Memory Improvement Podcast - The Magnetic Memory Method Podcast

If you want to know how to think faster, there’s an important distinction to make first.

I’m not talking about somehow forcing your brain to process information at a higher speed.

I’m talking about something much more practical:

Reducing the amount of time you spend searching your memory for information you already know.

Think about how often you’ve experienced scenarios like these:

In situations like these, faster thinking has a lot to do with faster, better-organized recall.

I’ve experienced this relationship between memory and thinking from several angles.

Before becoming known worldwide as a memory expert and accelerated learning instructor, I spent years teaching critical thinking and Film Studies at the university level.

I also had to defend a doctoral dissertation, lecture in multiple languages and respond to unexpected questions from students.

Over the years, one lesson has become increasingly clear to me:

The easier it is to access what you’ve learned, the easier it is to work with that knowledge in real time.

Memory techniques like the Memory Palace can help because they give information structure.

Other tools, such as Memory Wheels, can help you rapidly explore different ideas and perspectives.

And even simple retrieval techniques can sometimes help when a name, fact or idea feels stuck on the tip of your tongue.

To that end, here’s what we’ll cover today:

Ready?

Let’s dive in.

Thinking requires material, often of a complex nature. Especially when:

This is why I don’t think of memory as a passive storage system.

Memory gives thinking something to work with.

Imagine two people have both read the same ten books on a subject.

One can recall only a vague impression of what the books said.

The other can readily bring key arguments, examples, terminology and quotations to mind.

Both technically read the same information.

But only one has much of it available for use.

That difference can make the second person appear to “think faster.”

In reality, they may simply be spending less time searching for useful information.

This is one reason I spend so much time encouraging people to actively train their memory rather than merely consuming more information.

One of the best ways I know to make information more readily available is to organize it before you need it.

I call this preloading.

Suppose you have an important presentation coming up.

You could read your notes several times and hope the sequence sticks.

Or you could deliberately encode the main points into a Memory Palace.

If you haven’t used one before, a Memory Palace involves choosing a familiar location and mentally placing information along a predetermined series of locations.

Instead of remembering an abstract list of points, you create a structured retrieval path.

For example, you might use:

Of course, a well-developed Memory Palace uses more detailed associations than this simple example.

But the important principle is straightforward:

You decide in advance where the information is going to be encoded.

Then, instead of desperately asking yourself, “What was I supposed to say next?” you have a route to follow.

This approach can be useful for much more than speeches.

You can preload:

The objective isn’t to eliminate thought.

It’s to reduce unnecessary searching so you have more attention available for whatever is happening in front of you.

If you’ve never built a Memory Palace before, I have a free course that walks you through the process step by step.

You’ll learn how to create your first Memory Palace, encode information using memorable associations and practice recalling what you’ve stored.

If you’ve never built a Memory Palace before, I have a free course that walks you through the process step by step.

You’ll learn how to create your first Memory Palace, encode information using memorable associations and practice recalling what you’ve stored.

Get the free Memory Palace training here.

Then come back to this article, because once you understand the basic technique, the examples that follow will make a lot more sense.

Then come back to this article, because once you understand the basic technique, the examples that follow will make a lot more sense.

One of my clearest examples happened during my TEDx Talk.

I had memorized the presentation using the techniques I teach in my guide on how to memorize a speech.

The talk was not loosely memorized.

I knew it extremely well.

Then something happened that every speaker eventually encounters:

The audience didn’t react the way I expected.

A joke that had worked during rehearsal landed with almost no response.

Later, they laughed at something I hadn’t intended to be particularly funny.

You can see what I mean by watching the video of the TEDx here:

At that point, I had a choice.

I could cling to the performance I had imagined beforehand.

Or I could pay attention to the actual audience.

Because I wasn’t staring at notes or struggling to remember what came next, I could look at people and respond to what was happening in the room and make an unscripted joke.

Then, when that moment was finished, I simply returned to the next location in my Memory Palace and continued with the presentation.

The audience experienced the adjustment as spontaneity.

But the spontaneity was possible largely because so much had been prepared in advance.

When recall requires less attention, you have more attention available for adaptation.

You don’t have to choose between preparation and spontaneity.

Thorough preparation can help make spontaneity possible.

Of course, even trained memory sometimes fails.

One of the most common experiences of not being able to think quickly is this:

You know the information, but you can’t access it in the moment.

A person’s name is somewhere in your memory.

So is the title of a book.

Or the point you wanted to make.

But the harder you search for it, the further away it seems to move.

When this happens to me, I have a couple of simple retrieval strategies.

When I suddenly can’t recall a name, fact or word, I sometimes mentally scan through the alphabet from A to Z.

I’m not claiming that this works every time.

It doesn’t.

But it works often enough that I continue using it. For example, the other day I was thinking about Alexander the Great and my mind blipped on the name Diogenes. Using this technique, I quickly restored the philosopher’s name to mind when I reached the letter D.

The idea is simple.

Letters can function as retrieval cues.

When I hit the correct first letter, that cue will sometimes help the rest of the name or word come back.

You’re probably familiar with similar experiences.

A few opening notes can bring an entire melody to mind.

The beginning of a quotation can make the rest suddenly accessible.

One detail about a place can cause an entire episode from your past to return.

Memory is highly associative, which is exactly why mnemonic techniques are so useful in the first place.

So the next time a word or name seems almost accessible, try the alphabet.

Don’t force it.

Just scan.

If scanning doesn’t help, I often do something even simpler:

I stop trying to remember.

Instead of continuing to mentally wrestle with the missing information, I move on.

Sometimes the answer returns later.

You’ve probably experienced this yourself when a forgotten name suddenly comes back in the shower, while walking or halfway through an unrelated conversation.

The practical lesson isn’t that you should depend on information magically reappearing.

It’s that forcing recall indefinitely isn’t always useful.

Give yourself a reasonable attempt.

Try a retrieval cue.

Then move forward.

And when the information does return, consider whether it’s worth deliberately memorizing so that you have a stronger retrieval path next time.

That’s the larger goal.

Recovery tactics can help when memory fails.

But good encoding and retrieval practice help reduce how often you’re forced to rely on recovery tactics at all.

Remembering individual facts is useful.

But thinking often requires something more complex:

You need to combine ideas.

That’s where one of my favorite advanced memory tools enters the picture.

I call it a Memory Wheel, and it draws inspiration from figures in the historical memory tradition such as Ramon Llull and Giordano Bruno.

The larger tradition involves what is sometimes called ars combinatoria — the art of combination.

Here’s a simple way to understand how I use the principle.

Imagine you assign a thinker, framework or subject to different letters of the alphabet.

For example:

Those are just examples drawn from the alphabet. If you’d like to see my using this structure out and about in public, here’s a YouTube short where I demonstrate the technique:

You could build a wheel around anything relevant to your interests or profession.

If someone asks me a complex philosophical question, I don’t necessarily need to wait passively for one brilliant answer to appear.

I can mentally move through thinkers I have studied and ask:

This is where memory training becomes much more interesting than simply remembering isolated facts.

You’re creating an organized inventory of knowledge you can search deliberately.

Instead of:

Quick, think of something intelligent.

you have:

Let’s inspect what I already know.

Those are very different mental situations and in this way, a Memory Wheel can give your thinking more flexibility and direction.

You don’t need a medieval or Renaissance memory system every time you have to make a decision.

Sometimes you just need a useful framework available.

One I have used for years is W.R.A.P., which I learned from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Decisive.

It stands for:

The framework itself isn’t a memory technique.

What interests me is what happens when you memorize the framework thoroughly enough that you don’t have to look it up.

Now it can appear when you need it.

Rather than vaguely thinking:

I should probably consider this problem more carefully…

you have four concrete prompts available.

Widen.

Reality-test.

Attain distance.

Prepare.

I’ve even placed frameworks like this on Memory Wheels so I can rotate through them.

You can do the same thing with other useful structures.

For example, the classic:

Or a speaking framework like PREP:

The point is:

A framework you cannot remember when you need it is much less useful than one you have deliberately made retrievable.

This is where memory techniques can support better thinking.

There is another obvious problem we have to deal with.

Fast retrieval isn’t particularly valuable if there’s nothing worth retreiving.

You need knowledge.

One reason knowledgeable people often seem quick is that they have more material available for comparison.

They know more:

Vocabulary is a good example.

If you encounter an unfamiliar word every few sentences, reading becomes slower because you repeatedly have to stop and work out what something means.

As your vocabulary grows, more language becomes immediately available.

The same principle applies within specialized fields. For example:

This is one reason I enjoy memorizing poetry.

Poetry gives me language I can recall, contemplate and connect with other ideas.

I also memorize philosophical material, Sanskrit, speeches and other texts that matter to me.

You don’t need to memorize what I memorize.

But if you want your mind to have useful material available, deliberately choose what goes into it.

Another reason I use Memory Palaces and Memory Wheels is that I don’t want everything I learn sitting in isolation.

I want ideas connecting with other ideas.

I’ve sometimes described this as the Rhizomatic Effect.

A rhizome spreads through interconnected roots.

Knowledge can develop in a similar way.

You learn one idea.

That idea reminds you of another.

The second idea reveals a connection with a book you read years ago.

That connection produces a new question.

Then the question gives you a reason to learn something else.

The richer your knowledge becomes, the more potential connections you have available.

Memory techniques help because you aren’t merely hoping these connections happen.

You can deliberately review information, move between structures and ask how one remembered idea relates to another.

A mature Memory Palace practice can become part of a much larger personal knowledge system.

This is one reason I don’t view the Memory Palace merely as a technique for remembering grocery lists or playing memory games.

The point is to make useful knowledge available for thinking, learning and creating.

If there’s one behavior I would encourage you to change after reading this article, it’s this:

Spend more time trying to retrieve what you’ve learned.

It’s very easy to confuse recognition with memory.

You reread a paragraph and think:

Yes, I know this.

But close the book and yourself if you can:

Those questions reveal whether the information is actually available to you.

One simple exercise is to stop after reading a section of a book and ask yourself what you remember before looking back.

Another is to explain what you learned aloud.

You can also deliberately encode especially important material in a Memory Palace and practice recalling it later.

The exact method matters less than one underlying principle:

Retrieval needs practice.

If you want information available during a conversation, exam or presentation, give yourself opportunities to retrieve it before the important moment arrives.

So, can memory techniques really help you think faster?

In the practical sense I’ve described here, yes.

But notice what I’m not promising.

I’m not suggesting you can perform a few mental exercises and suddenly upgrade the processing speed of your brain.

Instead, I’m suggesting something both simpler and more useful:

That gives thinking better material to work with.

My experience during presentations, teaching, studying, writing and conversation has shown me the value of this repeatedly.

Often, thinking faster starts with remembering better.

If you want to experience this for yourself, start with the Memory Palace technique with the help of this free course:

Choose something genuinely useful to you.

Encode it.

Practice recalling it.

Then put yourself in situations where you actually use what you’ve remembered.

That’s where memory stops being a party trick and becomes a tool for thinking.

The post How to Think Faster: Use Memory to Access What You Know appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

One of the most common pieces of advice in memory training is to make your mnemonic images vivid, bizarre, exaggerated, and emotionally striking.

For beginners, that advice is usually good.

If you are trying to remember something and you turn it into a giant, exploding, screaming, fluorescent image, you are probably going to remember it more easily than if you create a dull, abstract association.

But vividness by itself is not enough.

I have had plenty of mnemonic images fail even when I could clearly visualize them. In my experience, the problem usually comes down to one of three things:

As a result, recall was either not as strong as desired or failed completely.

When this happens, people often assume the solution is to make the image even crazier.

Sometimes that works. But usually? The real problem is somewhere else.

Before blaming your mnemonic image, I would first check the Memory Palace journey itself. Ask the following questions:

These question are crucial because if your underlying journey is shaky, even an excellent mnemonic image can become difficult to retrieve.

This is because each Memory Palace is a retrieval structure. Whenever you lack certainly with the structure, you risk failure. Even if you have encoded the information perfectly well.

In sum, before adding more explosions, strange animals, celebrities, or exaggerated actions, make sure the journey is stable.

The second problem I have encountered is creating mnemonic images without applying a consistent model.

I use a framework I call KAVE COGS.

It stands for:

To be clear, not every mnemonic must contain an elaborate example of all eight elements. The point is to stop treating “make it vivid” as a vague instruction.

KAVE COGS gives you a troubleshooting checklist. If an image is weak, you can examine it and ask what is missing.

Questions like these give you something concrete to work with, but without some kind of model, you risk making what you believe is a vivid image, but still create an association that is surprisingly thin.

They may see something clearly but not hear it, feel it, interact with it, or connect it strongly enough to the information they actually want to retrieve.

Of course, you do not have to use KAVE COGS.

You could invent your own association model and use it systematically. Andy system consistently applied will be better than simply telling yourself to “make the image memorable.”

A recent example for me was the legal term “usufruct.”

My image involved a U.S. flag in the hands of John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The association felt like it was going to work because there was plenty enough phonetic connection for me.

This is the auditory element of KAVE COGS and to be clear, here’s the breakdown:

Clearly this is not a perfect phonetic conversion. But it doesn’t need to be. My familiarity with John Frusciante should have done the work.

But because I stopped there, I wound up needing to go back.

Another reason vivid mnemonic images fail during the memory recall and retrieval process is that remembering the image is not the same as remembering what the image represents.

In other words, you cook up an extraordinary scene and remember it perfectly.

But when you return to it later, you ask: “What was that supposed to mean?”

The mnemonic image has become memorable in its own right, but it has failed as a retrieval cue.

That is why elaborating each association with the multi-sensory power of KAVE COGS matters just as much as the vividness.

Another failure point in my own practice has nothing to do with image quality.

Sometimes I simply get busy. As a result, I do not perform the first reviews soon enough.

Too much delay can ruin an otherwise strong mnemonic.

People on forums sometimes talk about memory techniques as though a sufficiently vivid image eliminates the need for reviews, but my experience does not support that.

Good encoding helps enormously, but only if the timing of your first attempts at retrieval are timed soon enough to reinforce the path between the location, the image, and the target information.

If too much time passes before I revisit something, I may discover that an image I thought was perfectly clear has already weakened.

Again, the wrong response would be to conclude automatically that the original image was insufficiently bizarre. The image may have been fine.

So I always consider if the real problem is how much time you left between your initial encoding and your first retrieval attempt. Your review schedule may have been the problem.

If someone told me, “I make vivid images, but they still don’t stick,” I would not immediately tell them to make the images more ridiculous.

I would troubleshoot the system in this order:

Once you’re gone through these steps, you can examine the components of your association. Ask questions like:

You’ll might discover that what seemed like a powerful mnemonic was relying almost entirely on one sensory channel.

Unfortunately, many people who would otherwise do quite well with mnemonics lose out because they focus on visual memory techniques only.

KAVE COGS works for me because it forces me to think beyond simple visualization.

But you may prefer another framework that doesn’t involve the V for Visual category at all.

By making your own repeatable model, you can stop wondering why your results vary.

The odd time you run into issues like I did with “usufruct,” you’ll know exactly whey and quickly be able to fix it. This is the key if you want to memorize things fast.

If you need more help, go through my free Memory Improvement Course:

It covers the crucial Memory Palace technique that you must get right for predictable success.

In sum, failure really isn’t failure at all.

When a mnemonic goes awry, it gives you something to diagnose.

This opportunity means that you do not need to conclude that your memory is weak, that Memory Palaces do not work, or that you simply are not “visual enough.”

Instead, do what we’ve discussed today and ask:

And most importantly: did you test the mnemonic by actually recalling from it?

Treat everything that happens in your memory practice as feedback, both the wins and the failures. Then make the necessary changes.

That is how Memory Palace books, courses and articles like this transform from a collection of tricks you collect into a skillset you can trust.

The post Why Do Vivid Mnemonic Images Sometimes Fail? appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

A Memory Palace is a mental recreation of a physical location (like your home) that helps you recall information with extraordinary accuracy.

It’s a technique used by learners, memory champions and was famously depicted in Sherlock.

Also known as the method of loci, the Memory Palace technique allows you to rapidly memorize names, words, numbers, physics equations, and even images, both concrete and abstract.

Some people even use the Memory Palace technique to help them remember step-based procedures, such as moves in chess.

How does the technique work?

You simply start by:

This simple process creates a “magnetic” link between the places you know and the target information you want to recall because the vibrant associations leap out at you.

To help you understand the technique quickly, I recorded this Memory Palace walkthrough and gave an example from my own memorization practice to provide a quick overview using an actual location:

Now that you’ve taken a tour of a real Memory Palace used for multiple learning goals, let’s review why this technique is so powerful. Then we’ll dig into the nuts and bolts of how to build your first Memory Palace properly.

Rest assured, the nuances matter to your success.

Personally, this technique saved me during my PhD.

During the dark Canadian winter of 2003, I found myself struggling. I was so overwhelmed, I nearly dropped out of my graduate program.

But thanks to learning to use Memory Palaces properly after a brief period of confusion created by reading books written by memory competitors, I passed multiple language exams, both my field exams and my dissertation defense.

I did so well that I not only graduated. I also won a Mercator Guest Professor award and wound up getting to teach Film Studies in Germany.

I’ve since taught the Memory Palace technique to thousands of people. From students memorizing scripture and speeches to professionals mastering vocabulary and entire books, it’s been a blessing to show others the way.

Not only that, but as I told journalist Rebecca Barry when she interviewed me for the New Zealand Herald’s Viva Magazine, the Memory Palace is far more engaging (and more effective) than rote memorization.

Sure, modern tools and “apps” can store information for you. But they can’t help you recall complex information when it counts. And using technology instead of your imagination can get quite boring.

That’s where the Memory Palace excels. It’s endlessly entertaining in addition to being incredibly effective.

So if you’ve ever blanked on an exam, forgotten a name, or wished your mind were sharper, you’re in the right place.

Let’s look deeper at how to apply this special learning technique to any topic you want to master.

As you’ve seen, the basic idea behind the Memory Palace is simple. You associate pieces of information with locations that you are very familiar with.

Let’s look at the process in greater detail along with a number of illustrations, examples and case studies based on my personal use and those of my students.

Many people base their first Memory Palace on their home.

But you can also build Memory Palaces based on:

It’s also possible to use parks, highways and other outdoor locations. This outdoor approach is sometimes called the journey method.

Generally, I advise that beginners start with buildings. I make this suggestion because the walls, hallways and other features of buildings give your mind a kind of scaffolding to hang onto. This is especially important for people new to using visual memory techniques.

You might not be used to imagining things, so giving yourself the solidity of an actual building you’re familiar with will reduce the cognitive load involved in using the technique.

You can also approach the Memory Palace in a non-visual way, as shared in this tutorial.

As you’ll discover by going through the steps, variety is the key.

For example, some of my Memory Palaces are based solely on interior locations. Others are exterior.

The Memory Palace I used for my TEDx Talk was built from both interior and exterior locations, all based on the fundamental steps you’re about to learn.

Try this simple exercise:

Close your eyes and picture a room in your home. Your bedroom or a living room like the one you see pictured below is a great place to start.

If you’re like most of us, you can probably picture your home with a decent amount of detail. You know where the furniture is found, what colors the walls are, and even where small objects are placed.

Congratulations! You’ve just started the first step of developing your very own Memory Palace. You can start assigning a journey through your first Memory Palace.

To give you a clearer idea of what such a mental journey looks like, here’s a picture of me in a Memory Palace I used to memorize some song lyrics. By following a linear path based on the location of the walls and furniture, it was easy to place associations that helped me recall the words of the song.

When just starting out with the Memory Palace technique, I suggest that you draw out a simple journey through the first location you choose by hand.

This simple step will help you quickly decide exactly how you will move through the Memory Palace in order to place associations. It will also reduce the cognitive load that you might experience if you’re new to using techniques like this.

Planning like this also draws upon Abraham Lincoln’s well-known wisdom:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

This is exactly what I’m suggesting you do: spend a few minutes planning out your Memory Palace in detail by sketching it out and you will save time later when you use it to encode information into your long-term memory.

Finally, drawing or sketching out your Memory Palaces will help you avoid “Memory Palace renovation” later.

So that you know what I’m talking about, here’s an example based on one of my many personal Memory Palaces (here are several more Memory Palaces examples if you like):

The kind of Memory Palace plan above takes most people only a minute or two to sketch out.

Please note that what I’m advising really is just a sketch. We’re not talking about creating art. Just a quick doodle for the purposes of reducing cognitive load and saving time. The logic here is simple. The quick sketch optimizes the setup process because you won’t have to fix things later if you realize that you’ve accidentally led yourself into a dead end.

Now, over the years, people have emailed and explained that for health reasons, they’re not able to draw Memory Palaces. If that’s the case for you, here’s a detailed tutorial with suggestions on how to build a well-formed Memory Palace if for any reason you can’t or don’t want to draw them out.

It’s easy to go overboard when designing a Memory Palace.

To avoid issues, I suggest that you use only the parts of the location that are clear to you. That means, it’s perfectly okay to leave out entire sections of a location. I do this myself often.

In other words, if you’re murky about how a basement looked in your family home from decades ago, leave that part of the building out of your Memory Palace. Less is more when using this technique.

To make things even simpler, set up a linear journey that leads from the first station in your Memory Palace to the final station without crossing your own path. Just as you wouldn’t confuse yourself while walking through a real location by circling around mindlessly, you want to follow a logical path in your mental version of the location as well.

Ideally, you’ll base the Memory Palace journey on actual paths you follow in your every day life. For example, my TEDx Memory Palace followed the exact walk I took almost daily for years in Kelvin Grove.

This part of the process is essential because the Memory Palace works best when the journey is grounded on a path that is already in your memory, traveled exactly as you would navigate it in reality.

When crafting my Memory Palaces during the setup phase, I like to number the stations for two reasons:

The final option is an intermediate/advanced memory skill. But there’s no reason you can’t prepare to be able to use it as a beginner starting now.

Here’s another example of a numbered Memory Palace I prepared for one of my long-form Sanskrit memorization goals:

Before putting information into your Memory Palace, navigate it a few times.

Exactly how many times is up to you, but I’d suggest at least five times so you’re really familiar with the your mental version of the location.

As a best practice, find a quiet area to practice. Close your eyes, get relaxed and bring the first station to mind.

Move in a deliberate way from station to station in the Memory Palace and make sure each station is clear to you.

It’s okay to refer back to your drawing while practicing. That’s yet another reason why I strongly recommend you go through the simple planning phase. The exact journey you decided upon will be there for you to refer to on paper if you need it.

As you’ve learned, the Memory Palace helps you associate information with specific areas within a familiar location. Laying out your associations is done using mnemonic images.

As you mentally walk through a location you’ve prepared, exactly how you place pieces of information and link them to associations simply involves using your imagination. Later, when you want to recall the information, you revisit your mental route, and the information will be easily accessible.

The technique is made more effective when you add surprising or out-of-the normal features to your associations.

For example, let’s assume you want to memorize this sequence of words:

To make the process concrete for you, have a look at this illustration:

There’s a hero on the first station of this Memory Palace.

But there’s a catch. The word “hero” is a bit vague.

And so is the image in this illustration.

In my imagination, it’s actually a specific hero (Superman) and he’s engaged in wiping his boots on the floor.

To increase your ability to memorize and retain any piece of information, your brain needs to make each association more interesting.

You can do that by making it distinctive or unusual, such as with my example of Superman wiping his boots on the floor.

Memory experts call this simple process of making associations for striking “elaboration” or elaborative encoding. To elaborate any association in your Memory Palace:

For example, you could imagine the hero in your Memory Palace banging his feet on the floor. Really exaggerate the image, so much that you can hear the banging and even smell the wood as the floor breaks apart.

There’s another way to make each association even stronger. This method also helps you remember more than one item at a time.

For a word like hero, you can add Hercules to the association you place in your Memory Palace. Because the sound of Hercules’ name and the word hero are similar, you can easily make the image sillier and more striking.

Let’s extend the example further for the next word on the list.

When you think of the next station in your Memory Palace, imagine that there is suddenly a drill next to the hero.

To increase the power of this mnemonic imagery, use the elaborate technique we just discussed. For example, you could imagine that the drill is turned on and you have to leap over it to avoid being hurt.

If you want to practice, memorize the example words for yourself.

Once you’re done with hero and drill, use your third station to imagine a spacecraft flying around inside your Memory Palace. You can elaborate the association by exaggerating the movement of the spacecraft, or have it do something silly, like leave a trail of glitter.

Here’s a summary of the main steps above with a few additional details:

In addition to using the Memory Palace journey to help you trigger associations to call back whatever you want to memorize, you can link your associations within the Memory Palace.

In other words, you can have the hero throw the drill at the spaceship.

As I share in my post explaining how I memorize names at events, I use the room we’re in as the Memory Palace. Then I use associations that “link” together to make it faster and easier to recall all the names.

These are just a few examples. The trick is to select what you want to memorize and then start to explore how the technique works by coming up with associations and laying them out in your imagination.

It’s okay to make mistakes as you learn the technique. Just get curious about what you could do better and review the basic instructions to see if you’re missing any of the key steps.

Once you have one Memory Palace, you’re ready to create more and even link one Memory Palace to another.

Here’s a tutorial showing how to do that, including some processes that will help you “teleport” or shift from one Memory Palace to another with ease:

As we’ve seen, the Memory Palace involves assigning stations in familiar locations.

Then, you take what you want to memorize and elaborate it by combining or pairing each piece of information with an association.

Over the years, many people have asked me questions like:

Here are some rapid fire answers to these common questions.

I have some Memory Palaces with hundreds of words. For example, as I discussed in my TEDx Talk, I’ve memorized dozens of Sanskrit phrases as part of my research into the connection between memorization and mindfulness.

Generally, I like to let the project itself decide how much information will go inside each Memory Palace. The key is to get started and develop your own “mnemonic style” with using this technique.

When it comes to “attaching” or “connecting” information to your stations, this is why I draw my Memory Palaces. The Memory Palace is always based on a location that is already in memory. The drawing helps me settle on the exact path I’ll follow. Then, I just have to stick with that path. In other words, the path itself is the connecting factor and the Memory Palace is like a piece of canvas I’m painting on.

To expand or extend any Memory Palace, you certainly can open up drawers or cupboards to place more associations and remember more. Renaissance mnemonists like Giordano Bruno and Robert Fludd talked about tactics like these.

In my personal experience, I have not found this approach particularly useful for most learning goals. Still, if you think it might be fun and useful to extend your Memory Palaces in this way, I encourage you to experiment with the strategy.

You might be wondering if it will help to choose a Memory Palace that relates to the content that you want to memorize.

For example, many people wonder if they will get better results by using a biology classroom for memorizing anatomy? Or would it be any easier to use a church as part of memorizing a prayer? Or would it help to memorize foreign language vocabulary related to cooking using a kitchen?

These are great questions and some research on context-dependent memory does show that you can expect a benefit by pursuing such an approach. I certainly found it helpful to use many of the buildings on York University campus while studying there as the source of my Memory Palaces.

By all means, make use of thematic connections. However, you want to be so good with using the technique itself that you can use any Memory Palace to commit any type of information to memory at any time.

Yes, and I do this quite a bit. It’s especially useful for committing information during conversations.

Because spontaneous Memory Palace generation is a slightly separate skills, I’ve created this tutorial on how to create Memory Palaces on the fly, such as in restaurants while dining. Or while walking through parks. In fact, you’ll see in this video tutorial how I spontaneously create a Memory Palace in a park to memorize the names of seasons in Chinese.

This is a great question because some people worry that the Memory Palace technique is only good for memorizing lists.

Fortunately, this objection is easily removed when you realize that everything you want to memorize follows time’s arrow. So it’s all list-like in the end.

With that point in mind, here are some advanced application tutorials:

This concern is so common, I created this detailed video tutorial on how to find countless Memory Palace options:

In addition to all the possible options for your Memory Palaces that I listed above, I’m confident you’ll find that you never run out of options for using this wonderful memory technique.

If you’re still struggling to find viable options, check out this list of additional Memory Palace ideas.

Another option is to learn how to make use of the same Memory Palaces several times over. Let’s discuss this strategy next.

A lot of people ask me about using the same Mind Palace a second or third time.

It is possible, but the precise process can be more than a little finicky. To explain what I mean, please check out this thorough video guide on the topic:

As you can see, not even the most skilled memory experts reuse Memory Palaces. If you set yourself up correctly, it’s not really necessary.

That said, doubling up does make for great brain exercise, and that’s usually the way I treat the practice. I also found the experiment interesting in relation to my own experience with aphantasia.

But what this question has taught me the most over the years is that many students of memory improvement put the cart before the horse. They worry about advanced skills before they’ve mastered the fundamentals – advanced skills that the pros have already determined might be great, but aren’t really worth using.

I recommend that you use at least a dozen, if not two dozen Memory Palaces to get the hang of how they work before worrying about reusing them. Following that principle helped me succeed when I innovated a way to reuse them with greater ease. What follow is a case study to show you what I mean.

Have a look at this Memory Palace example based on a neighborhood called Kelvin Grove in Brisbane, Australia:

I’ve used it three times for memorizing:

Frankly, I did manage to pull this off successfully and am very happy with the results. But if I were to do it again, I would not use the same Memory Palace over and over again. Certainly not for something important as a TEDx Talk.

Although the following issue hasn’t happened to me, some people have issues with moving the furniture around in the rooms they base their Memory Palaces on.

In most cases, this shouldn’t be an issue once you have the fundamentals of this memory technique mastered. To do that, please make sure that you devote yourself to the loci method thoroughly and completely. It will serve you well for the rest of your life.

But another option is to simply not use furniture at all. If you look at the Kelvin Grove Memory Palace example above, you can see that most of it involves streets. In the few rooms that I did use, my loci were mostly the walls and corners.

I think of street corners and the architectural foundations of Memory Palaces as “Eternal Stations.” They’re very unlikely to change in the future. Using them makes this mnemonic method much more stable over the long term.

Some people assume that this technique requires a vivid visual imagination. This is not correct and not the experience of my students or memory champion friends. That said, you can’t blame people for confusing iconic memory with the fantasy of photographic memory.

When done correctly using all of the Magnetic Modes, you can memorize a very large amount of information relatively quickly without necessarily seeing the Memory Palace in your mind.

Here’s an infographic to teach you all about the different ways that your brain perceives information in a multi-sensory way:

Keeping the full range of the Magnetic Modes in mind, you can use any home or location with which you are familiar.

You can even use small areas, such as the inside of a broom closet. You can even use your own body, attaching information to different limbs.

Just keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to see the Memory Palace. You can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it and even just think about it. I’ve even gone through some of my Memory Palaces and touched the walls I’ll be using to help make them more substantial in my imagination. This simple action has helped me a lot over the years.

For example, when I was asked to memorize some Shakespeare in real time on the Guru Viking Podcast, I used a Memory Palace I have interacted with physically many times. This level of mental processing helped make the memory demonstration successful. In fact, I recalled the lines I was asked to memorize from Julius Caesar perfectly.

If shifting from a visual to a multi-sensory Memory Palace seems odd, let me add a few more details. They will help you understand how seriously well this technique works when you add more levels of sensory elaboration.

The Memory Palace works by combining spatial memory with associative encoding, giving you familiar locations that can serve as reliable retrieval cues.

Many studies have been conducted, and this lecture with memory expert Stephen Kosslyn is great for more information about locations can help assist memory:

Cool, right?

The answer is a resounding “yes!”

And it gets even better. In 2020, researchers Dr. David Reser and Tyson Yunkaporta conducted a study at Monash University with medical students. Using an Aboriginal variation of the Memory Palace technique, they found that students trained in location-based mnemonic techniques improved their recall compared with their untrained performance.

Many people have asked me over the years to suggest alternatives to the Memory Palace technique.

Of course, you can just use raw mnemonics to create associations and not locate them with reference to a building.

The problem with doing that, however, is that you remove a strong link that will help you think back to the target information.

That said, certain practitioners of the technique, especially in the Renaissance discussed using geometrical shapes as Memory Palaces.

Here’s a full video tutorial on these approaches:

One thing to observe when using geometrical shapes, is that a triangle is reflected in the letter A. Circles show up in the letters B and C, etc., suggesting that you can turn the alphabet itself into a kind of Memory Palace. In other words, all information is inherently spatial.

In my experience with exploring and experimenting with these alternative approaches to the Memory Palace technique, they help strengthen your understanding of traditional Memory Palaces.

But when it comes to using the technique to passing exams or learning languages, I do not play around with abstract Memory Palace. I stick with the fundamental approach that has served our ancestors for thousands of years. I recommend that you do the same.

Over the years, some people have written to me that memory athletes and mnemonists must be smarter than other people.

I don’t believe memory competitors are smarter or have bigger brains than the rest of us. It’s that they they practice deliberately and practice the right things. That is the “open secret” behind their impressive abilities. And because people who practice for a long time learn more about the techniques they’re using, that explains why they become really good (Maguire et al 2002).

This simple observation suggests that anyone with average abilities can use this technique to improve his/her memory. And scientists have shown that it’s well worth taking up the Memory Palace technique as a lifetime practice, especially when you consider the benefits mentioned in this memory training research with the elderly.

And once you know the drill, it’s really just a matter of spending some time with a few solid Memory Palace training exercises. Like the four I’ve shared in this video tutorial:

Personally, one of my favorite ways to practice the Memory Palace technique is to memorize playing cards, specifically for performing card magic. Whereas I used to practice the Mnemonica Stack, I’ve recently memorized the Redford Stack and am having a ton of fun with that.

It only takes me 2 minutes and 30 seconds to memorize a deck. And with a little practice based on how memory actually works, I’ll bet you can go even faster.

Ready to get started mastering the Memory Palace technique so you can enjoy learning more based on the spatial and multi-sensory nature of your mind?

Let’s do this thing!

Bower, G. H., “Analysis of a Mnemonic Device: Modern psychology uncovers the powerful components of an ancient system for improving memory” American Scientist, Vol. 58, No. 5, pp. 496-510, September–October 1970 Web. 21 Jan. 2016..

Engvig, Andreas, Anders M. Fjell, Lars T. Westlye, Torgeir Moberget, Øyvind Sundseth, Vivi Agnete Larsen, and Kristine B. Walhovd. “Effects of Memory Training on Cortical Thickness in the Elderly.” NeuroImage 52.4 (2010): 1667-676. 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Fan, Shelley. “Can a Mnemonic Slow Memory Loss with Age?” Scientific American Blog Network. 20 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Maguire, Eleanor A., Elizabeth R. Valentine, John M. Wilding, and Narinder Kapur. “Routes to Remembering: The Brains behind Superior Memory.” Nature Neuroscience Nat Neurosci 6.1 (2002): 90-95. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

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You can readily expand your mind by improving your ability to encode new information, retain it and retrieve it quickly.

That means you don’t have to unlock some supposedly unused region of your brain. You just need to practice paying attention to information, absorbing it in deeper ways and practicing remembering it intentionally.

I’ve been doing this for years as a memory expert who regularly takes on hard learning projects. Sometimes easier ones too.

As a result, I have increased my mental skills and pushed the limits beyond how much I thought my brain could learn.

For example, in addition to starting my own business, I’ve expanded into other areas beyond writing books, blogging and running a YouTube channel.

But I had to engage in the activities I’m about to share with you on this page.

Go through them all and you’ll almost certainly enjoy the benefits of an expanded brain. For example, you’ll likely be able to:

The best part?

You never have to be so open-minded that your brains fall out. 

After all, there are a lot of sharks out there teaching woo-woo “techniques” directed at the gullible. 

But you can learn how to expand your mind based on scientifically valid processes that work quickly. 

Let’s dive in, after defining our terms.

Although the answer here is partially subjective, there are four common capabilities that lead to being able to think more broadly.

And that means being able to enjoy your mental life while also solving problems faster, more completely and with presence to the present moment.

When you can do these things, you’ll automatically enjoy better memory, which is why mental expansion and memory must go together. You really can’t improve any of the other elements of your mind without exercising your memory.

With that in mind, here are the four categories:

A simple exercise you can complete right now is to get out a piece of paper and list all of the ways you’re already engaging in these four categories.

Make no mistake: ongoing self-assessment almost always yields more insight. Come back to these four categories frequently to track how you’re doing.

The following practices are presented in no particular order of importance.

Usually they can be mixed and matched for maximum impact, such as juggling while reciting the alphabet backwards.

I’ll show you a video where I’m doing just that further down the page. But let’s start with the first mind-expanding technique first.

It’s the best.

If you’re not familiar with this incredible mental tool, a Memory Palace works like this:

You select a location such as your home. Then you identify a journey you can easily navigate.

I suggest you make a quick sketch of the layout. Nothing artistic. Just a plan like this one, based on my elementary school:

Like Hansel and Gretel, you then just place “crumbs” of association along this journey that help you remember information.

For example, one of the most mentally expanding projects I’ve completed involved memorizing over 2000 words in hundreds of Sanskrit phrases.

Each phrase, or small cluster of words is woven together with a simple mental association and placed like a crumb along the journey.

Once you have this simple tool under your belt, you can use it to extend your knowledge of many topics and skills.

For example, you can use Memory Palaces for a variety of expansive learning exercises:

For more on this technique, check out my Complete Memory Palace Guide.

A lot of people visualize, but they make a weird mistake:

They limit visualization to seeing mental pictures. 

This habit prevents them from expanding their minds effectively.

Instead, make sure you touch on at least eight of the major multisensory modes. We call them the “Magnetic Modes” in our community.

Start using them and pick one of the activities on this page and practice visualizing yourself doing it right now.

For example, imagine yourself reading a book and using a Memory Palace to leave some of its ideas along a journey based on the Hansel and Gretel metaphor I shared above.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of hogwash out there about so-called “speed reading.”

Yet, you can learn how to read faster. 

The trick is in selecting books worth reading – books that will actually expand your mind. 

To do this, I suggest you create a vision statement. What is it that you want to accomplish or experience in life? 

Next, do some research and identify 1-3 key texts on that topic. 

For example, when I wanted to learn about consciousness, I quickly came across a book called Gödel Escher Bach.

To find more related books, I simply looked at the list of works cited and picked a couple. This process quickly led me to reading both Spinoza and Hume. 

Of course, you’ll find that not every lead proves worth the time in the end. But learning how to separate the wheat from the chaff cannot take place if you don’t encounter a few bad apples along the way. 

In other words, bad books also expand your awareness of what doesn’t work too. It’s win-win no matter how you look at it from this perspective. 

You want to add what scientists call active recall to the ways you engage with books. Rather than passively read and put the book aside, ask questions about what you’re reading as you’re reading.

Then later test yourself on the content. Journal about it by summarizing key points in your own writing.

This will not only lodge the material deeper into your memory, but also help you forge more contextual connections with other books you read over time.

If you really want to use more of your brain, learning just one other language won’t do. 

Of course, there are challenges when it comes to learning more than one language at a time. But with strategy these are readily overcome.

The benefits of learning another language are huge because even just a small amount of multilingual study will:

You’ll also meet many more people you can chat with, and some of them will be the “next level” thinkers we discussed above. 

Keeping a journal has been proven to improve memory and expand your experience of time. (See Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds for the research data.)

You can journal in a number of ways at the same time, including: 

The more you practice different styles of journaling, the more you’ll find the space in your mind expanding. 

For a simple journaling exercise you can practice right now, get out a piece of paper.

Write down five impressions you’ve had from going through this article today.

Then, without peeking into your journal, use active recall to test how many of the ideas you can recall the following day.

Hang on, you might be thinking.

Juggling? 

Well, yes. It expands your mind for quite a few reasons. 

Research shows that it:

To get all the research in one highly readable account, check out The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture by neurologist Frank R. Wilson.

To take your juggling to the next level, include other skills, such as reciting from memory. I share how I learned to do this here:

To get started, get yourself some suitable balls and make it simple. Add one level of complexity at a time.

When you’re ready to supplement juggling with memorized material, I suggest you start with a song you already know. 

Then increase the challenge by reciting new content you’ve only recently memorized. You can also juggle while completing many of these powerful brain exercises.

Practice at least four times a week for best results.

If you want to know how to use more of your brain, you really can just let it rub off on you.

We know that people learn by modeling others, so one of the easiest and fastest activities for stimulating mental expansion is simply to be around great thinkers. 

Now, do you really have to be in the same room? 

Yes and no. Obviously, listening to podcasts and watching videos of great debates can play a role. 

But I’m pretty confident you’ll pick up more thinking skills when you’re together with people who regularly use more of their minds. 

Options include: 

If you really can’t find people offline, seek out online discussion groups and forums where people demonstrate their expertise. 

It can take some time to find the right mix, but it’s worth the search. The search itself should expand your mind too.

Just keep this principle in mind:

If you’re the smartest person in the room, it’s probably the wrong room.

Meditation is all the rage these days, and for good reason.

Few mental activities have produced as much scientific evidence of the benefits you can experience than meditation. 

I suggest you start simply:

If you do any serious amount of reading, you’ll wind up covering a fair amount of philosophy. 

But to enjoy an expanded mind, reading is not enough.

You have to do philosophy. 

There are a few ways to do this.

For one thing, Gilles Deleuze thought that doing philosophy at its highest level revolves around the creation of new concepts. 

Now, “new” doesn’t necessarily mean “unique” or “original.” So if you want to do philosophy, you don’t have to stress out about this particular term. There’s also the power of exploring concepts that are “new to you.”

For example, I often come up with my own pet phrases for concepts that have certainly existed before. But because I craft them by interacting with them, they take on a special emphasis. 

Nir Eyal presents research from science on how and why this kind of interaction helps people focus and gain traction in life. Ramon Llull, Nietzsche and many other people have promoted this form of self-invention throughout history too.

Ars combinatoria is a big topic, but here are the broad strokes:

Basically, you create a Memory Wheel. On this wheel, you place individual letters. These letters represent larger concepts. 

For example, if you want to remember how to act in certain situations, you would place letters on your Memory Wheel to remember those actions.

Instead of arguing, for example, you might choose to:

S: Say nothing

T: Take a deep breath

O: Open the dialog with a new question after suggesting a quick

P: Pause

Now, you might be thinking…

Hang on! Learning acronyms sounds like limiting the mind, not expanding it.

I understand the objection, but in this case, nothing could be further from the truth. 

Sometimes by limiting ourselves to pre-memorized options, we wind up increasing our options. Then we’re able to learn more and enjoy the benefits of objective reasoning as a result.

It’s a big topic and there are more ways to use this technique for expanding your mind. Learn more about ars combinatoria today.

We’ve already talked about juggling. But there’s also:

You might laugh at knitting, but one of my best friends is an avid knitter. He’s really brilliant and very successful and attributes some of his ability to concentrate and remember conversations to his knitting habit. 

I’ve certainly noticed he pays more attention when we speak even though he’s clacking away at a new sweater or scarf.

It can take a while to understand the idea of asking yourself questions. It certainly took me a while. 

But it’s very powerful and can help you experience consciousness in a whole new way. 

Basically, the tradition is very old and appears in everything from Advaita Vedanta and Zen to hermeticism and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I believe it has stood the test of time because it is an incredibly powerful cognitive activity.

My favorite questions are:

There are many more self-inquiry questions you can learn. The core idea behind using them to increase your mental capacities is that they offer a “pattern interrupt.” Instead of being constantly lost in thought, you manage to experience the consciousness that your thoughts arise in.

These questions do something else too, and it’s the reason I keep coming back to them.

They catch your dismissals before you act on them.

Most of us walk around with a running list of things we’ve already decided aren’t worth our time. The trouble is that we rarely notice we’ve decided. The judgment just sits there feeling like a fact about the world rather than a position we’re holding.

So the next time you catch yourself writing something off, try running it through a few questions:

Often you’ll run questions like these and find your original assessment was correct. But you’ll be holding it as an assessment rather than a wall, and that’s a meaningful difference.

I go into this practice in more depth in this TEDx Talk:

The more places you see, the more references you’ll have to locations, people and experiences. 

This is true at multiple levels of travel:

No matter what’s going on, you can always take a walk to a part of the area you live in to expand your mental model of the world. 

Next time you’re meditating, try this simple exercise:

As you recite the alphabet from A-Z, think of people you know and embrace them with love in your heart. 

For example: 

Within just a few moments, you will have created positive emotions for multiple people.

Here’s another exercise:

The next time someone annoys you at the grocery store or when you’re backed up in traffic, catch yourself. Hold the person who has irritated you in your heart and forgive them. 

You’ll have more space in your mind for better quality thoughts this way.

For awhile, klezmer was not exactly the kind of music I liked. 

However, to improve the quality of my mind, I took it upon myself to dive deep into several genres of music I normally avoided. 

I’m still not a huge fan, but as with embracing those we don’t like in our environment, spending some time with material you normally dismiss gives you more perspective.

Now, sometimes exploring a dislike gives you nothing more than perspective. And that’s fine. Expanded perspective is what we’re after and it’s very worthy of our time.

But sometimes plundering dislikes hands you something much larger.

Remember the Sanskrit memorization project earlier? I very nearly never did it.

For years I dismissed meditative mantras as religious woo-woo. I had the judgment filed away and I wasn’t examining it. It was just something I knew.

When I finally relaxed that judgment enough to look properly, the practice opened onto much more robust levels of meditation than I’d been capable of before.

With this growth came a degree of mental clarity and focus I hadn’t previously experienced. For the full story, I wrote about how it all unfolded in The Victorious Mind.

Here’s a key point:

Judgment blocks your growth because it rules out taking a second look.

And so this is where self-inquiry earns its place.

Before you act on a dislike, run it through at least a few of the questions I’ve shared.

Although some of your dislikes will survive the questioning, you’ll often find that you give more things in life a second try, if not a third.

There are many more activities you’ll come up with along your personal journey of mental improvement. And I hope you’ll share your updates along the way.

To make sure that these strategies become habitual, schedule the activities in a calendar and show up. 

Plan to explore each for at least 90 days at a rate of at least four times per week. If you can get more sessions in, all the better. 

This approach works because your brain forms neuronal connections through repetition. And if you want even more help, grab my free memory improvement course here:

So what do you say? Are you ready to expand your brain’s capacity?

Dive in and keep us posted on your progress. I’ll be right there with you!

The post How To Expand Your Mind: 15 Methods From 20 Years Of Memory Training appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

You don’t have a bad memory.

I know that statement can be hard to swallow if experience has taught you otherwise.

The real problem is that your memory was never trained. And that’s because no one was ever required to teach you how to train it.

This fact doesn’t get you off the hook in terms of responsibility for fixing the problem.

But it’s one of the most freeing realizations I can share with you when it comes to learning and memory.

And it’s an answer I share often when I answer one of the most common questions I receive here at the Magnetic Memory Method Headquarters:

“Why aren’t memory techniques taught in schools?”

Now, as I’m updating this article in 2026, the question lands with a new feeling of urgency.

As AI continues to fill our minds with a mixture of hope and concern, more people than ever before are starting to feel the cost of an untrained memory in ways they never did before.

I’ve never seen so many pictures of physical books shared on social media, for example.

And when people talk about the “school system,” often the answers they give reeks of conspiracy. They conjure up images of entire nations keeping children ignorant so they’ll grow into obedient workers for the state.

As I’ve reported in my post on rote learning, it might be the case that brute force repetition harms critical thinking.

And what on earth is more repetitive than the Internet itself?

But when it comes to why mnemonics aren’t taught in schools, the truth is simple.

And as usual, the truth is far more useful than conspiratorial thinking.

First, a fact most people miss: some memory techniques are taught in schools.

The alphabet song is a memory technique, for example.

And an acrostic like “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” is a memory technique from the world of music mnemonics. We hand children simple mnemonic devices for math, astronomy (like memorizing the planets) and biology all the time.

But the powerful techniques like the Memory Palace, the Major System, and 00-99 PAO System?

These almost never make it into a classroom. If ever.

Why?

Here’s the real answer:

No teacher is ever required to learn them.

Think about that sad reality for a moment.

To earn a teaching certificate, a candidate has to demonstrate all sorts of competencies.

But not one certification board on earth of which I’m aware asks prospective teachers to sit down and memorize 30 names in 3 minutes. Not one regulator asks future teachers to encode a chapter of information into a Memory Palace and recite it back.

As a result, teachers can’t model what they were never asked to master. You simply cannot pass on a skill no legislative body has ever required you to develop.

That’s it.

As far as I can tell, there’s no conspiracy to be found. Just a persistent gap in the requirements placed on teachers, one with enormous consequences.

But just imagine if that single requirement to be able to remember thirty names existed. Imagine what tremendous retention skills students would carry with them for the rest of their lives.

It’s one of the reasons I wrote the Memory Detective Jr. series I will be launching in the near future. It’s to put memory techniques directly into kids’ hands precisely because we don’t have a system prepared to make teachers train their memory.

At least not yet.

For now, we get major news media stories about elite colleges struggling to stamp out AI-assisted cheating.

Let me tell you about Adolfo and his son. That’s Adolfo pictured above.

He’s a veteran who went back to school as an adult. When he found his memory lacking, Adolfo signed up for the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass.

Soon, he was acing all of his exams.

Meanwhile, Adolfo’s son was struggling to get through high school. So badly that going to university looked unlikely. In fact, even finishing high school was under threat.

So Adolfo did something most parents don’t even know they can do to help their kids.

He bought a giant whiteboard, placed it on the dining room wall and sat down with his son to learn the full 00–99 PAO system.

And Adolfo did this despite the fact that it’s one of the most advanced techniques I teach. In fact, you have to learn the Major System first in order to properly use it.

Predictably, Adolfo’s son went on to ace high school. Then he earned a full scholarship to a good university in Florida. As I write this update in 2026, he’s working on his thesis.

Before his father sat down to teach his kid memory techniques? That boy was at serious risk.

You don’t need Adolfo’s level of dedication to change a child’s whole relationship with learning.

Mohammad Kolia taught the technique to his 9-year-old niece and nephew. As he shared in his testimonial after completing the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass, in just a few minutes, they’d successfully memorized the first 10 elements of the periodic table using this approach.

His niece, who didn’t even know what an element was when they started, recited them to her teacher the next day and earned a gold star. Now she wants to learn the whole table.

And that’s the point. Any adult who knows these techniques can hand them to a child and successfully guide them.

It doesn’t have to be a teacher working for a school. It can be a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a mentor.

And in a world where AI is quietly doing our remembering for us, being that adult who is capable of passing on these techniques may be one of the most important gifts you can give.

I don’t make this argument as someone who breezed through school.

Far from it. I once dropped out of high school. Although that experience helped me learn a lot about how to live an interesting life, I can’t say I recommend it.

At least not under the circumstances I went through.

Part of the reason why I dropped out was depression.

Part of it was in response to an English teacher who liked to give me a hard time about my grammar. He once told me, probably without a shred of honesty, that he’d give me fifty dollars and an A+ if I ever managed to publish anything.

After dropping out and going back to graduate in a different town, I actually did publish my first piece and went back to show it to him. Ironically, the magazine paid me exactly fifty dollars.

But the teacher was no longer there. He had since died.

Although I never got to see the look in his eyes when I handed him the publication or insist he correct my grade, here’s what I’ve come to understand:

Dropping out ultimately wasn’t the failure all my friends assumed it was. I spent that time reading what I actually wanted to read. I nourished a mind that school had left starving. And when I went back to finish, I was ready for the heavy memory work that would come later in graduate school.

A subset of my thinking as a generally AI-positive person is that the only way we can make ourselves bulletproof for the unknown future is to pursue the same options we’ve always had:

Go to the real place and do the real thing.

And be real about it.

For years, I have shared the harder parts of my story openly, especially in my book The Victorious Mind.

Just this morning, I was on a call with a long-time supporter of the Magnetic Memory Method and he shared how he had lost his son. He talked about how much my willingness to talk about the dark stretches in my own life meant to him.

Make no mistake. Writing The Victorious Mind was not easy. But it’s precisely because authenticity helps us all improve that I decided to share my most raw experiences in that book.

And because memory training exercises like these have helped my state of mind so much, on top of learning, being open has been worth it.

So if you’re struggling right now, please don’t carry it alone. Reach out to someone you trust or a local support line. It matters. And so do you.

To bring this back to requiring teachers to learn and be able to use memory techniques, I think the problem we face is a lack of authenticity.

I make mistakes publicly all the time when accessing my memory. Of course, my success rate is more than sufficiently high, but many people don’t have the willingness to mess up.

Their egos rule the roost.

And if they engage with mnemonics at all, they stick with the simplistic “list of mnemonics” found on Wikipedia.

Most of them are useless. Worse than useless, frankly because acrostics and acronyms pile on overwhelm because they lack context and the associative power of well-formed mnemonic images.

They have no method, and are generally nothing like the techniques included in my free online mnemonics dictionary.

Ultimately, it’s to encourage people to put their egos aside and dive into the deep end of advanced mnemonics that the Magnetic Memory Method exists.

Not to hand you gimmicks, or some magic fix-all fantasy that improves your memory for all things forever and ever, amen. That’s not reality, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

Instead, my books and programs break the techniques down to the how, the why and the what. And I don’t stop until using memory techniques starts feeling fun.

Of course, serious memory training isn’t for everyone. Plenty of people just want formulas and shortcuts. If that’s what you’re after, I’m not your guy.

But if you want to actually master your memory and treat it as the precious asset that makes every other kind of learning possible, then you’re in the right place. And I’ve got your back.

It was never all that helpful to ask, “why don’t they teach these techniques in school?”

The real question is the one only you can answer:

Now that you know your memory was never broken, what are you going to do about it?

If taking action right now appeals to you, start here with my free memory improvement course:

And then help someone else improve their memory based on your own level of skill.

Soon, you’ll enjoy the benefits of knowing what really improves your memory, leading to the ability to think faster and improve your concentration.

So what do you say?

Do you share my philosophy about learning and memory?

It basically boils down to the old line about teaching people how to fish instead of doing the fishing for them.

Except in this case, it’s also about fishing, hunting, farming, gathering berries and filling your memory with many other skills too. The way only authentic effort to develop your mind can.

The post Why Schools Don’t Teach Memory Techniques (The Real Reason) appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

Hermann Ebbinghaus is remembered mostly for discovering the forgetting curve. Open any psychology textbook, any blog devoted to a flashcard app or any study-tips listicle, and you’ll find his name alongside a distinctive graph.

Memory expert Tony Buzan called it the most important graph in the world. That’s because its iconic line shows memory plummeting within hours of learning something new, then flattening out over days.

Countless discussions of how to reduce forgetting give you the same tidy recommendations. Usually they tell you to review your study materials at intervals, just at the point you’re starting to forget.

That way, many authors promise, you’ll beat the curve.

The problem, just one of many you’ll discover today, is this:

Ebbinghaus didn’t discover the forgetting curve. He discovered his forgetting curve.

He was one man, testing his own memory, on one kind of material, using one method.

And although the forgetting curve is indeed one of the most repeatable and reproducible principles in the history of scientific studies, reproducibility in laboratory settings does not mean you’ll stop forgetting by using the conventional recommendations.

Besides, here’s something almost no one else will tell you:

The deepest principles the Ebbinghaus experiments revealed were already written down more than two thousand years earlier by Aristotle.

You’ll find them in a short treatise that describes something remarkably close to using a Memory Palace in combination with the same kind of serial positioning Ebbinghaus described as a means for reducing forgetting.

So today I’m going to cover a few aspects of the forgetting curve all serious users of memory techniques need to know.

These are points I’ve been putting off writing about for a long time. However, a few emails and comments I’ve received over the past few years have convinced me that now is finally the time.

Especially since I’ve spent decades memorizing poetry, scripture, mantras, complex terms, the names of people from various backgrounds and vocabulary and phrases in multiple languages.

And I’ve done this all while teaching thousands of students to do the same. From where I sit as a practitioner, the forgetting curve is real, useful and badly misunderstood.

But treated correctly, it’s an invitation to success.

First, however, for the uninitiated, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about the definition of this term. That way, you’ll be able to discover your own curve and work on reducing its impact in your learning life.

In 1885, Ebbinghaus published Über das Gedächtnis (Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology). In this monumental work, he reported years of experiments he had run on a single subject: himself. He memorized lists of sinnlose Silben, the German term for nonsense syllables.

These were consonant-vowel-consonant combinations like ZOF and KEB. After committing lists of such invented words, he then tested how much effort it took to relearn them after various delays.

Notice two things. First, these were invented words. Nothing with any meaning.

Second, pay attention to the word relearn. Ebbinghaus did not measure memory only by asking whether he could reproduce an entire list perfectly. He also measured what he called “savings” in the context of relearning. This study goes quite deep into the nuances and implications of this particular concept for memory.

To get the concept in brief, suppose it initially took you 20 repetitions to learn something. If it took only 10 repetitions to relearn it later, some trace of the original learning clearly remained. Your inability to reproduce the information perfectly would not mean the memory had disappeared completely.

Keep this idea of “savings” in mind. It matters more than the famous graph, and we’ll return to it when I show you what happened to a long Sanskrit mantra I intentionally abandoned for years. It also connects to some concepts in memory introduced by Richard Semon and studied more recently by Dr. Paul Garrett in relation to the role of fuzzy memory.

Back to Ebbinghaus, the  result of his experiments is what we now call the forgetting curve. It shows how retention drops steeply at first, then the decline slows. He also documented what we now call the spacing effect. It describes how reviews distributed over time preserve more in long-term memory than the same number of reviews crammed together.

All of what Ebbinghaus found replicates, so his science is not in question here. What’s in question is what you and I should actually do with his findings.  And that’s where things really start to get interesting.

Notice what Ebbinghaus actually was:

A practitioner running experiments on his own memory. In today’s language, he was doing n=1 self-experimentation. He had skin in the game, memorized real material with his own mind, and measured what happened.

I took his actions as both a lesson and an inspiration.

It’s just that rather than memorize nonsense (apart from a bit of Kurt Schwitters’ “Ursonate”), I’ve focused on applying memory techniques to Chinese, scripture, poetry and facts related to law school.

But you will never see the results you can achieve by reading about Ebbinghaus. You’ll only see it by memorizing information yourself and paying attention to what happens next.

Tony Buzan was great about splitting the difference during his ThinkBuzan seminars. He taught memory techniques, but also had participants draw their own graph of the forgetting curve.

Here’s mine:

In sum, reading about the forgetting curve while never memorizing anything is like reading about swimming while refusing to get wet.

Years ago, Harry Lorayne coached me on becoming a successful memory coach.

I followed just about everything he said, except one thing. He said, “whatever you do, don’t tell ’em about the science.”

The reason I ignored the advice is that:

The only problem I’ve seen is that about a year ago, students of all ages started writing to me in the language of science at an increasing rate. And for many, the various terms and memory statistics available online have created anxiety and perfectionism I don’t think needs to exist.

For example, a medical student taking the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass recently emailed multiple times with worries about whether his review schedule was set to properly combat the “decay function.”

Now, obviously, the research on memory genuinely matters. I cite it often and terms like this can be useful for forming a solid practice with using mnemonics.

But Lorayne’s warning has started to take on a strange and unexpected sense because something strange happens when the vocabulary of science replaces practice. After all, science is mostly there to describe, not proscribe.

We can certainly use scientific findings to improve our practice, but it’s not helpful to let techniques that have been used happily for thousands of years become the source of anxiety thanks to scientific papers.

It’s not only beginners with memory techniques or medical students who would tend towards scientific verbiage when contacting me.

I regularly hear from people fluent in the terminology, sometimes with publications to their name.

A published researcher wrote me recently and had thoroughly reasoned himself into genuine paradox. Amongst other things, he wanted to know what a trained mnemonist’s memory does “without any technique.”

Now, you certainly can get a swimmer to demonstrate what a particular stroke looks like without the water.

And in the context of memory training, the question can sound rigorous.

But in my view, this kind of question suggests that the researcher has lost contact with the very thing he’s asking about. This is because someone with a trained memory can’t isolate a ‘raw baseline’ without risking cognitive paradox. I would have to reflect on my use of mnemonic methods while not using them.

And since he immediately followed-up with a pseudo-scientific claim about photographic memory, I knew he was not taking Ebbinghaus’ n=1 practice as an example by actually using the techniques himself. After all, photographic memory has been thoroughly debunked and I’ve demonstrated many times over that it not only does not exist. The term itself makes zero sense.

So this is where some nuance about the forgetting curve is very important to the serious user of memory techniques. No matter who you are, you need to make contact with actual remembering.

Actually studying and practicing a wide variety of memory techniques will get you insight far more interesting and impactful than any psychology textbook could hope to provide.

In De Memoria et Reminiscentia, Aristotle describes recollection as movement through an ordered series. At one point in the book, he uses a sequence like the letters of the alphabet and gives strikingly practical advice that deeply inspired what I call Recall Rehearsal. This is a form of spaced repetition applied specifically to the Memory Palace technique.

As Aristotle puts it, if you forget something, don’t start over from the beginning. Start from the middle of the series and move outward from there.

Richard Sorabji, in his landmark study Aristotle on Memory, admits that he doesn’t understand what Aristotle is talking about in this passage. That’s a courageous confession, as many scholars would just make something up or speculate.

As a practitioner of memory techniques with decades of experience, I can tell you what I believe Aristotle is describing. It’s either:

It’s genuinely difficult to say which. But either way, the principle and how it reduces unwanted forgetting is unmistakable to anyone who has actually run the technique.

In case you have never used a Memory Palace, it involves ordered locations, deliberate starting points, and strategic entry into the middle of a sequence as part of several spaced repetition patterns that establish substantial retention.

You can trace this practitioner lineage forward through Peter of Ravenna, Jacobus Publicius, Robert Fludd, Giordano Bruno, and in our own time, mnemonists like myself and Lynne Kelly (especially in her book, Memory Craft). Our combination of fieldwork and daily personal practice in particular sets the standard for studying these techniques.

Certainly Frances Yates deserves credit for reviving scholarly interest in mnemonics through her book, The Art of Memory, but she acknowledged never practicing the techniques herself.

Frankly, it shows. Her treatment of memory wheels, for example, creates the impression they were used as Memory Palaces, which is possible but unlikely. Practice changes what you can see in the Memory Palace books you read.

Why does the Aristotle passage matter for the forgetting curve? Because his advice that you should “start from the middle” of a sequence of information you keep forgetting is serial positioning in action. And serial positioning is the key to defeating the curve.

The reason I’ve never tried to reproduce Ebbinghaus’s experiment formally by memorizing nonsense is precisely because you see advice on how to beat the forgetting curve thousands of years before he conducted his research.

That said, I have watched my own forgetting curve operate over years, and the observations I’ve made are instructive.

For example, I worked daily with one long-form mantra built from a few dozen Sanskrit phrases for many years: the Song Celestial.

Then I deliberately let it lapse with no rehearsal at all for approximately two years. I was not as deliberate as I could have been in terms of tracking like Ebbinghaus would have. But since the research is so heavily reproducible and we know why Memory Palaces work, I was happy to be casual about it.

When I finally came back to this mantra, I was shocked by how much I could still recall. The forgetting curve had certainly caused some “decay.” But it was nothing like what Ebbinghaus’s graph would predict for material of that length after that much neglect. In Ebbinghaus’s own terms, the “savings” were enormous. And the relearning cost me a fraction of the original effort, because the trace was never gone. It was waiting for me.

The question is, why? After all, I can’t sing songs I used to know by heart when I was a kid?

Part of the answer is that I never stopped reciting the other three Sanskrit mantras I have memorized. They have very similar meanings, and in many cases, some of the same words.

The meaning element in particular suggests that I partly benefitted from stronger retention due to what scientists call context dependence. Because I never left the realm of reciting Sanskrit entirely, that must explain the higher rate of retention.

Compare this to my previous career as a Film Studies professor. I hardly watch movies anymore, let alone read theoretical books about them or lecture for weeks on end during a traditional university semester. The lack of context has accelerated the force of the forgetting curve and deskilled my chops as a film scholar.

Apart from context-dependent memory benefits, another reason I could recall so much of a mantra despite not reciting it for years has to do with how I memorized it: using the Memory Palace technique.

Not as a party trick, but as a structured spaced retrieval system. To learn more about how it works, check out my Complete Guide to the Memory Palace technique.

In brief, the key is to place information tethered to associations along the stations of a Memory Palace and then practice Recall Rehearsal following patterns no software like Anki can guide you through.

My favorite demonstration where I show you Recall Rehearsal in action involves Shakespeare, specifically a passage from Titus Andronicus I memorized for my case study of how Anthony Hopkins memorizes his scripts.

I’ve retained the passage ever since running it through Recall Rehearsal with minimal repetition.

Or better said, I repeat these lines often, but now it’s performance, not just recitation.

But the interesting thing isn’t really that I can recite this passage. Anyone can chain words together through brute force rote learning and recite lines like these forward.

The proof of the power of Recall Rehearsal is that I can recite the lines out of order:

It’s now probably my favorite demonstration because it makes the power of serial positioning visible.

Even better: I’m not alone in enjoying the benefits of improved retention.

I’ve watched this play out in my students for years, and two cases capture it especially well.

Jeannie Koh spent years learning Koine Greek using rote learning during years of what she said were filled with tears and pain.

But after learning to encode with Memory Palaces, she found memorizing “much less painful, and much more enduring over time,” now recalling whole passages in that ancient language with an ease she says feels almost suspicious. Same brain, same language, two encoding methods, two completely different forgetting curves. She’s a one-person controlled experiment.

For more success stories, including physicians who used these methods to retrieve high-volume, complex information under exam pressure months after encoding it, check out my testimonials page.

The pattern is always the same: the forgetting curve is not destiny.

So long as you’re using memory techniques optimally, you can resist it, if not beat it.

One problem I see time and again is that many people want the exact steps needed to measure their progress. Especially when they hear me discuss how rigorously I use journaling as part of my memory activities.

I’m sorry, but the demand for “exact steps” is mostly a desire installed by content marketing. The truth is that there isn’t one exact path. There are several and the real lesson in Ebbinghaus’ story is that you need to get involved in creating your own.

You can journal manually by simply memorizing real words or nonsense words. Note the dates, and test yourself over time. What matters is that you work inside projects that matter to you. Whether that’s language learning, poetry, mantras, scripture, use a memory journal to help you test what holds and what fades as you use memory techniques.

If you’re competitive, you can study how memory athletes use journaling to sharpen their game. My podcast conversation with Johannes Mallow, in which he explains how journaling improved his competitive standing, will be useful in that regard.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the years, it’s that people often take on learning projects connected to lives they do not actually want.

They study for a qualification because they believe they should, or to please a family member.

As a result, they struggle to memorize information for a job they already suspect will make them miserable. Then they interpret their resistance as a defective memory, when the deeper problem is in fact a conflict of purpose.

I’ve had to face this in my own law-school experiment.

I could not know in advance exactly what studying law would involve or how well the field would suit me.

The saving grace is that trying it has given me greater insight into what’s involved.

But now that I’ve seen some of the field from within, I have to ask a different question:

Just because I am a mnemonist who can memorize legal Latin quickly and an upcoming presentation I have to give does not mean I must continue pursuing every possible outcome associated with the degree. The ability to remember something does not prove that it deserves years of my life.

As I know from my studies in polymathy, memory mastery must include the development of careful selection parameters.

In other words, one of the best “meta level” ways to beat the forgetting curve is to decide whether the material deserves a place in your memory at all.

If you’d like help picking what to memorize on top of using the Memory Palace technique and Recall Rehearsal, my new training “The System” can help you pick a first project you actually care about.

Once you have a learning goal you love, keep a journal as you memorize.

Not to reproduce a nineteenth-century experiment, but to watch yourself break the forgetting curve, one piece of info at a time.

The post The Forgetting Curve: How Memory Techniques Help You Beat It (Without Endless Reviews) appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

If you want to know how to improve cognitive function, you probably already know the basics.

You need to eat well, get regular sleep, exercise consistently and maintain social connections.

That last point hits me hard because as someone who has taught memory improvement for fifteen years, I recently moved away from all my friends. And I’m definitely feeling the impact of that decision.

And we’re all facing the consequences of the decisions we make because everything influences the quality of our minds.

So if you’d like to know what I’m personally doing to maintain focus as I age while leading an unusually isolated life, today I’m sharing my research and experiences.

It’s a bit unique because I’m the author of multiple memory improvement books, an independent memory researcher and someone with a reputation to maintain in the field of mental performance.

And since we all need to preserve our reputations, how I’m tackling my own concentration, memory and focus challenges might help you along your own journey.

Let me share this proclamation loud and clear as we begin: Tackling challenges to my own concentration and focus is my passion.

And it has to be a passion and a mission because I intend to enjoy a very focused mind with strong recall abilities for as long as I possibly can.

Ready to explore some of the best, science-backed strategies that are helping me?

Let’s dive in!

“Cognitive function” is a term used in a variety of fields, from memory science to Jungian psychology.

For Carl Jung, cognition boiled down to how your mind processes and experiences emotional feeling, intuition, a variety of sensations and thought.

When it comes to memory in the realm of learning, cognitive function specifically refers to:

Most importantly, cognitive function governs how we use memory techniques to remember things, specifically information related to data like numbers and information related to our professional work and studies.

First things first: If you’re concerned about your memory, please see a doctor. Or, if you’re concerned for a loved one, assist them in doing so.

Generally, the reason most of us have issues is because we distract ourselves with multitasking.

Good recall begins with paying attention. But far too often we clutter our lives with social media, creating digital amnesia. This is a term that literally refers to Internet-induced forgetting.

The good news is that we can improve.

Like focusing on diet, exercise, sleep and socializing, paying attention is a behavior. This was a point made by memory expert David Berglas in A Question of Memory. He’s worth listening to because his memory stayed sharp up until a very old age indeed.

How do you turn paying attention into a behavior?

Start making an effort to remember names, for one thing. Yesterday at the bank I did just that, and the clerk delighted in covering up her name tag to test me several times.

You can also engage in activities like memorizing scripture. Or other forms of long-form verbatim memorization, like poetry.

For an inspiring outcome from one of my students who was recovering from cardiac arrest, check out the memory improvement case study and scripture demonstration provided by Matt Barclay.

There are a few more activities to consider that I’ll cover below, but let’s look at what happens to our brain cells next. It will provide more context to this mission-critical aspect of our mental lives and why maintaining memory is so valuable throughout life.

Judith Campisi was a pioneer in the field of cellular senescence. As one of her papers described this term, cellular senescence is “when bad things happen to good cells.”

It’s bad no matter where it happens in the body. But there are two ways it can affect memory:

If you find yourself dealing with cellular senescence, diet might help improve your cognition. This study found that adopting a ketogenic diet improved memory in aging mice.

Anecdotally, I’ve eaten either an entirely keto or near-keto diet for years. I have to regulary eat yogurt now, and that unfortunately causes some brain fog. But during the years I ate near-totally keto, I was sharper than I ever felt in my life.

We often think that things are just the way that they are. Our genes above all cannot be changed.

Assuming this is true now, will it always be the case that we have to just deal with the cards we’ve been dealt in the game of life?

Scientists are hard at work answering this question.

One interesting study on animals has shown promise with respect to potentially treating neurocognitive deficits with gene therapy. In this case, spatial memory was studied in particular, and treated animals were able to navigate mazes better.

In humans, how we use memory to navigate space is only starting to be understood. The science writer Christopher Kemp wrote a lovely book on the topic and shared his findings on this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast.

Although it’s not entirely clear that Kemp’s personal struggles with navigation are genetic in nature, Dark and Magical Places is well worth reading because some scientists have shown a substantial relationship between place cells and memory. I’d be surprised if gene therapies didn’t emerge in the future that improve both spatial and other types of memory, giving them greater longevity in our lives.

One of the hardest things for many of us to change is our environmental conditions. As I mentioned, I moved away from the city and did not anticipate just how out of touch this would put me with my friends.

I also did not anticipate that it would be such a challenge to make new ones. It’s critical that I take care of this soon, however. As this study shows, poor social connections are a strong predictor of cognitive decline.

Another study found that people with stronger social networks have a lower mortality risk. The catch is that “naturally occurring social” relations are at the core of the benefit. Corny “interventions” by community groups or the recent explosion of rent-a-friend and rental family services don’t show much promise.

Quite the opposite, as this Afar story details. If it’s true that people work ten-hour days only to carry on eating and relaxing with their co-workers, that sounds like a very challenging environment to live in.

And that’s not to mention the possibility that worries over climate issues are causing anxiety-induced memory loss. If you’re struggling to think clearly and remember, you might want to think about how this kind of environmental issue might be affecting you. Research into eco-anxiety is underway at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and likely to grow in importance as a field of therapy over the years to come.

Now that we’ve covered some of the key reasons mental sharpness slips throughout our lives, let’s look at activities that will help restore and improve your cognitive function.

Obviously, diet and nutrition for cognitive enhancement are assumed. And again, please consult a doctor for advice that directly addresses your personal situation.

Likewise with the following activities. If you have doubts, always run each past a qualified professional before engaging in them.

Even though I engage in them myself, critical thinking remains important and I always encourage you to seek at least one professional opinion before taking any action.

I’m a strong proponent of meditation for concentration as a key activity for improving attention and memory.

Not only does my book, The Victorious Mind cover much of the key research on the benefits of meditation. I wrote it because combining meditation with memory training helped me in a variety of ways.

The key is to understand that there are many forms of meditation to explore. Not just sitting or chanting mantras.

For example, benefits of mindfulness on your cognitive function will likely start to flow for you through:

Although studies like this one show that meditation can increase your working memory, there’s a catch. As these researchers recommend, meditation routines generally need to be systematized and conducted routinely.

I’ve certainly found that my own practices need to be consistent.

That’s why I optimize my environment to remind me of my meditation practice. I have my journal always in sight, the place I sit and the book of mantras I’m memorizing from.

I know it sounds cliche.

But the findings of the Rush Memory and Aging Project demonstrate that having a goal linked to purpose is associated with lower incidences of Alzheimer’s Disease and related issues.

Interestingly, the study also demonstrated that “purpose in life was also associated with a reduced risk of incident disability and risk of death.”

I was fortunate to spend time speaking with the memory experts Tony Buzan and Harry Lorayne. They both were incredibly sharp when I met them, despite being in their seventies and eighties respectively.

Why?

It was not just the fact that they both engaged in regular memory training.

In my view, their strong sense of purpose was a huge part of it. Tony had the World Memory Championship he helped found, along with his work in mind mapping and his polymathic personality.

For his part, Lorayne wrote and published books and performed card magic almost until the end.

I myself have made teaching as a mnemonist and understanding as much as I can about memory science my purpose. It’s not clear yet that I’ll last as long as they did or make a similar mark.

That doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as enjoying the benefits that doing my best in this field brings. So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to craft your own vision statement and work on your purpose. From there on in, it’s just a matter of consistent execution.

If you’d like some help with this piece of the puzzle, check out:

Another reason you might suffer cognitive decline stems from not taking on enough challenges that create mental stimulation.

Few activities offer more variety and challenge than learning a new language.

The problem is that many people cringe at the first sign of challenge. Yet, the challenge itself is what’s so helpful for restoring and maintaining cognitive function!

As part of my mission and purpose, I’ve created many tutorials on language learning that will help you. Many of these lessons are geared to reduce the challenges and speed up the process based on my personal experiences with applying memory techniques to language acquisition.

But that’s not to remove challenges altogether. In many ways, it’s more about keeping the challenges fun and eliminating the boredom of rote learning.

We’ve just covered three areas of activity to engage in over the long-term. They’re not quick fixes, but tactics and strategies to explore across a lifetime.

What about things you can do within a few minutes a day and get some benefit?

Well, as I talk about here, completely crossword puzzles likely isn’t one of them (though they can be fun). It also isn’t fiddling with online brain games (which have been shown not to work very well).

Instead, give these quick activities a try.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get caught up in thinking about what I’m going to say next instead of focusing my mind on my conversation partner’s exact words.

To combat this, years ago I started repeating what people were telling me in my mind.

Memory expert Jim Samuels teaches something similar in his book, Re-Mind Yourself. It’s a quick exercise that focuses your mind and leads to remembering more from conversations.

You can also practice this repetition game while listening to podcasts or watching movies. It’s powerful.

According to the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation, just twelve minutes a day with this ancient concentration technique helps improve your memory while reducing stress.

Dr. Gary Weber teaches it in this video:

I’ve practiced it for years and it really helps. Usually I combine it with my walking meditation sessions.

Although it takes a bit of setup, applying mnemonics to everyday learning tasks is easy.

You can use them to remember appointments, where you parked and your shopping list.

Every time you do, you’re getting in a bit of cognitive exercise.

Music has become ubiquitous in our society. You almost can’t go anywhere without hearing it.

But that doesn’t mean it has to be background noise.

Pay attention deeply to the rhythms you hear. Repeat the melody in your mind.

When I do this, I find that my irritation with music I don’t want to hear goes away.

Even better, it connects me more deeply with music itself. And studies like this have shown that music is linked to memory in a variety of ways, including episodic memory, semantic memory and explicit and implicit memory. Just by listening to music in a serious way, you’re giving your memory a huge workout.

On another level, I try daily to listen seriously to music I’ve never heard before. Luckily, there are bloggers and vloggers who share their most recent acquisitions. Within seconds, I have them playing on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Then, the steps are simple:

For an extra boost, read biographies about musicians. Go through their music in historical order. Read the assessments of professional critics about them during their era.

This simple act contextualizes the music and exercises your brain’s unique ability to make connections and expand with new learning.

If music isn’t your interest, you can do something similar by looking at and recalling art. Or even going to indoor or outdoor art galleries. I’ve got a whole tutorial on how to use art galleries as part of your lifelong memory improvement journey.

One simple exercise is to just think back to a painting or sculpture you’ve seen. In the feature image above, I’m standing under a sculpture in Brisbane, and I’ve combined it with the music exercise. I just asked what it reminded me of and thought instantly of the Canadian band Voivod, which I know from my reading has a relationship to Metallica.

Since the sculpture looks like a big M, I then turned it into a kind of virtual Memory Palace, a final type of mental exercise we’ll discuss briefly next.

As you’ve seen, there are simple ways to combat cognitive decline.

The trick is putting aside the time and being consistent about the activities. I’ve shared some of the strategies I’m using to keep my brain sharp, and you’re welcome to explore even more.

Keep in mind that consistency is helped by a variety of cognitive activities, not getting stuck in just one or two. There are also benefits to be had by rotating between several, especially those where learning is involved. This is shown by the principle scientists call interleaving.

But you know, my favorite tactic of all is to use my memory in a variety of ways. And for that, I like to have multiple Memory Palaces. These mnemonic tools are very old and really fun to use.

To learn more about how to incorporate them in your quest to improve your cognitive function, get my free memory improvement course:

It will give your brain a workout with four free videos and some worksheets you can complete.

If some of the steps you discover in that course present a challenge, now you know that this is a good thing.

Lean into it and enjoy the results that taking on challenges brings to the long-term sharpness of your mind.

The post Protecting My Cognitive Function: What 15 Years Teaching Memory Has Taught Me appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

What happens to your memory when artificial intelligence can imitate knowledge without actually understanding it?

How are truth, learning and creativity transformed?

In this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, I reconnect with Phil Chambers, World Mind Mapping Champion, memory expert, author, trainer and long-time collaborator of Tony Buzan.

Phil shares a candid personal update regarding his diagnosis with myotonic dystrophy, including the mental strength required to focus on what remains possible when life changes dramatically.

From there, we explore how mind mapping can help with big decisions, why color and branching support memory and creativity, and how chunking helps reduce the load on working memory.

But the conversation goes much deeper.

Phil and I discuss whether AI truly “knows” anything, and why invented citations and synthetic content create serious risks.

My favorite part of our discussion revolves around why memory may become more important in a world where digital records can be copied, distorted, hacked or hallucinated.

As Phil puts it, memory gives us something the online world cannot easily provide:

A safer internal space for knowledge.

We also talk about:

If you care about memory techniques, mind mapping, critical thinking, AI literacy, creativity, Tony Buzan, or the future of truth in an increasingly synthetic world, this conversation will give you a lot to think about.

Phil is one of the rare memory experts whose knowledge is truly multi-dimensional. He’s involved in memory competition, mind mapping comeptition, teaching, coaching and writing.

A member of MENSA, Phil has served as Chief Arbiter of the World Memory Sports Council and has helped oversee national and international memory competitions around the world. He is also the only person to receive the Brain Trust’s “Special Services to Memory” Award twice.

In his book, How to Train Your Memory, Phil shows how practical memory systems can help with the kinds of challenges people face every day: remembering names and faces, giving speeches without notes, learning foreign language vocabulary, memorizing numbers, passwords, formulae and other difficult information.

His work in mind mapping and speed reading, accelerated learning and long-term review systems is second to none. He will help you sustain what you learn instead of watching it fade away.

I can think of no one else who has spent so much time and traveled so many miles to help people turn a variety of memory techniques into powerful habits that improve multiple aspects of life.

Ready for another episode related to AI and memory?

Check out the views and experiences of AI expert and author Andrew Mayne, host of the Open AI Podcast. Amongst other things, Andrew’s a skilled user of memory techniques and great person to follow-up with on the themes of AI and memory.

The post The Unhackable Mind: Phil Chambers on AI, Truth, and Memory appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

Can you memorize entire books by using your concentration alone?

Some people claim such retention is possible, and often point to figures like Swami Vivekananda.

Frankly, I’m skeptical.

Not because Vivekananda wasn’t smart, influential and an author of interesting works.

No, I’m skeptical and concerned because such claims are unlikely to be true.

And not only has no solid evidence been presented, but when myths about people who aren’t here to be tested, stories about them tend to grow larger with each retelling.

Plus, there is so much value to be had from real techniques that actually work.

True, there’s a bit of effort involved in learning and using mnemonic devices properly. For some people, lots of effort.

But you can still get there with proper training, steps you might never find if you’re lost in mythology and chasing after outcomes that were never true.

That’s why I want to respond in depth to this question from a reader of this website and fan of the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass:

I like your MMM System, and I am learning and following it bit by bit.

But I have one doubt.

In India the Swami Vivekananda and other people read a book page by page without using any mnemonics techniques, and are still able to recall all of the concepts and vocabulary words.

Simply they say, and only by using concentration.

Which memory technique is this?

Is this better than mnemonics or journey system?

How do I develop this type of memory?

Thank you for your reply.

Quick answer:

Concentration certainly can assist memory when reading.

But reliable recall and verbatim memorization from books requires robust memory techniques for encoding and ample review.

I’ve done quite a bit of verbatim memorization and will share my process at the end of this post.

For now, let’s look deeper at the question of whether or not concentration will help with book memorization.

Assuming Vivekananda did this or anyone exists who has memorized any substantial amount of information through concentration alone, then I guess that’s the word you would use to describe this memory technique:

“Concentration.”

Guess what?

Concentration does work to help you form memories. It’s also a great way to connect new information to older information that you’ve already learned. But you have to concentrate on the right things, such as using a mnemonic linking method to connect the information in your mind.

As far as I’m aware, there’s only ever been one documented case of what people sometimes call “photo reading.” But it’s an episode from the history of memory science that should make us all skeptical. I cover it in my full breakdown of why photographic memory doesn’t exist.

Long story short, such claims involve people who are probably not being honest.

Let me ask you this:

Do you really think such extraordinary claims about people reading one page or more of a book and repeating it perfectly would stand up to scrutiny through scientific testing?

Even if something like flashbulb memory were involved while reading (which is unlikely), the claims of being able to recall entire books remain dubious.

Part of the argument about concentration assisting memory does make sense, however.

Merely concentrating on a book does indeed help me personally learn and remember the material from it. But how exactly this increase would lead to memorization of the exact content without some kind of elaborative encoding in the mix is a mystery to me.

Frankly, I’ve dealt with lack of concentration often in my life. I’m dealing with it now as I go through law school and apply memory techniques to help me get through it. I reported this new study project recently in my law memorization announcement.

In order to reliably memorize the tons of material I’m currently facing, I’m once again using the textbook memorization system that helped me so much while getting my PhD in Humanities at York University many years ago.

You can learn all about the process in this detailed video tutorial:

Here’s the full written version of the video above on How to Memorize a Textbook if you prefer reading.

Quite frankly, there are so many advantages to this textbook method that I would sooner have people who are serious about learning take a few extra steps rather than experimenting with the claims of dead Swamis and their fans.

In the case of Vivekananda, he was called a srutidhara. This is a Sanskrit term used to describe an eidetic person. This condition is sometimes confused with, but is absolutely not the same as photographic memory.

Not only that, but eidetic memory has to do with visual memory, not the semantic memory involved in words on pages.

According to my research, eidetic memory has only been scientifically demonstrated as valid for a couple of minutes. And as the original study by Ralph Haber discusses, it’s a kind of recall practically unheard of in adults.

If there is one interesting case, you’ll find it in the story of Solomon Shereshevsky. But even then, there’s evidence that the potent memory skills of this figure involved the use of mnemonics.

In any case, I suspect that many people can recite the gist of what they read on a page for a couple of minutes after placing a book aside.

It’s long-term retention that matters. And this means that even if you could work on developing an eidetic memory to visually recall a page, it’s unlikely to help with developing the strong memory skills that help you retain information for the long haul.

Of course, Vivekananda did not use either the term photographic memory or eidetic memory. A large part of how his memory was described comes from the diary of a disciple named Shri Sharat Chandra Chakravarty.

This disciple records the following statement from Vivekananda after being asked to explain how he quoted a variety of points from various texts:

Simply by the observance of strict Brahmacharya (continence) all learning can be mastered in a very short time.

Now, the fact that this quote comes from a diary doesn’t make it false.

But the text does not exactly say that Vivekananda recited anything verbatim. In fact, the diary recounts:

Disciple: Whatever you may say, sir, the manifestation of such superhuman power cannot be the result of mere Brahmacharya, something else there must be.

Swamiji did not say anything in reply.

Then Swamiji began to explain lucidly to the disciple the arguments and conclusions about the difficult points in all philosophies.

Notice that Vivekananda, referred to here as “Swamiji” declines to explain himself further, as if to let the disciple create an illusion in his own head.

As for recalling a few passages here and there, which is what the text says Vivekananda actually did, I regularly perform this skill myself and often cite the page numbers of various quotes during my live streams.

Do I use “continence” to do it?

Partly, yes, in the sense that brahmacharya means to control the senses and bring one’s conduct into accordance with basic ethics.

But I also use a PAO System to help me recall page numbers. It’s based on an ancient memory technique called the katapayadi, which Vivekananda almost certainly knew.

He also likely knew:

These techniques are similar to the Recall Rehearsal process I’ll talk about in a bit more detail below. They help install lots of information in long-term memory that can lead to extraordinary results.

Above all, it’s important to understand how other people exaggerate things.

But unlike Vivekananda, when one of my private coaching clients exclaimed that I had spoken in eight languages in just fifteen minutes, I corrected him immediately.

I said, “I may well have quoted various lines in a handful of languages, and probably drew from four or five. But let’s not mistake knowing various quotes in various languages for speaking those languages.”

In other words, I did not sit in silence to bask in his praise or allow myths to grow. I nipped the false impression in the bud. Probably due to one of my biggest influences when I was younger.

James Randi was a magician and professional skeptic who spent decades challenging people to demonstrate and validate their claims to have super powers of concentration.

He even offered a million-dollar prize if they could prove their claims true.

That’s a lot of coin, so it’s hard to believe that more people didn’t rush to get tested. Their absence says everything, don’t you think?

I’ve read that the Randi prize was eventually terminated following his death, but it’s still worth knowing about and considering for its decades-long promotion of critical thinking.

If we don’t promote critical thought ourselves, we risk having more and more gullible people roaming the earth.

And we wind up with people thinking that everything is about memory and not another very important ingredient.

Being able to recall what you read is not just about retention. Parrots can retain and repeat, after all.

The results most people want involve (and should involve) developing deep understandings of written material. And content in any medium, for that matter.

This point is important because you want to turn raw information into knowledge that leads to wisdom. This was a point made by Thomas Aquinas that still holds true.

But to weave data and information into wisdom is likely only possible if you stop chasing after useless fantasies and worrying about which memory method or style is better than the others.

The only method that ultimately matters is the one that:

But if concentration works on its own for some people without using any kind of mnemonic method, what can I say?

Rock and roll. Good for them and hurray.

Personally, I’ll stick with memory techniques that can be, have been and will continue to be tested by authentic memory champions and polymaths in the future.

With their level of skill in mind, let me give you a brief overview of how I suggest you go about tackling books.

The path I suggest you follow is simple.

You might also find my walkthrough on memorizing Sanskrit phrases useful.

Apart from the passages from Shakespeare I shared in my Anthony Hopkins case study, memorizing verbatim from ancient Sanskrit books comprise the longest passages I’ve committed to memory. I’ve worked up to over 2000 words.

If you’d like similar results, the best place to start is with a proper understanding of Memory Palace development.

That’s why I created this free memory improvement course:

It walks you through the process step-by-step with tutorial videos and worksheets.

That way, you can stop wondering about whether memory techniques will work for you and start proving it to yourself with information you actually want to remember.

And real memory training will stop the temptations and seductions of myths. As interesting as these stories might be, if they can’t be reproduced, they don’t matter.

The post Can You Memorize Books Page By Page Without Using Memory Techniques? appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.

When a three-time USA Memory Champion tells you that the exact strategy that made him a world-class competitor is the very thing that nearly broke him in half, you listen.

Especially since John Graham’s solutions to getting his focus and concentration back in order are so practical.

They might seem counterintuitive, however, especially for people who love using memory techniques.

That’s because we’re constantly burrowing around in our minds for associations.

It’s normal and exactly what we need to do. But spending so much time purely focused on the activities of the mind can also become a trap.

That’s why I’m excited to bring you this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. John Graham returns to share a radical paradigm shift.

It involves moving away from absolute mental dominance and dropping into what he calls embodied, living intelligence.

If you’ve hit a wall where traditional mindfulness techniques don’t click, you feel blocked, or your mind simply refuses to stop running the show, this conversation is going to provide a path for change.

Want to go deeper with John?

He is launching a 10-week live Embodiment Cohort to help you build a world-class capacity for handling life’s storms. Secure your spot on his webpage for the program.

For more with John, I’ve compiled our previous discussions on this Memory Training Secrets page. Since he almost never talks about memory techniques anymore, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

I know it sounds entirely backwards to say that you can make your memory sharper by letting go of thoughts.

But this is one of the ultimate secrets that the best memory athletes regularly report.

I believe it works because when you can clear out the mental noise and stop over-intellectualizing everything, you’re able to drop into your body.

As a result, your mind naturally clears, making space in working memory for the information at hand while drawing upon information in long-term memory to forge your mnemonic associations.

So, if you’d like to stop your mind from running in circles so you can get more from memory techniques, hit play on the recording above. You’ll learn how to unlock the “living intelligence” already inside you.

That way, you’ll stay grounded while memorizing. And, as I always love to say, be able to “keep yourself Magnetic.”

The post Why a 3x USA Memory Champion Stopped Using His Mind appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - How to Memorize With A Memory Palace.