CUST104: Business Communications

Memory palaces

A MemoryPalace is a use of an imaginary journey through a sequence of places, or loci, each of which acts as a memory peg (PegSystem). Memory palaces are also known as the RomanRoom method, the LociSystem, the Ars Memorativa or Art of Memory, Journeys, and by many other names.

You can use a MemoryPalace to remember large amounts of material. Strictly speaking, it need not be a palace; it might be a theatre or temple, for example. As new material is added, a memory palace might extend into a palace compound or temple compound, or even a whole city.

Ancient Roman orators imagined their home populated with different items, real or imaginary, and each was linked to something they wanted to remember in one of their speeches. (By the way, the use of MemoryPalace``s in oratory is the origin of the expressions "in the first place", "in the second place", and so on.)

A memory palace doesn't have to be a real place, though it may start out as one. The advantage of imaginary places is that they can be systematic. GiordanoBruno and other historical practitioners of the Art of Memory built memory palaces around the Zodiac and other systems of imagery and ideas, many of them drawn from Renaissance occultism. They rivaled or even surpassed SemCubed in complexity; Bruno's basic memory system, described in his "De Umbris Idearum" ("On the Shadows of the Ideas"), used 150 "subjectae" (memory places) which could be modified by the addition of any of several sets of 150 "adjectae" (defining images) to yield an almost infinite number of memory places.

Dominic O'Brien, a world memory champion, uses hundreds, if not thousands, of locations in his MemoryPalace``s, which he calls Journeys. He doesn't just use locations; He uses short journeys through locations, that he mentally travels. Each location is a stage that he mentally enacts a scene which links to what he wants to remember.

Dominic uses the journeys to record sequence. Using sequences of loci is better than just linking one item to remember to the next item to remember (the LinkSystem), because a break in the chain doesn't mean you've lost the rest of the chain. You can also remember things out of order, by skipping to another locus, ignoring the rest of the journey.

Try it yourself

Consider a journey which is familar to yourself. A hypothetical journey might start in your bathroom, then on to the bedroom, the landing, the back bedroom, the guest room, the stairs, lounge, dining room, kitchen, back door, side passage, front garden, house opposite, etc. Choose a journey that matches the actual layout of your house. Imagine that you are walking along this journey and don't cross over your path or backtrack since this could cause you to either miss some locations in your journey or use the same ones twice.

At each location imagine yourself always looking at the scene from the same location and perspective. Practice mentally following your journeys and be able to visualise the smallest details in each location. Each time you practice this, you will "see" more and more details in each location. Don't forget the colours and textures. The more details you can see in each location the more mental hooks you can use to attach your facts (LinkQuickly).

Once you have your journeys you can use them for different purposes. Some journeys you can reserve for short term memory and others can be used for long term memory. Dominic O'Brien has many journeys which he uses and reuses for memory competitions where he needs to remember them for only an hour or so. He also has journeys to remember facts and figures, for example one is a journey around a stables which he uses to remember the winners, jockeys and trainers for all the Derby horse race winners, each stage of the journey represents a year.

Journeys used for short term memory will nevertheless retain some associations for several days. Once you have used such a journey you will need to 'rest' it for some time before using it again otherwise you will find that previous associations interfere with the new ones. Keep several journeys for competitions and short term use and rotate their use. Make your long term memory journeys appropriate for the subject, for example Dominic's use of a horse stable for the Derby winners. You may remember information about the British Royal Families could be in a journey starting at Buckingham Palace.