What is a Memory Palace?

*Originally published on 5/9/11



I first discovered memory palaces while reading Thomas Harris' novel, Hannibal, a sequel to Silence of the Lambs. In the novel, the title character spends a lot of time in his own memory palace. While I wasn't sure what it was at first, I learned that it is a mnemonic device.

The idea is that you envision things inside a "house" in your mind. You picture yourself looking through it and use that as a way to trigger information. You can go from room to room, and each area has specific information that you can sort through until you find what you're looking for. I guess the theory is that you can remember passages from a novel by imagining yourself reading it inside your own mind.

The idea came from a story about a Greek poet named Simonides of Ceos. A banquet hall collapsed and the poet was able to recall the names and faces of all the guests by recalling where they were seated in the hall. This was the first known instance of this method being used and it's an example of how the technique can be put to use.

It may seem like a lot of effort, but the technique has proven effective as most memory contest champions use it to help them remember things like faces, numbers, or lists of words.

Oddly enough, Hannibal doesn't use it in this fashion in the book. I guess you could assume that this trick helped him become as brilliant as he is, but more often than not, Hannibal's memory palace acts as a sanctuary, a sort of mental fortress of solitude.

Whenever Hannibal is either in great stress, or simply bored, he retreats into his own mind to relive memories or interact with people he knew before. In this way, it's not so much a mnemonic device, but an elaborate daydream.

I can honestly see it being more useful in this regard. If you can use it to recall information, that's great, but I think it gets put to better use as an escape. If you were to get stressed out over something, say work or some problem at home, you could go into your own mind and experience something that would cheer you up. If you like bowling, you can imagine yourself rolling a perfect game, or you could relive a fond memory. With people working harder and harder over the course of their lives, it couldn't hurt to consider new ways of relieving that pressure and anxiety.

Now, of course, this method does have downsides. If you come to prefer your memory palace to the real world, you'll spend all of your time in your own head and you won't get anything done. Spending a few minutes doing this is harmless, but if you find yourself doing this for hours on end, it can prove to be a bit of a problem.

It could also help you creatively. An elaborate mental exercise like this requires a lot of imaginative brainpower and it may enable you to broaden your horizons. If you are not a writer or artist, this may seem superfluous, but for those out there who are more artistically inclined, I think it's something worth considering.

Another example of the memory palace can be seen in the 2003 film, Dreamcatcher, based on the novel by Stephen King. Some of the scenes take place inside one of the character's minds after he is taken over by an extra-terrestrial biological entity. This manifests as a warehouse, where his memories are stored. This technique also enables him to protect vital information from the invading force inside his mind. Granted, this scenario might not be applicable to your day to day life, but it was still worth mentioning.

If you do decide to start utilizing this technique, you will want to start small. Begin with a single room and then expand it from there. You may never need to grow it beyond that, but over the years, you can start to form a mansion's worth of images if you train yourself properly.

It may be hard to believe, but the technique has been around for centuries and it has proven to be fairly effective. It's not a "quick fix" or a shortcut, on the contrary, it will probably take a lot of work, but for many, I believe the payoff would be worth it.