I’ve just learned about this system of memorization in this thread (thanks, lynne-42). The relevant posts start with #24.
I am first interested in learning all the Best Picture Oscar winners. Shouldn’t be too difficult as I already know perhaps 70% of them.
So I’ve started with the 1930’s. Here is the story I’ve concocted and committed to memory for that decade:
1930 - All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 - Cimarron
1932 - Grand Hotel
1933 - Cavalcade
1934 - It Happened One Night
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 - The Great Ziegfeld
1937 - The Life of Emile Zola
1938 - You Can’t Take It with You
1939 - Gone with the Wind
The key is to place yourself in a familiar room and create a story that you can visualize as you move through the room. The above takes place in my bedroom. I’ve decided to designate a decade to each room, assigning two memory triggers to each wall, then two more to the ceiling.
Once I have the master bedroom down (the 1930’s), I will go to a second bedroom for the 1940s.
Thank you for this, Mean Mr. Mustard. I am fascinated by this method so really keen to hear if anyone is using it and how they go.
I am currently working on the 242 countries and independent protectorates in the world in population order. I know the countries and and adding the capitals and lots of other information to the satires at each location - to the countries.
I memorised my mobile number (which I seldom use) by associating the 4th to 7th numbers with an historical period (not any particular event) then adding the next two numbers (as a two digit number) to the final two numbers (also as a two digit number) and adding the result to the historical number, resulting in a second historical number. If someone asks me my number my mind thinks of the two historical periods (as I’m saying “077 …”) then instantly works out the last 4 numbers.
… but I’m notoriously bad at remembering people’s names.
As I posted in the thread that inspired this one, I used a variation on this method when I was child. A couple of notes from my experience:
Distinctive scents make very strong memory triggers. Incorporating scents along with imagery may help in building and maintaining your memory structure. For example, instead of someone snorting cinnamon, you might have them baking/eating fresh cinnamon rolls, accompanied by the distinctive scent of the rolls.
While it’s often easier, you don’t have to start with a familiar location. You can build a completely novel location in your mind. It’s harder to maintain, but if you don’t have a good reference location (Ruken, for example, mentioned moving around a lot), it might be more effective.
It also allows you to use aspects of the location itself as triggers. The one I built as a kid was an indeterminately Greco-Roman temple. The number of stones in the path, the number of steps up to the entrance, and the number of columns in front all had information attached to them. (I mentally rehearsed the approach until I could count these things as I “walked” toward the entrance.)
Check the shelf in the laundry room. (If you don’t have a laundry room, check the bathroom.)