In the story of Hannibal, Lecter, the main character, locates Clarice Starling (an FBI agent) with the help of his extraordinary memory:
"While in prison, Dr. Lecter had a habit of aligning himself with his surroundings. The sounds of others slumbering, the rhythmic noise of children playing computer games—none of these bothered him. As was his custom during his time in prison, he tilted his head back. He closed his eyes and attempted to rest...
Just as we had seen Dr. Lecter in the palace, we find ourselves returning to the palace with him in the realm of dreams."
Over time, time loses its meaning. We see him standing in awe at the temple of the palace, admiring its architecture. The palace dates back to a time when vandals set fire to books and burned them. The palace space resembles the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
The palace building, constructed four hundred years ago, served as a sun-catcher and always had a fresh breeze flowing through it. However, the color of the walls differed from the museum. It occurred to him that he needed to take Clarice Starling's address from the palace. Although there was no urgency in the matter, there were thousands of rooms and various halls with corridors and multiple passageways. Furnishings covered the rooms, and he could rest anywhere in the palace. Even in the eerie basements and terrifying undergrounds where escape was not easily achieved.
We follow him as Dr. Lecter moves, finally arriving at the room he is looking for. In one corner, there is a picture of Edgar Hoover, and a little further, a portrait of Clarice Starling is hanging with a Model 308 rifle draped over her shoulders. Dr. Lecter seems pleased to see her. Years ago, he managed to obtain Starling's address from the University of Virginia. And now he could easily access it: 2337 Tindall, Arlington, VA 233081.
The Memory Palace is a structured collection of data organized in a visually imagined structure. This structure is usually in the form of a building and can have various shapes depending on how you envision it. The Memory Palace can be visualized as an apartment, a house, a villa, a towering skyscraper, a legendary palace, or a humble and simple room. In any case, the Memory Palace is a place in your mind where you have neatly arranged the necessary data so that it is easily accessible whenever you need it.
You can also register and store new data by adding new spaces to your Memory Palace or creating new Memory Palaces.
The use of this technique was first observed in the writings of a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci in the 17th century AD. In his reports, he explained how he taught the Chinese to pass government service exams using this technique. Ricci himself deposited over fifty thousand Chinese texts using this method in the promotion of the Jesuit sect in China (according to his own writings).
International memory champions, employing this technique and its various variants, can deposit large amounts of information into their minds within a short period and retrieve it when necessary.
However, this method cannot store scattered and unrelated data in the mind. The informational data must be connected and cohesive in a chronological or logical order. For instance, you cannot store simultaneously the historical events of Iran's nationalization of oil and quantum physics equations in a Memory Palace. This aligns with how our normal memory operates. From this perspective, our entire memory is like a vast structure with scattered and unrelated elements in every corner. Finding something within this large chaos is only possible when that thing is significantly important to you.
What you do with this technique is either give order and organization to this vast structure or divide it into smaller structures, where items are logically arranged next to each other. For example, you can consider two mental streets for philosophy and history, building mental structures based on the subjects you intend to memorize. Alternatively, instead of considering two streets, you can think of a large building, divide it into two sections, and place historical or philosophical topics in each part.
The data stored in this manner in a mental structure must first be related to each other. Secondly, they must be in a chronological or logical order, and ultimately, a direct visual connection between these data and the items present in the structure must be established.
Certainly, up to this point, you have likely understood that memory enhancement techniques are largely based on visualization of informational data and creating connections between images and data. The more vivid and engaging these images are, the easier and quicker it becomes to retain and access them along with the associated data. When we talk about images, it doesn't necessarily mean that a complete and flawless image must form in your mind, although this can be very helpful. The connection between the image and the data should ideally be humorous, meaningful, or captivating.
The most crucial and subtle aspect of this technique is creating an intimate connection with your memory and consequently organizing it. After a while, you will learn to navigate through the city of your memory and visit various structures or palaces, each created for storing a specific subject.
In each memory palace, there are numerous spaces. In these spaces, a considerable amount of content is placed in the form of images. In each space, the images have a specific order and organization and are interconnected. The space where images are placed revolves around a key theme that ties these images together. If you visit these spaces, you will see everything you have previously placed there.
In the memory palace, a combination of all the memorization techniques mentioned earlier is used to store information.
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