Loki's memory palace method. Memory Palace: a technique for memorizing words. How the “memory palace” technique came about

It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep numbers, formulas, facts and other data in your head. The reason for this is both the Internet, which is teeming with an abundance of various information that overloads our brain, and dependence on modern gadgets, leading to weakening of memory.

But it is still possible to master the amazing ability of memorization, even in the age of developed information technology. You can do this using palace of memory.

This is a kind of mnemonic technique that was known back in ancient times. It is also called the Cicero method, the Roman room, the patch method, or the mind palace. It allows you to remember a huge amount of information in a certain sequence and trains your memory.

The site will tell you what this technique is and how to use it.

Memory Palace - a repository of a huge amount of information

The patch method is, at its core, a “mental walk.” Its essence lies in the fact that a person develops memory through visualization. How it works?

Myself palace of memory- this is a certain space located in the imagination. This can be either a real or a fictional object. There are certain locations inside it.

When you need to remember something, a person takes a “walk” through the object and remembers them in the sequence in which they are located, and then associates the word that needs to be remembered with a specific location. And when he needs to remember him, he can simply walk again through his memory palace and go to certain places.

Building a memory palace: preparation and general principles of creation

At first glance, building such a palace may seem like a difficult undertaking. But in reality everything is very simple.

First you need to prepare a space for memorization. To do this, close your eyes and choose a space that is familiar to you, from which you want to make a memory palace. This could be the kitchen, your workplace, bedroom or living room.

1. Select static objects: painting, sofa, mirror, clock, aquarium and so on. The more such objects, the better.

2. Visualize your chosen space. Move from one selected object to another. Learn their location so that you can mentally move between them.

The room allocated for the Roman room must be calm. You must present it as clearly as possible.

3. Take a good look at each highlighted object and remember its outline. It is not at all necessary to remember every detail, be it a stain, a magnet on the refrigerator or a tassel on a curtain.

4. Create a route along which you will mentally move around your Roman room. It shouldn't be too complicated. Move from object to object from right to left or vice versa. The memory palace is ready for further use.

How to use the memory palace correctly

When your palace is already built, you can start using it. Remember the loci, that is, the objects that you identified in your Roman room.

Next, for each word that you need to remember, you select an area in your “apartment” of memory and think through the association with it. This area is called the strong point. To understand what we are talking about, let's give an example.

Let's say you need to buy everything you need at the supermarket for the upcoming holiday.

Let these be the following words:

Chicken breast;
. salmon fillets;
. cucumbers;
. bananas;
. tangerines;
. postcard;
. gift to a loved one.

Now move along the route and leave 1-2 words at each locus. So, let the first object be a bookshelf. Imagine that there is a postcard between the books.

Next comes the table lamp. Imagine a chicken breast hanging from it with a salmon fillet caught on it. Next is a huge flowerpot on which bananas supposedly grow.

The more unusual the association and the brighter the emotions it evokes in you, the better. After all, remembering something extraordinary is much easier than remembering something simple and ordinary.

When you approach the chandelier, imagine that cucumbers are hanging from it. Look at the battery and mentally place the tangerines there. And when you sit on the sofa, you will see a gift under the pillow.

But what about abstract concepts? After all, they cannot be imagined. In this case, use abstract thinking. Let's say love is a heart, and winter is a scarf and mittens.

When you remember all the necessary words, mentally walk along the route, and you will probably see them on the loci.

As you can see, remembering a huge amount of information and developing your memory is very simple if you apply palace of memory. This technique has been known since ancient times. And indeed, it works. The main thing here is to remember well the space you have chosen and the strongholds.

In order to get started, it is not at all necessary to take complex words and concepts. First, practice on something simple and ordinary. Exercise regularly, or at least mentally walk around the palace. The result will not keep you waiting long. You can easily memorize not only words, but also numbers, texts, speeches for speeches and even entire textbooks.

You may be interested in: Loya memory test.

Who among us, while studying at school or university, did not dream of remembering and processing information at the speed of a computer, or even better? We are unlikely to see the days of Johnny Mnemonic, but in order to not only store huge amounts of information in your head, but also skillfully get exactly what you need, it is not at all necessary to build a computer device into your head. Although I personally know several people who would be delighted with such an idea ;)

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You may have already read the articles about memory training “Memory training: Cambridge test”, “” and “”. If they interested you, then I am sure that the method of quickly and effectively learning foreign words will be no less interesting to you. Those who like to save time will immediately remember about mobile translators. But you won’t look at your dictionary when declaring your love to a girl, for example, in French? And even if you use technology anyway, you will still need to learn it!

So, let's begin. I will try to introduce you to the technique briefly. Because to achieve truly high efficiency, you still have to read the entire book. The material is taken from the book “How to Develop Absolute Memory” by Dominic O’Brien.

In order to quickly memorize foreign words, you do not have to monotonously cram and pore over the dictionary for a long time. Moreover, the likely outcome of such cramming is simply passing the standard and further complete “evaporation” of what you have learned from your head. That is, the information, of course, will remain in your brain (from there, unlike our memory, nothing disappears), but it will be quite difficult to get it again.

To ensure that your time and efforts are not wasted, try to memorize words by building associations, connections and unique “memory palaces”.

Step 1. Imagine a city you know well. Draw a detailed map of it in your head - park, stadium, store, restaurant, etc.

Step 2. Use your imagination and association - this will help the foreign word itself to suggest the key image to you.

Step 3. Place your key image in a place that logically corresponds to the meaning of the word in your native language.

Step 4. When you combine your keyword and anchor location, imagine some colorful image that ties them together.

Next, you can allocate places in your city for verbs (stadium, sports complex, etc.), adjectives (park), nouns, etc., and also select an area in the city for words masculine, feminine, and, if necessary , neuter. And, of course, come up with a combination that is as bright and unusual as possible. The more unrealistic and exaggerated the picture is, the more likely you are to remember it much better.

It will be difficult to give an example from the book, because it was written by a person whose native language is English. It is quite difficult for us to find similar words in the Russian (Ukrainian) language with, for example, Italian. But if you have a fairly developed imagination, then this will not be difficult for you.

The Italian word "correre" (to run) is pronounced roughly like "correre". Several associations may arise with this word at once. So, the one that first appeared in your head will be the main one. My key image is “quarry”. That is, I can imagine some kind of quarry where, for example, coal is mined. Since “correre” means to run, I can imagine a person running through a quarry. And the quarry may be located, for example, in a huge stadium.

This is the simplest example. Ideally, you should come up with links for your words that can then be linked into a single whole. Let the words lead through your city and spread to different areas.

Of course, when you read this for the first time, you may think that this method is absurd. Believe me, even I, while typing this post, found a word and a link on the go in literally 5 minutes. It may not be so correct and perfect (after all, it’s the first time), but this method is quite real. The author of the book warns that you may not succeed the first time and, perhaps, the first steps will take quite a lot of time and effort. But our memory is our wealth. By developing our brain, we extend our life, filling it with colors and sounds until the very end.

In the book “After Three It’s Too Late,” Japanese professor Massaru Ibuka argues that until a certain time, a child absorbs information around him. He does not teach, does not cram, he simply studies, understands and realizes. Then, growing up, a person loses this gift and he has to make efforts - to teach and cram. Others, proving this with their own example, argue that the weakening of memory and attention occurs not because we grow old (except for medical reasons), but because we relax and stop training our brain and memory. Yes, you have to train, study and constantly improve (we are already more than three years old), but you will be rewarded for your efforts. Especially at an advanced age. Especially now, when we have completely entrusted the memorization of lists, meeting schedules and phone numbers to our digital comrades.

By training our memory and brain, we do not waste time - we lead ourselves to a full life!

Most people notice that they quickly forget the information they receive. This situation is not hopeless, you can develop your memory, but for this you need to work hard. One of the developing techniques - the “memory palace” - appeared about 2,500 years ago. She is still popular today.

How did the “memory palace” technique come about?

Today this mnemonic technique has many supporters; it is believed that Ancient Greece became its place of origin. Some sources attribute the authorship of the technique to Cicero, but there is also a more exotic story in which Solomon Shereshevsky subconsciously used this method. He was a poet and read poetry at the festival, and after his departure the vault of the building collapsed, leaving many victims underneath. Even their relatives could not identify them.

At this time, the full picture of the holiday before everything that happened began to be restored in Solomon’s mind, he remembered everything down to the smallest detail and was able to point out to his relatives the dead loved ones. When Solomon analyzed how the whole picture appeared in his memory, he was able to describe the first mnemonic technique. In fact, it may have been successfully used by other people even earlier, but there is no information about it.

What is the technique in practice?

Ricci was able to learn Chinese in 10 years and was well versed in different dialects. He had a reputation as a learned and wise man. In addition to the fact that he had an excellent education, he was well versed in the principles of mnemonics. He also taught the Chinese. He built a “memory palace” depending on the amount of material that needed to be mastered and remembered. When the information was particularly complex, he built a building that could consist of other rooms of different heights and sizes, but they were connected to each other by logical connections.

If we consider that all these structures were built in the imagination, but were used in real life, then one can only guess about his level of perfection and skill in mnemonics. In his practice, Ricci allowed the use of not only palaces, but also gazebos, public buildings and even temples, if the associations with them were vivid.

Thanks to his abilities, Matteo Ricci was able to pass the exam and receive a high government position in China - before that, no European had been able to do this. The exam included works of Chinese poetry and classics. Only 1% of people passed this exam.

He taught images and concepts to be placed in palaces, and the Chinese successfully used this technique.

Work of J. Spence

Jonathan Spence, a Yale historian, has published several works and monographs, including “Palace of Memory of Matteo Ricci.” The book describes the complex mnemonics that Matteo used. And those with the help of which he built his “memory palace”. This book is only available in the original and has not been translated into Russian. It describes the basic principle of operation.

You need to imagine that you are entering a large house and seeing a room in which there are bookshelves and tables. Every surface in the room needs to be marked with its own memories until all the spaces are filled. Now you can move to another room, recall current memories, go back the same way again and activate the ideas you left behind.

How realistic is it to master the “memory palace” technique?

In their primitive form, people use mnemonic techniques in real life without even realizing it. When they go to the room for something, and when they arrive, they don’t remember what they wanted, then they go back and restore the picture, remembering what they needed. It works, but the memory palace technique is not for everyone. A person with creative potential and developed imagination can successfully master these mechanisms.

If there are problems with imagination, then you can use simple mnemonic systems that help develop memory. They are enough to successfully and systematically work on yourself.

A memory palace is a way to remember information. Do you want to learn to speak a foreign language fluently as quickly as possible? Most likely - yes, but for this you need to do a lot of work and first of all you will need to remember a lot - several thousand - new words and phrases. There are ancient proven ways to remember large amounts of information.

You can read about one of these methods - mnemonics - in the previous article -.

And in this article we will talk about one of the specific types of mnemonics, which is called the Memory Palace or the location method. Hundreds of words and phrases can be memorized quickly using this method.

According to legend, this name appeared even before our era, when one day the Greek poet Simonides of Keos was invited to a banquet in the palace, where he was supposed to give a speech. Someone called him from the palace, and at that time the roof of the building collapsed and everyone who remained there died.

Because the poet used a special technique to remember the names of those invited and the places where they sat, he could identify the bodies of the dead and help grief-stricken relatives bury the bodies correctly. This is where the name of the memory development method comes from - Memory Palace.

What is the Memory Palace?

These are figurative structures in your imagination, which are based on placement in real space. If you can see your bedroom in your mind, then you can build a Memory Palace.

There are objects in the Memory Palace - these are rooms (kitchen, living room, bedroom, corridor, etc.), as well as objects that are permanently located in these rooms and in certain places. We will lay out a route through the premises in such a way as to sequentially bypass all these objects. We will then place words and phrases on these objects and pick them up as we imagine our journey through the Palace.

You don't have to be a visual learner to use this method. The main thing is to simply imagine where your kitchen is in relation to the bedroom, and what objects come along the way.

4 simple steps to create a Memory Palace.

1. Choose a well-known room: an apartment, a school classroom, grandma’s house, a church, an auditorium. office - anything, as long as you can draw a plan for this room.

Example of a two-room apartment plan:

2. Draw a route according to your plan. The route must have a beginning - an entry point, which will also be an exit point, it must be consistent, must not intersect itself and must not lead you to a dead end. If you select objects randomly rather than sequentially, such a route itself requires memorization.

Draw (first on a piece of paper, and then in your imagination) this route of movement. Let's say you always move clockwise, and you view objects that are on the same vertical line from top to bottom. Try not to overload your first path through the palace with details.

Travel route:

3. Number the objects that you encounter along the route.

4. Run through these objects in your imagination in forward and reverse order, mentally stop at each of them.

If you need to add more words, you can remember more rooms, you can look at objects in more detail - the near edge, the far edge, and you can also use routes that you often walk or drive, for example, this is the way home from work. Objects along the route can be: a store, a stadium, a theater, a bench, a tree, a sandbox, a lamppost - it is recommended to select no more than 50 objects.

How to use Memory Palace?

Now we must learn what to do with the words and phrases in our palace. Here the work is divided into three parts:

1) Let's carefully study the composition of the memorized word or phrase - analyze the spelling, sound and meaning.
2) We encode the sound and meaning of a new word, using visual images and actions on them so that they become memorized.
3) We decode images and actions so that the word being studied moves into long-term memory.

Principles of information encoding: it is better to imagine objects as grotesque, large, colorful, detailed, three-dimensional, and actions on them as intense. Exaggeration will not hurt here.

The more crazy the association, the better and faster it is remembered. You can go even further and make the Memory Palace even more effective by using a certain person who travels with you through your Palace and helps you perform mental actions on the words you remember.

Examples of word coding.

Several irregular verbs are discussed here - a difficult topic, they are irregular, they are not built according to the rules, and besides, here you need to remember three forms of each verb at once: the infinitive, the simple past form and the past participle. Well, for example, here’s a funny picture:

The more practice, the better and faster you will get. It is imperative that you come up with associations yourself, based on the connections already existing in your mind.

Practical tips for building a Memory Palace for learning foreign words

- Relax. Memory techniques work better when you are mentally and physically stress-free.
— Arrange your list of words in alphabetical order. Write down the words, their meanings and the invented association on paper, or better yet, in an Excel spreadsheet.
— Don’t worry if you can’t immediately create an associative image for a word or sound or the meaning of a word on your list. You can come back to this later.
- Use the words you remember in conversations, come up with and write down ten sentences for each of them.

The Power of Memory Palace for Language Learners

The Memory Palace is a powerful tool for learning a foreign language. You can use it along with other methods to learn and speak a foreign language faster and more efficiently.

Building a Memory Palace only takes a few hours, and with some skill, this learning method will help you quickly increase your vocabulary.

Repeat the words and phrases stored in your memory palace often. You may forget them, but don't worry: this happens in our native language too.

If we relax, the words and images that were created in the Memory Palace will return to us when we need them. So go ahead, build your memory palace and start using it to increase your vocabulary and phrases. Happy memorizing!

More information, training videos and examples can be obtained from Anthony Mathivier on his website:

Many fans of the famous detective know: both in everyday life and to solve crimes, he loved to use the memory palace technique. What is it, what is its advantage and can you learn it yourself?

How it works?

The Memory Palace is also called the photographic method of memorizing information, as well as the Palace of the Mind. This is a method that allows you to easily notice and retain in memory a large amount of a wide variety of information, without making much effort.

Human memory consists of cells for information. During the normal educational process, the cells become overfilled, after which we realize that we can no longer memorize and analyze adequately. Fatigue sets in and you want to rest. The mnemonic method allows you to arrange information into memory cells in small portions, connecting them with imaginary logical threads in such a way that the cells do not become oversaturated. This is a very good method if your main activity involves remembering and analyzing many different little things. In the process of perceiving information, the thinker must imagine and logically link a piece of information to a specific place in his imaginary space.

You present all the available facts with your own eyes, as if they were lying in front of you all together on the table - this is convenient. And so that the information is not forgotten or lost, you should periodically visit your palace-room, or even better - step by step, slowly expanding your boundaries.

How to build a Memory Palace

To create the Palace, several types of memory are used: tactile, visual, auditory and emotional. If these areas of the brain work harmoniously, and you do not complain about an overly constrained imagination, then you have every chance of learning how to use this technique.

First of all, the Palace is a space that is comfortable and understandable to you. You can start with one imaginary room, laying out all the important information in it. You can then expand the space by adding other rooms.

To make you want to visit your palaces of the mind more often, come up with a space - a room, a palace - of your dreams. You can simply imagine a place where you enjoy being - a library, a room, a house in your grandmother’s village, etc. The second option is well suited for those who are just starting to master the memorization technique.

Then imagination and so-called strong points come into play. In an imaginary place, associations should be attached to certain objects that should be associated with sensations. For example, you need to remember the company of people and their preferences. Let's say we chose a one-room apartment for memorization. Now the objects in the room should be assigned the habits of people. Let's say Rita loves sausages, then Rita will be a bowl. Misha is a writer, Misha is a laptop on the table. Olya is a lawyer, which means she is a scale on the bookshelf. With such associations, the necessary information will not only easily fit into your head, but will also be remembered for a long time.

Exercises to develop photographic memory

Ask a friend to select and arrange several different objects on the table. Take some time to memorize them. Then turn away and try to make an accurate list on paper. You should devote a minimum of time to everything.

To complicate the task, ask a friend, while you are not looking, to swap objects, remove some object, and put an unfamiliar one in its place. If it becomes easy for you to complete a task, add items!

Your hometown will also help you practice this method. Create a route that is non-standard for yourself: imagine in detail and as quickly as possible which places you will pass through, connecting two points - the beginning and the end of the path.

You can use the method shown in the video:

Train your brain regularly, gradually increase the load. Train yourself to look at the world with different eyes, noticing little things that no one else seems to pay attention to. A neighbor on the third floor removed a flower from the window, a neighbor walks her dog little but often, a colleague got new glasses, and so on.

Try to choose the most striking, perhaps absurd, association - the more unusual, the better it is remembered.

Before memorizing large quantities of valuable data, practice on something less important first.

If you don't succeed the first time, try again! The brain is the same muscle, only it works in a special way. Treat these workouts with the same patience as you would in your favorite sports section.