An ultimate guide to memory palaces

It's not true that you don't understand/learn by "storing raw information". The Human brain is incapable of not understanding information. And even if there is nothing to understand in the data we try to memorize, we rather make something up to memorize it rather than forget it (what you have to do in order to use the memory palace on numbers, for example).

In many subjects, rote memorization is the only route to real understanding. I'd like to name medicine, biology, law and languages. Only be memorization, over weeks and years of relentless learning and just as much forgetting, the mental infrastructure of an expert is forged.

I can't cite it off hand, but there are even studies that compared understanding between students using a memory palace technique and those without. The former understood more.

I find it interesting to hear what kinds of information people find usable to memorize. If there are people here that utilize the memory palace (or any other memorizing method): what do you put inside the palace?

I use flashcards to memorize things. Sometimes I use mnemonics to memorize flashcards. I used memory palace once, to memorize something for a Romanian language exam back in highschool.

Things that I memorize now: Bible verses (I've memorized all of Galatians and I'm working through Ephesians right now), a couple of important phone numbers, credit card number (I don't want to save the details on every website), and some programming concepts that I use on a roughly monthly basis - frequently enough to save time by memorizing, infrequently enough so that I can't memorize them purely by using them.

> what do you put inside the palace?

That's the question. You have to want to collect something. I tend to collect random connections between disparate things (i.e. the answer to an everpresent "how does this affect the price of rice on Sunday?"). The other side of it that complicates it all is that your brain works this way normally. The mind palace is just a frame you can use to access a particular subgraph of thoughts. Once you do it long enough, it becomes second nature and you realize your normal, undisciplined thoughts are just residents of a different palace.

I'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 used to read a book, maybe take notes and hopefully take some new action. Next year it's gone, maybe I recall 3 ideas. How could I get more out of reading?

So I memorized books. Convert a book into 100-250 bullet points, memorize them in a memory palace. If I don't practice recalling my palaces, at least once every 6 months or so, I'll forget it. However, this isn't a negative. When recalling you can ask yourself questions about the knowledge. How is the relevant to my life right now? How can I apply this? How does the world look using this knowledge as a lens? How does this compare or contrast to other things I've memorized?

At first this was an enormous effort. But with all training it gets faster. We've all spent thousands of hours learning to read. Now reading is unconscious, you see a word and instantly you know the concept behind. My first book took about 4 hours and reviewing it took an hour. Now reviewing a book (250 items) takes under 15 mins, and I can do it while making dinner or driving. People can memorize a deck of cards (52 facts in order) in two minutes. Eventually, I believe it's clearly possible to be able to memorize at the speed of speech (250 words per min).

At the moment, I develop software. I decided to memorize the packages of the python standard library. Why? Is it going to help? It provides a link to attach concepts to. When I find a better solution than something in the standard library, I attach that memory to the standard library. Like when I think of argparse, I automaticaly think of clicklib and fire. Before coding I review the software development palace. I can hold it all in mind... because those packages have become one chunk in my mind.

With all this training, my ability to visualize has just gone through the roof. At the end of the day, I can mentally re-watch my whole day and catch interesting, things that I missed in the moment. It feels like watching a vivid (albeit dreamy) movie.

Anyways, like anything the deep end of this mind training is totally amazing and unlike the initial "lifehack" quick wins.