscle sitting between their ears.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Here’s how to travel differently so that you remember more, enjoy more and get to take your vacations again and again with the vibrant recall of an intense dream.

 

Infinitely Increase The Value Of Every Hotel Room With A Simple Memory Palace

 

One of the first things to do is draw out a quick sketch of your hotel room. It’s simple to chart a well-formed Memory Palace journey using such a small space.

Even if the Memory Palace only has four or five stations, you’re already ahead of the game because your mind is in memory mode. Here’s an example of a quick hotel Memory Palace in room April and I shared on our honeymoon. We were taking the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm:

As seen in the video, you can also create a Memory Palace of the lobby, the hotel restaurant, gift shop and any other rooms you spot that look manageable. If you’re comfortable using outdoor Memory Palaces, parking lots and the hotel entrance can be powerful resources.

Of course, to draw Memory Palaces, you’ll need a Memory Journal.

 

How To Keep A Memory Journal

 

Memory Journals are great for a number of purposes:

• Drawing Memory Palaces
• Describing mnemonic images
• Testing recall
• Troubleshooting
• Tracking results
• Recording thoughts and impressions

When traveling, your Memory Journal will also let you make notes about what you did on each day of the trip as you make quick sketches of the places you visit.

To get started, buy a simple notebook. It can be lined or unlined. I recommend that you decorate the cover and then get started listing out as many potential Memory Palaces as you can. If you need help, check out the episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast called How to Find Memory Palaces and make sure that you have the MMM Worksheets that come with my FREE Memory Improvement Kit.

 

Gather Maps, Floor Plans And Think Strategically

 

You’re traveling to enjoy yourself, right? Who wants to sit around drawing squares all day? (Except me?)

Luckily, when visiting many parks, museums and historical locations, you don’t have to spend your time this way. Instead, you can grab up brochures with mockups and floor plans of museums, churches and art galleries for reference later. If your Memory Journal has a storage pack, you can bomb these inside for reference later.

The important thing is that you think strategically when entering the location. Note the corners of rooms and the best areas for Memory Palace creation. You can already start constructing it in your mind.

If you’re experienced, you can also start using the Memory Palace right away. For example, using the Major Method, you can memorize the date of a painting along with its name. If you’re learning a foreign language, this is a great way to pick up new vocabulary.

Use The Memory Improvement Power Of Photography

 

Taking photos of your loved ones and the main attractions is an important part of traveling. But you can get your camera into the Memory Game too by taking photos of building layouts. Hotel beds, for example, make excellent micro-stations in Memory Palaces.

Using PowerPoint software, you can reconstruct the Memory Palace from your photos. For many people, this simple process makes their Memory Palaces much more vivid and useful. You can also use the software to impose information directly onto the Memory Palace stations for Recall Rehearsal.

However, please note that although this kind of activity is acceptable at the beginning stages, it will not strengthen your memory in the same way that drawing Memory Palaces and then using them from your imagination alone achieves. Work towards creating and using tech-free Memory Palaces and your skills will soar.

Think of it as the difference between doddering along with training wheels and the freedom of riding a bike assisted only by your instinctual knowledge of balance, velocity and the physics of pedaling. The only difference is that in matters of memory and the mind, you never need to work up a sweat to get the benefits.

But if you do need some assistance, here’s an example of a Memory Palace station and directionality I created using the Midland Hotel where I stayed during the New Media Europe convention in 2015. As you can see, it’s easy to place the station number and a direction signature for later use as you scroll through the PowerPoint (I used Keynote in Mac):

As a final camera tip, photograph street corners and use them as Memory Palaces for memorizing street names. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can recall intersections, not just for finding your way back to places, but for giving recommendations to other travelers.

Yes, it’s an ego boost too when you can show off your knowledge of cities around the world. Just don’t let it get to your head and never forget that with great power comes great responsibly. Teach what you’ve learned about memory techniques to others by telling them how you memorized street names.

 

Make Videos For Review Later

 

If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you’ve probably seen some of the videos I’ve been putting out about creating Memory Palaces along the way.

I even got April into the memory improvement game while visiting Prague:

Part of what I’m doing by making these videos is teaching what can be done to create an impromptu Memory Palace. But I’m also practicing my own memory as I teach.

You don’t have to do anything so elaborate as posting your personal travel videos on YouTube, but the act of shooting the Memory Palaces you want to create will not only make your trip more memorable, but aid you in the creation process. It’s also a fun way to create images of yourself that ideally won’t lead to the corrosion of your memory.

The Forbidden City:
My Most Challenging Memory Palace

 

A lot of historical sites offer fodder for Memory Palace creation, and many are straightforward to navigate and commit to memory. Other historical locations, however, are so sprawling and complex, it’s difficult to know how to use them.

I found this to be the case with the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. It’s not just that the Forbidden City is labyrinthine. There are also many large spaces inside matched by contained areas. The temple structures within each area differ in shape, size and purpose. A few sections feature trees, ponds and fountains. Plus, there are gift shops throughout, many difficult to distinguish from each other.

Rather than take the Forbidden City as one entire Memory Palace, it made more sense to prepare for the creation of three individual Memory Palaces:

• The front entrance
• The largest structure (name)
• The exit

By breaking the Forbidden city down in this way, I can capitalize on two of memory’s biggest assets:

The primacy effect and the recency effect.

Although not always true, we tend to remember the elements of a sequence we encounter first and last the best.

For example, the one and only time I participated in a memory competition with Dave Farrow during the playing cards event, I remember to this day the first few cards and the last few I memorized. I can pick out a few in the middle, but most are hazy. (If I’d used Magnetic Memory Method Recall Rehearsal, I could have overcome the forgetting curve that wipes out the middle part of sequences, but I normally save that process for important info like foreign language vocabulary and names).

 

Study The Layout In Advance To
Maximize Memory Potential

 

Knowing that I’ll be limiting my choices to these areas in advance, I studied the layout on the map before entering the Forbidden City. With a plan for using only a few select spots, I released my mind of the burden of capturing it all and absorbed most of the site on autopilot.

For the entrance, core building and exit, however, I photographed and sketched the layouts to help substantiate them in my memory.

The most important step?

Follow-up.

What does follow-up involve? Rehearsing the Memory Palace right away using the tools of Recall Rehearsal, followed by using the Memory Palace to memorize some information.

For example, as soon as possible after leaving many Memory Palaces on our honeymoon, I asked my fiancee to help me understand some new Chinese vocabulary and then used the new Memory Palaces to encode the sounds and meanings of the words. I sometimes did this fully impromptu without creating a Memory Palace first, which is also an option:

This Memory Palace Technique
Is Good For the Entire Family

 

Whether you’re going to the Acropolis or the Empire State Building, there’s a way to efficiently turn these locations into Memory Palaces without disrupting the flow of your vacation. If you have children and are interested in memory techniques for kids, you can set the foundation for a life of learning with greater ease by helping them maximize their impressionable minds with the global real estate travel puts in their hands.

And if you use the Memory Palaces to learn elements of the local language while visiting the city, all the better. Bilingualism is good for your brain, after all.

Heck, even if you just learn how to say good morning, good afternoon and good evening to the hotel staff, you’ll make your vacation much richer.

Seriously. Memorizing a few niceties for use in restaurants will endear many staff members to you and this leads to better advice and more patient explanations when you have questions. You’ll also have more fun on your trip.

Or you can follow the steps I took to memorize 3 Chinese poems in 2.3 weeks for other interesting things to memorize.

The trick is not to get nervous about making mistakes and simply open your mouth and speak from your beautiful powers of enhanced recall while your newest Memory Palaces are still fresh.

I hope you take these tips to heart and start enjoying your future vacations at a deeper level by making them both more memorable and more suitable for servicing your Memory Palace needs for years to come.

The post How To Remember More Of Your Vacations With A Memory Palace appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

WAIT!

For Best Results, Listen To The Podcast First …

And Then Discover More About Memorizing A Textbook With The Following Free Magnetic Memory Method Infographic.

 

How Would You Like Me To Teach You How To Memorize A Text Book … Realistically? 

 

You would?

First, do register for this:

Once you’ve got that sorted, buckle in.

I’m about to show you how to memorize a textbook in a way that may surprise you.

Why?

 

Because Most People Break Themselves In Half To Memorize Textbooks Verbatim!

 

It’s not necessary.

There’s a right way to memorize a textbook and there’s a not-so-right-way.

So if you want to learn how to memorize a textbook the best possible way, then scroll up to the top and click play.

I’ll tell you  the specific kind of Memory Palace you need to build and how to approach textbooks (or any kind of book).

And yes, this technique works, no matter how little interest you have in the book. To help you further, here are 5 Ways To Get More Interested In Boring Topics You Have To Study.

And I’ll make sure that your approach to memorizing long textbooks works like a charm every time.

And when all that is done …

 

The Surprising Truth About Memorizing A Textbook Will Leap Out At You…

 

… and you’ll never read a textbook the same way again.

Why?

Because when you listen to this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, you’ll learn how to:

• Correctly set your expectations of what the book will contain
• Understand why you need to read the book (In many cases, you might not actually need to!)
• Quickly determine how much of the book you really need to read
• Make a dedicated Memory Palace system for memorizing the parts of the book that you really need
• Determine how much time you’ll need to practice the information you’ve memorized

At the end of the day, it’s not just about memorizing the textbook.

 

That Would Be An Utter Waste Of Time!

 

The real goal is to understand the books you read.

And more than understand them, you want to use the textbooks you place in memory to create new knowledge.

Look:

 

Teachers Want You To Take What You’ve Learned And Memorized From Textbooks And Radically Improve The World!

 

 

And the good news is that you can. You just need to know how.

And as you develop this new talent by listening to this Magnetic Memory Method episode about how to memorize a textbook, keep this in in mind:

In today’s age, the ability to create knowledge is an asset.

And anyone can do it. Even people with dyslexia.

More than that, the ability to create new knowledge …

 

… Is The Most Important Asset In The World!

 

Employers do not want people who can repeat things from the top of their heads. Employers want true expertise, the kind of expertise that comes only from deliberate study and absorption of not just rules and procedures, but concepts, ideas and principles.

And that’s what you’ll get when you learn how to read a book properly first before you even think about memorizing anything from it.

So dear Memorizers, if I’ve got your attention and you’ve registered for my free memory improvement course training, I now want you to scroll up and listen to this episode.

Download it to your desktop.

And click the share buttons. Give the gift of memory – and true memory improvement – to your friends.

And be passionate about your studies. Most people plod through textbooks without even being excited about what they’re reading. They find the information dry and boring and would rather watch goats yelling like humans than study.

But when you use memory techniques …

 

There’s No Such Thing As Boring Information!

 

Not even in your own life.

But you know what so many people tell me? They say, “Oh, but my mind is different.” They say, “I’m not creative enough. I can’t do what all those other students who succeed are able to do.”

You know what I say to that? …

 

Hogwash!

 

I don’t care if you are a legal student, medical student, rocket scientist or undercover agent.

You have everything you need.

So get listening, get busy and if you need more help, grab your free Magnetic Memory Method Memory Improvement Kit right here.

Talk soon!

Sincerely,

Anthony

Supplementary Viewing

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