Jordan Peterson Shares a Simple Technique He Uses to Memorize Anything

There is this technique called Memory Castle that people have used for centuries to remember things, and so what you do is, you sit and you imagine a, might be a place that you know, like a geographic place, a house. And then you could place the things that you remember, imagine that you walked through the house, you could place the things you want to remember at different locations in the house. But you have to turn what you're remembering into an image. And then you could walk through the house and you could lift things up and find what it is that you're trying to remember. And so, that's how I remember things. And I forget a lot of what I read, a tremendous amount of what I read. But now and then something pops up and it sticks, you know?

[rosstully]

I tried this and I wound up forgetting the layout of my memory palace and got lost in there for 3 days

[udini]

I'm still waiting for my brain to approve the building of this house, let alone the mortgage

[dawnmichelle]

I can't even remember where I put my keys in my real house, much less my imaginary castle!

[lethianc]

I did this after I had a major accident. Me and my best friend where struck by a truck. Since then my memory is foggy. I got examined few years after it by a doctor and explained my memory problems. The doctor was amazed by my memory even though I just lost most of mine within seconds. All I did was imagine a window with a shelf and I decorated both with things the doctors asked me to remember. To this day I cannot remember important things or dates but ask me to remember details, I'll store them on my shelf visually

[muddbear]

If anybody's interested, this technique was pioneered by Giordano Bruno generally referred to it as the garden of memory.
He was many things but I'd say he was primarily a hermeticist (an interesting rabbit hole), but he traveled around the royal courts of Europe amazing everyone with his incredible feats of mnemonics (the scientific practice of memorization).
He was also the guy that was vying against Galileo for the position of mathematics professor at one of the oldest universities in Europe, the University of Padua (Venice).

[Metalhead_i..i]

It's like when a place, a room, or a smell reminds you of someone. But here, you do it on purpose

[DreadfulNW]

This technique was discussed extensively in the book "Moonwalking With Einstein". Its written by a journalist who ends up covering a memory competition, decides he wants to compete on day, and ends up being one of the best in the world. All the while discussing the history memorization techniques and his path to learning modern techniques from other top memory competitors. Super cool

[gc]

The Greek poet, Simonides of Ceos, invented the method around 500 BC.

[zwebzz]

I have 50 memory palaces and over 1300 individual locations or “stations”. My best accomplishment is memorizing 478/480 random digits in 1 hour.

Top memory competitors can memorize 50 random words in 50 seconds and 80 random number digits in 12 seconds.

100% of memory competitors use memory palace.

[softyzz]

I just forget things, the new things just bump off some older useless memories. Learning new stuff is great but now I can't remember where I am

[jagi]

A better technique than memory palace is associating things together in really weird ways. Like if I were to remember someone’s birthday and it was today (April 5) I would store a mental image of them with a clown mask (April 1) and as one of those half-people half-unicorn things (4 legs. April 1 + 4 = April 5, their birthday). We tend to forget the boring stuff so be weird and be creative. This technique got me through an engineering degree, not because I’m smart; I just can remember anything. Good luck!

[amerac]

how can I memory castle my biochemistry class

[bugenhagen]

My memory castle is like Mario 64 with painting of moments in my life that I can go into and be nostalgic or in order to keep from making the same mistake twice.

[exil]

The principle is just stick your new information to old information that you already know

[lostplanet]

The perfect memory technique, is if you connect the things you learn to your overall world view

[rancorslayer]

Lost my memory house a few months ago to a fire. I forgot how to do everything, had to start from scratch. I’ve currently got a memory apartment, should be getting a townhouse soon if I keep up this trajectory.

[lawrenceracies]

I use a similar technique. If I focus particularly on something with a second look and make myself a mental note I seem to retain it.

[chrisloftus]

I never knew people could actually visualize like this

[jaromirdub]

Holy shit I’m doing this for like a month now. Sometime I’m going back like 50 years and I can see everything, try it it’s fun

[gravidarum]

it's called memory palace*, or method of loci