Does aphantasia affect the ability to create an effective memory palace? I find that my ability to visualize things in my mind’s eye is diminished and somewhat low-resolution. Has anyone here with mild or total aphantasia been successful in building a memory palace?
An ultimate guide to memory palaces
71–80 of 87 posts
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#72I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does your experience of the world change when every place you find yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories? I also wanted to get more out of reading. I…
Thanks for sharing, I find this stuff quite inspiring.
How much time would you say you spent on training over the years? (Hours/week when you were building this up, or whatever)
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#73Has anyone used this approach to memorize music? E.g., for playing an instrument. I used to be able to remember plenty when I was young and practicing a lot. And certainly professionals can remember significant amounts (and not just the music, but performance details, fingerings, etc). Seems like a different mechanism, relying less on visual and spatial associations, more on hearing. But perhaps it's similar in that…
As someone who, back when I used to play (semi-professionally) I preferred to memorise all my music, I would say that memorising pieces for me was "effortless", and thus needed no technique, provided that when I would first study a piece, the intent was specifically to memorise it, rather than, say, to sight read, or analyse it. I always found it extremely odd that, if the memorisation intent was not there, no amount…
Yes, memorizing everything (all the music) helped hugely in practicing. I used to believe it was because I didn't have to read the music, and could focus on fingers, etc. But maybe the memorization effort (and it wasn't hard, as you mentioned) was enough to establish a framework, and the bulk of my practicing was hanging new details onto the framework.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#74Has anyone used this approach to memorize music? E.g., for playing an instrument. I used to be able to remember plenty when I was young and practicing a lot. And certainly professionals can remember significant amounts (and not just the music, but performance details, fingerings, etc). Seems like a different mechanism, relying less on visual and spatial associations, more on hearing. But perhaps it's similar in that…
I use a mnemonic technique to remember song forms when I'm playing drums. I draw a map of the song, each measure is a square. Squares are arranged in lines in such a way that it makes sense musically (usually 4 squares per line). The parts of the song (verse, chorus, etc.) are separated. The squares are mostly empty, except when they contain something important to remember.
The drawing takes up more space than the typical informal drummer notation (for example: intro 4 bars; verse 8 bars; chorus 8 bars, etc.), but it is much easier to remember (at least for me).
If I'm learning a song that isn't recorded yet, I sketch this map during rehearsals. Before each rehearsal I try to visualize the maps of all the songs.
If I'm learning a challenging song from a recording I use a simple python program that draws the map from a given text file and allows me to play a loop over selected measures. This way my brain starts constructing a map of the song without conscious effort.
This sort of maps are some kind of constructed memory palaces in 2 dimensions. I personally wouldn't use an existing memory palace to remember a song, because the songs already have enough structure.
I need this technique only to remember the big picture. When I need to learn the changes or the melody, I try to rely more on music theory and "audio memory". If you are interested in learning jazz standards, you might want to check the book "Insights in Jazz" written by John Elliott.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#75I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does your experience of the world change when every place you find yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories? I also wanted to get more out of reading. I…
Thanks for sharing, I find this stuff quite inspiring. How much time would you say you spent on training over the years? (Hours/week when you were building this up, or whatever)
Getting started phase: was 15 min a day. Over-hyped phase: for some memory "projects" maybe 30 min a day. Now: I just use memory tricks all day long without really training. However every day, for the last 30 min of work I try to recall everything that was important that day (free recall). At the start of the workday I recall the top-3 things to work on.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#76http://sauerbraten.org/ could be useful to create maps
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds awesome! Makes me want to have a look at memory palaces again. In your experience: Do you ever "refactor" you maps to show updated understanding? Or do you find that this happens naturally? Do connections between different areas stand out or form? Do you have examples of notices patterns or structure in knowledge because of it? Thanks
> Do you ever "refactor" you maps to show updated understanding? Or do you find that this happens naturally? Yes. I often add on things. So let's say I read a book and years later I realize that the author omitted something very important (IMHO). Then, I just add that knowledge to the appropriate room. I naturally remember what was or wasn't part of the book. With these systems you're training your mind to think a sp…
what about running out of places to store stuff? i.e. a physical place that you know well enough to store memories.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#78took me back to when I binge watched "the Mentalist" where Jane (the lead) explains pretty much the same thing. What an incredible show that was.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#79Isn't there a "no free lunch" about remembering as well? Yes, memory training is probably a good idea but how do you pick what to store there in the first place? Forgetting things -properly- is an underappreciated skill in my opinion.
I imagine my set of login credentials would be a good candidate, instead of relying on a password manager.
Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces
#80I don't know if others share a similar belief as me about memory and understanding, but I see it as the following model:
Imagine your mind as a planet full of water (like earth) and some of its area is covered in land. There are asteroids flying into its gravitational pull and landing on the planet.
If the asteroid falls out completely out in the water then it will drown. If repeatedly a lot of asteroids fall in the middle of the ocean around each other, they may be able to become an island.
If it falls on the continent it becomes part of it, if it falls close to the continent then it also becomes a part of it, provided there is a connection to the continent.
The continent represents our mind. The asteroids represent data. The connected part of the land represents our understanding (i.e information).
If you read a piece of information such as: "Mackresh Holdings own 21% of Yojing Lee Corp, and the right to coniunctis viribus."
This is an asteroid landing in the ocean, unconnected to any land, and is likely to drown (one way to avoid that is to keep landing more and more asteroids to the same spots, until it builds up into an island, this is what repetition based learning does).
On the other hand if these topics can be connected to your 'continent' (i.e the body of understanding), then its far less likely to drown. For instance (completely made up) if you learned that Yojing Lee Corp owns election machines of South Korea and Mackresh holdings is a company fully owned by Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook), and the right to 'coniunctis viribus' means the right to merge companies under Korean law.
Similarly if you learn that Mark Zuckerberg acquired stake in that company because he wants to connect FB to the election machines, and he wants to do that by merging the two companies, this arbitrary fact has been connected to your existing body of knowledge.
If it wasn't Zuckerberg but the fictional Korean business tycoon Woo-Jun Paik from some TV show then you'd lose this connection to this fact (and the information might be Lost more easily again) as it will become an island of its own. On the other hand if you learn that this TV show was 'Lost' (part of the Korean soap opera storyline), then it might make some connection again, and that island could be found again.