The Ultimate Technique to Improve your Memory | Step-by-step Guide
If you’re not interested in the history behind this technique, you can skip this section.
A bit of history
Willem Klein was able to calculate the 73rd root of a 500-digit number in 2 minutes 43 seconds.
Being a human calculator, apart from looking cool to your friends, is useless for our species. Our brain is quite selective. Indeed, If it doesn’t need something, it just ignores it. Calculate the 73rd square root of a 500-digit number looks not required for our survival. However, under certain circumstances, it can still be compelling.
Essentially, what separates us from prodigious people like him (apart from practice) is the way our brain grab knowledge objects.
I’ve already made a similar comparison in this article to explain why the more you know about History, the better you will be.
Rüdiger Gamm succeed to divide prime numbers up to the 60th decimal. Researchers studied his brain’s sugar consumption during a mental calculation and compared it to other “normal” calculators. They wanted to discover what are the differences between him and a “normal” person during them.
Unlike “normal” people, Rüdiger used his spatial and episodic memory in addition to his working one (classically used during mental calculation).
What can we learn from him?
Our brain is plastic, so plastic that these kinds of people can mold it. They can shape it so profoundly to alter their basic functionalities. What can be used to mental calculation can also be applied to memory.
Nowadays, we tend to forget it, but at one point in history, having a great memory could be very helpful. As far back as antiquity, Important personalities could retain the odyssey by heart.
- Ciceron, for instance, could memorize hours of pleadings.
- Anchorites, in antiquity, could retain by heart religious texts (Bible, Koran, Torah).
We also tend to forget that paper used not to be cheap. At that time, we performed lectures orally. So students had to have powerful memorization techniques to succeed in this sense.
The technique that I would like to share today was kept secret for years. In the Middle Age, people practicing it were considered to have mystic power. But since the arrival of technology, it has been a bit forgotten.
It remains a powerful and simple system for anyone that wants to develop his memory. I am, of course, talking about the Mind Palace.
What you’re about to learn
The knowledge’s specialization is, according to history and science, the best way to memorize things. That’s precisely the role of a mind palace.
In this article, you will learn how to construct your first mind palace. I made it accessible for all beginners who want to improve their memory.
I like to call it; The ultimate technique to improve your memory. Because even if alone, it is not mind-blowing, when you start to mix it with others mnemonics, you can become a beast.
In the end, you will be able to use your first mind palace and record pretty everything you want to. Don’t be too ambitious either, start small!
Make a plan of your palace
The main idea behind it is :
- Construct a mind representation of a place that you know well.
- Place scenes of memorization all over it.
For your first palace, avoid large areas. It can be a room in your apartment or your childhood house, for example.
The only condition is that you have to know every detail. I’ll even go so far as to say that you must recognize his scent. Why? Because it’s common to say that the olfactory memory is the most persistent one (it resists Alzheimer).
Once the foundations of your palace have been laid, let’s choose locations that are going to hold what you want to store.
You must place these memory scenes at recognizable locations. For instance, if my palace is my bedroom, we can imagine :
- My bed.
- My night table.
- My closet.
Don’t be overly specific in locations choice, especially for your first palace. I’ve already taken a tiny spot, like an object. Small location means fewer details and so, a weaker memory.
Memorization path
Did you create your palace? Did you set your scenes? Okay, now we’re going to deal with the memory path.
The memory path is the way to go through all your memory scenes. You can make it chronologically move from one spot to another (like to retain historical events) or not. I suggest you to avoid passing several times in the same scene.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself walking in your memory palace, passing by all your memory scenes.
“First, I walk near my bed that I can see my first scene. Then I’m heading toward my night table. On it, I can see my second one. Finally, at the back of the bedroom, I reach my last scene. It’s my wide-opened closet!”
How to use it
The next time you have to retain something, work with your mind palace and fill your memory scenes with what you have to remember.
If it is a shopping list, place what you have to buy. But don’t just put them like you drop something on it. Imagine something funny, bloody, or sexual. I don’t even joke! Studies show that obscenities are more memorable.
“When I want my men to hold an order. I make it twice as dirty. You can’t lead an army without obscenity.” — General Patton
For: Pizza, Butter, Ketchup. I imagine :
- A beautiful girl in my bed eating a pizza while looking at me with love.
- My night table covered by melted butter. So much so that I almost fell when I passed by.
- A dead man in my closet, bleeding on my clothes. When I taste it (because why not), I experience a subtle flavor of ketchup.
Now I can imagine myself roaming in my bedroom filled by all these weird stuff while I’m running errands.
As I’ve written before, this technique starts becoming powerful as soon as you start mixing it with others.
For example, In my article: How to Easily Memorize Large Numbers, we have seen how easy it is to retain credit card or telephone numbers by turning them into a story. Yes, this technique is powerful for one large number, but when you have to do it for several, it started becoming a bit tricky.
Now you can just place them in your mind palace. Like I’ve done with the shopping list. Find a memorable way to do it, and the next time you will have to retrieve them, browse your palace and retrieve each number story.
