Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0335: Extending memory palaces

Episode Date: June 19, 2015

Dan asks about extending his home memory palace into his entire neighborhood. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 335. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Dan asked an interesting question in an email about extending memory palaces beyond themselves. Dan says, use that as a memory palace already. I'd like to go through my current house, across the road, use the old house, then continue around the neighborhood. For this to run smoothly though, I don't feel I can utilize the full memory palace for my old house as it starts upstairs with no

congruent method of arriving there. My question is, is it best to use current palaces only partially in this instance, for example, only the ground floor of this old house, or to use a portal somehow to transport myself magically to the start of the old house memory palace on the top floor? Would only using part of a current memory palace be more confusing than using a portal, or is the flow of the journey more important and keeps the sequence of the Loki in place? So Dan, here's the deal. I think that the whole thing about making sure that you don't cross your path and all of that, while it is important that you make sure that your path, that your journey in a linear memory palace is very clear, I think that it's

actually easier than so many people think. So in the first place, I would say just go ahead and use your whole memory palace. Go ahead and jump up to that second floor and start out at the top there. I really think that if you try it out, it's not going to be that hard. Now you can do either one. You can do magic portals so that you can maintain all of those rooms. And I mean, really the most important thing is that you just know exactly what you're doing and be consistent. Make the journey a few times until whatever you use, whether it's jumping up onto the house or the magical transportation between ports, seems natural in your imagination.

But since the essence of the question, since the motive behind the question is maximizing the use of these memory palaces, I would also strongly recommend the following two suggestions. First of all, I recommend adding more detail, breaking down your rooms into smaller and smaller stations so that you can really get the maximum out of these palaces and not just waste a whole room as a single station. You can get probably 10 to 100 stations out of almost any given room. Then second, adding more palaces based on places that you go now or that you've lived in in the past.

So there are probably some places where you have some pretty good memories, and the fact that you have memories there means that you can place more memories there as memory palaces. In other words, I suggest that you don't have to focus so much on using old palaces a whole lot, but rather on building new ones. Either way, it all starts by taking some sort of action, doing something, and then moving on from there based on the experience. Memory palaces are a lot easier than people think they are. And speaking of taking action, how many times do I have to beg you to leave me a review in iTunes? These reviews multiply how many people can listen to the show,

and I really want to empower as many people as possible and keep this show alive and going for free. So if you've ever told a friend about this show, I'm flattered because if you think it's worth that, then that means a lot to me. But if you could have a chance easily in a minute or two to put it in front of hundreds of more people, I think that that's a no-brainer. So leave your review in iTunes and I'll talk to

you again soon.