Before and Afterthoughts on the memory theatre: I anticipated that memorizing 50 names without a written list to fall back on or act as a security blanket would be very challenging. I decided to follow the suggestion I read on the wiki article, and first create my memory theatre and walk through it without assigning anything I was memorizing to different places. I ended up choosing the coffee shop that I work at because I have a routine there when I go in to open, and also there are lots of places to put things. I walked through there a few times in my imagination, then let it go for a while. Yesterday, I started assigning names to different points in my memory theatre. Right now I've gotten through the first 30. When I ride up to the coffee shop on my bike, I put my kickstand down with my foot, and that is achilles (achilles-heel, most obvious connection) I pust my bike into the bike rack which is Agamemnon, because Achilles and Agamemnon have a faceoff in Ovid's Metamorpheses. Then I look up at the moon, Apollo. I go to open the door, I see a spider, Arachne. I put my handle on the brass handle to open the door, brass reminds me of Atlantis, Atlanta. Inside the first thing I see is the world map. Atlas. I go over to open the door on the opposite side of the shop and notice the first light of the dawn. That takes care of two- Aurora Boreas (instead of Aurora Borealis). I look at Joe's Parkway market, a seller of fine wine, Bacchus. And on and on like this until I get to Mars (our coffee roaster) which is where I left off. But what was absolutely fascinating to me about this whole process is that I didn't need that written list for a security blanket at all. After the first time I initially put a name in its place, it stayed there in my memory. When I walk through the first thirty names, at no point do I get stuck and I don't leave anything out either. This is really fascinating, its as if a force beyond my control is at work. The best way to describe it is as a phenomenon much like flying through an infinite cavern, to quote St. Augustine.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Making my Memory Theatre
Before and Afterthoughts on the memory theatre: I anticipated that memorizing 50 names without a written list to fall back on or act as a security blanket would be very challenging. I decided to follow the suggestion I read on the wiki article, and first create my memory theatre and walk through it without assigning anything I was memorizing to different places. I ended up choosing the coffee shop that I work at because I have a routine there when I go in to open, and also there are lots of places to put things. I walked through there a few times in my imagination, then let it go for a while. Yesterday, I started assigning names to different points in my memory theatre. Right now I've gotten through the first 30. When I ride up to the coffee shop on my bike, I put my kickstand down with my foot, and that is achilles (achilles-heel, most obvious connection) I pust my bike into the bike rack which is Agamemnon, because Achilles and Agamemnon have a faceoff in Ovid's Metamorpheses. Then I look up at the moon, Apollo. I go to open the door, I see a spider, Arachne. I put my handle on the brass handle to open the door, brass reminds me of Atlantis, Atlanta. Inside the first thing I see is the world map. Atlas. I go over to open the door on the opposite side of the shop and notice the first light of the dawn. That takes care of two- Aurora Boreas (instead of Aurora Borealis). I look at Joe's Parkway market, a seller of fine wine, Bacchus. And on and on like this until I get to Mars (our coffee roaster) which is where I left off. But what was absolutely fascinating to me about this whole process is that I didn't need that written list for a security blanket at all. After the first time I initially put a name in its place, it stayed there in my memory. When I walk through the first thirty names, at no point do I get stuck and I don't leave anything out either. This is really fascinating, its as if a force beyond my control is at work. The best way to describe it is as a phenomenon much like flying through an infinite cavern, to quote St. Augustine.
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