Mind Palace - Conversion

So far, we've talked about the basic framework for a mind-palace, and the general idea behind setting one up. Today, we're going to examine what goes in to actually internalizing information in a really concrete way. In order to do that, I thought I'd take you through one of my pet-projects that I work on when I'm bored - memorizing Pi.

NOTE: This is advanced. If you cannot use your mind palace to remember a shopping list, a list of 20 random words, AND the order of songs on your favorite album first, DO THAT FIRST. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING. Everything after this will assume you are at a level where you are capable of the above tasks or better.

Now, since Pi is an infinite non-repeating decimal, you'll never actually be able to get it memorized by virtue of the fact that there's always one more number you haven't stored away (for more information, please Google "Pi"). This element of futility makes Pi an excellent way to "score" your mnemonic prowess. You'll never actually complete the job, but you'll have a number to point to - you'll be able to say, "I've stored X digits of Pi in my mind palace, and I know them backwards and forwards." For me, that number is currently 78. Nothing crazy, but then, I'm not trying to win any competitions.

In order to memorize something like Pi, which (after you get passed the 3 and decimal point bit) is just a series of numbers, you're going to need to figure out a few things in advance.

• Chunk Size :
• You're obviously not going to make one gigantic image by just combining all of the numbers together. This is a bad idea for two reasons. The first is that, depending on how you set it up, your image might change dramatically with every new number you add. The second is that even if you didn't hit the first problem, eventually your image would be so complex that you'd be better off just trying to remember the numbers in another way (perhaps a song?).
• So what we're going to do is "chunk" the number up into manageable pieces that we can memorize and add to a list. If you're a world champion mnemonist, you may end up using a system that has 9 digit chunks. The system I use has 6 digit chunks (I'll explain why in a bit). If you're a total beginner, you can chunk 1 digit at a time too (of course, if you're a total beginner, perhaps memorizing Pi shouldn't be your first exercise).
• Conversion Method:
• We need to find a way to convert the data we want to remember (strings of numbers) into something our brain can more readily process (sensory-enriched images). So they question is, how do we convert a 6-digit string into an image?
• Enter the PAO System (Person, Action, Object). The PAO system is one of the more popular systems for encoding any data that can be "chunked" into 3's. Essentially, we convert the first chunk into an image, the second into an action, and the third into an object to create a little scene which we can place into one of the loci in our mind palace.
• But wait, above I said that I use chunks of six digits at a time. Still true. We're just going to use the PAO system to break it down further into chunks of 2. So for the purposes of this memorization exercise, the smallest mnemonic unit we'll be using is a 2-digit number. Sound fair?
• Setup:
• The setup required to create a successful PAO system is a tad daunting. For a 2-digit PAO system, basically you need to think of 100 people - numbered 00-99 - each one of these people has a unique action and object that is associated ONLY with them. They don't have to combine to create a sensible image as long as you can use any one to get back to the number associated with the person.
• Ex1:     14 - Albus Dumbledore, Blackening His Hand, Elder Wand
• Ex2:     15 - Albert Einstein, Writing Equations, Chalkboard
• Ex3:     92 - Napolean Bonaparte, Posing For A Painting, White Flag
• The above examples make use of a technique called the Dominic System, which you can feel free to Google at your leisure. Essentially it maps numbers onto letters, turning all 2 digit numbers into sets of initials, which you can use to associate people with numbers.
• This is not the only way - feel free to use direct association as well (Ex: "01" could be George Washington).
• From there, all you need to know is the location of the number in the chunk. We'll get there.

Now, once you've got all the legwork done, you're ready to actually memorize the data (I know, so excited).

• Conversion Itself:
• For this, we'll use as our example the very first numbers in Pi. It begins, for those of you who do not know, as 3.141592653589793.......
• STEP 1: Chunk by 6 - Since I already know Pi begins with a 3 and a decimal point, we'll start just to the right of the decimal. This results in a 6-digit chunk of "141592."
• STEP 2: Apply the PAO - The PAO System breaks down our chunk into 3 pieces, resulting in "14 / 15 / 92" where the 14 is the person, the 15 is the action, and the 92 is the object.
• So "14 / 15 / 92" becomes "Albus Dumbledore / Writing Equations / White Flag."
• From there, all you have to do is create a little scene out of the above phrases. For me, it's an image of Albus Dumbledore furiously scribbling equations onto a large white flag, accidentally tearing it in places from his efforts.

Then, take that image you created and place it in your mind palace. Finally, just repeat the conversion step for every successive chunk of 6 numbers and add the resulting image to the next location in your mind palace.

As always, if you have any questions, need some clarification, or just want to add a suggestion, please feel free to leave a comment (or on Tumblr, just PM me). Happy memorizing!

Where to Look - Keys

Some of the most telling aspects of our appearance are the elements which are common from day to day. A perfect example of one of these elements are our keys. They tell us about our daily routines, our possessions, our level of organization, and the things we don't want to be without.

For the key ring in the above example, we can make the following deductions (which I will break down below). The subject most likely:

• has two primary modes of transportation, a Hyundai car or SUV (pretty sure Hyundai doesn't make non-commercial trucks - an exact model could be determined by visiting a local hardware store and comparing the picture against the key blanks for Hyundai cars) and a bicycle.
• is fairly computer savvy.
• lives in a gated community or apartment complex.
• lost a dog (dead, missing)
• stores his/her keys in multiple ways or regularly removes keys from the key-ring

We should all be fairly aware of how to identify car keys at a glance at this point, but just in case, here's a tip - it's the big one. From there, it's a simple matter of recognizing the insignia (which will normally appear on both sides of the key) and going from there. Next, house keys will usually (not always, especially if it is a custom key) have the triangular holes in them like the key in the top left corner of the picture. That leaves two keys (one standard, one weird), a dog-tag, and a flash-drive. The flash-drive is easy - if the subject didn't use it / know how to use it, it wouldn't be in such an easily accessible location. The weird key is for a bike lock (P.S. It would serve you well to know how to identify bike lock keys - I may create a post to this effect at a later date). The dog tag appears to be for a dog named "Sherlock" (great name), and it not being ON the dog would seem to signify that he (probably a he) no longer has need of it.

Now for the tricky one. We arrive at the final key - a standard silver 5-pin key with "ACE" (name of a hardware store) on it. This would seem to signify that the key was is a copy and was manufactured with a key machine at an ACE hardware. If the key was for a padlock, it would have the brand name of the padlock on it (ex: "Master"), so it can't be that. It can't be a mail key due to the fact that the post-office maintains and distributes the keys to lockable mail-boxes (and therefore would not use ACE to make copies). What does this leave? We know it's a copy, so a logical next question is, "Who has the original?"

• A roommate (flatmate) perhaps? But we already have a house key.
• A friend/relative - perhaps the subject has been given a spare for surprise visits/emergencies. While possible, the subject would need to visit quite often for that to be the case. In order for such a key to be included on the key-ring, it would have to be more important than a mail key, which is not present on the key-ring. Result - such a key would probably be on a separate (secondary) key-ring with the mail key.
• A landlord/property manager? But what key would a landlord need OTHER THAN a house key that a tenant would need as well?

It is also possible that an extra key may mean multiple different locks on a subject's place of residence. For example, one key may be for the deadbolt, the other for the door handle itself. If that were the case here, why would a single subject have the original of one and a copy of the other?

I submit that the key is for EITHER the main gate to the complex in which the subject lives (if one exists) OR a key to a communal area, such as a shared laundry room.

If anyone has any more questions about keys/key-rings (in general or specifically), or would like to provide some information, or feel I may have missed something, feel free to leave a comment (Blogger), send me a private message (Tumblr), or drop me an email: everydaydeductionist@gmail.com (either).

Happy Sleuthing!

Deduction #7

Another College Student!

This one was fun. Right off the bat, we have a female subject. Evidently she is quite the bookworm based on the stack of Young Adult novels on the right side of the desk. Next we have her name, Annie, which is written on several of the pieces of paper on the bulletin board running the length of the desk. We could talk about her affinity for horses, or the fact that she seems to be a Vikings fan, or the operating system of her computer (Windows 7 I think), but I think I've found something more interesting. A closer inspection of the lanyards hanging just behind the lamp reveal the logo of UST, a Catholic College in St. Paul, Minnesota. That by itself is not a ton to go on. However, once we add the brand-new student ID (still in sleeve) and what appears to be a welcome packet on the desk, I feel quite safe in assuming that you are an incoming Freshman at the school.

Now that we know a little about the who, let's talk about where. Given previous information, we should answer the question of whether this picture was taken in a dorm room. I'm confident it was not. The layout of the room (lamp reflection) suggest single-occupant bedroom. Not only that, but this picture was sent to me about a month ago, a full 10 days before you could have moved in. Based on a few quick statistics from UST's website, I conclude that you most likely are staying in a dorm the first year.

Now for the fun part. The picture was taken with an Apple Device (Ipad) which, as we know from previous deductions, has a nasty habit of encoding GPS data into its pictures. Without going into too much detail, I was able to get a pretty good lock on your location at the time the picture was taken. This type of information would allow someone to, oh I don't know, find the Facebook page for the incoming freshman class of UST, search for the name "Annie," and narrow the search by hometown. Upon doing that, one would discover that you ARE in fact staying in a dorm (the exact one will not be mentioned), and that you were at one point engaged in the process of searching for a flatmate in true Sherlockian fashion. If the cup in your room (reflection in picture frame) is any indication, you must be quite happy about the number and proximity of Arby's at your new location in the dorms.

Happy sleuthing!

Mind Palace - Organization

Hey guys. Since my last post, I've been hard at work tweaking my mind palace so that it functions at its maximum potential. in light of that, I'm going to do some more posts on how to organize and maximize the efficiency of your mind palace.

For those of you looking for an update, I've now permanently stored the following data in my memory palace:

• The order of the U.S. Presidents (and some of the vice presidents... still in progress)
• Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If"
• An excerpt from "Hunting Season" by Beau Taplin
• The name and year of every movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture
• A few debit card numbers (mine, that is)
• The order of a specific deck of playing cards (used for magic tricks)
• All of the locations of the above data relative to my mind palace

If the last bullet point seems a little circular, rest assured that it's not. It IS, however, what I would like to discuss with you today.

(Warning: Meta-Thinking Paragraph Ahead)
You see, having a lot of knowledge and being able to utilize it are two completely different concepts. While having a functional memory palace in which to store specific types of information can be / is incredibly useful, it's only useful insofar as you remember where you put everything. In other words, you can know that you know who the 19th president was, but until you actually go into your palace and pull Rutherford B. Hayes out, you don't actually know who the 19th president was. If someone came up to you and asked what data you've put away in your mind palace, how would you go about answering their question? In short, while it is very easy to know things, soon one discovers that the harder problem is actually to know what you know.

This is one of the main problems with utilizing the memory palace method to permanently store lots of information - no doubt something Sherlock Holmes would have had to deal with fairly early on in his exploits. Rest assured, there is a solution. For the purposes of this post, we're going to refer to it as The Index. Thus far, I have experimented with 2 variations which we'll call web and map indexing.

What is an index?

If you've ever been to a library, you should know the answer to this question. An index is a system of organization, usually taking the form of a list (often alphabetized). How does this apply to us? The short version is this - we're going to make a mind palace containing everything we know, AND where to find it.

The Web:
In experimenting with the web index, I created a small room (think elementary school classroom) and painted the walls all different colors and lined them with bookshelves of different kinds and various decorations so that no two walls were even remotely similar. On the bookshelves, I placed tiny trinkets - things that would remind me of the specific information stored within them - as well as a reminder of the location where the information was stored. (Ex: A picture of President Obama standing in front of my old home would tell me that the U.S. presidents were stored in that home.) I had one trinket for every chunk of information I had logged away. One problem I ran into with this method was that it quickly became difficult to store information, especially literature, on the bookshelf with other similar data. In order to fix this issue, I would recommend creating tiny rooms hidden behind the bookshelves to serve as the set of loci (Latin word for locations) rather than the bookshelf itself. The method functions like a web in that while there are no expressly visualized pathways to your various mind palaces, they ARE connected through your trinkets, making each trinket a vital link to the information you want to remember.

The Map:
The thing about map indexing is that it doesn't actually exist. Sure, I gave a name to the concept, but the essential bit here is that we're just making a bigger mind palace. Rather, we are combining all of our existing mind palaces into one gigantic cobbled together neighborhood of mind palaces. For a more in-depth look at this idea, check out "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci" by Johnathan D. Spence. Old-school mnemonists used to use city blocks, or whole cities, as mind palaces, making the amount of information you can store as large as the city in which you stored it. Then, we can rename houses, blocks, or even streets to segment the data you are storing (Ex: The "head trauma" room in the "Emergency Medicine" house on "Science Street"). The tricky thing about this method is that in order to effectively use such a large area, one must be either very familiar with the area or very willing to make up a lot of the missing details on their own. One more difficulty is that even if you use a neighborhood you know well, odds are that you don't know the layouts of all the houses. But really, there's no reason to use those houses, is there? One could simply use the layout of an old neighborhood and plant all of the houses one has known or lived in to create a new neighborhood full of memory storage space.

Mind Palace - Putting it Into Practice

Previously, we've discussed the basic structure of a mind palace and what it's used for. Today, I'm going to discuss some basic encoding methods, and the building blocks for creating your own.

But first, a little history...

The practice of using a person's visual/spatial memory to organize non-visual non-spatial data has been around since the ancient Greeks. In its simplest terms, a Mind Palace utilizes images to organize and store information for later retrieval. The ancient Greeks and Romans used this system, also called the method of loci (meaning places/locations), for remembering anything from names of soldiers to important speeches. In fact, the expression "in the first place" refers to the technique of placing talking points in a mind palace (First thing you want to say goes in the first place in your mind palace). The method of loci was also used very often for everyday knowledge - something that, today, you could simply look up in a book. The first "books" were more like very lengthy scrolls with no chapter headings, page numbers, and little to no spacing or punctuation. This meant that in order to efficiently use a book as a reference, much of the organizational data would have to be stored in one's own head. Today, there is less of a need for a mind palace, but it can still be a useful technique for reliably internalizing everything from a list of names to a phone number to a shuffled pack of playing cards. A detective today using a mind palace filled with crime solving information would be able to have infinitely more data at his fingertips without the dependance on technological devices to access the information he needed.

Now for encoding....

The first thing you need to remember about encoding data into a mind palace is that it's not an exact science by any means. There are an infinite number of ways to encode information, and very little information can be coded verbatim. Mind palaces are most useful when the data can be easily broken down, only the general idea is important, or you're working with small, simple data to begin with. Rest assured, any data can be encoded, but not all data can be encoded quickly. As there is no one-hundred-percent right way to encode data for use in a mind palace, I'm just going to give you a few rules of thumb which have served me (and several unnamed international memory champions) quite well.

•  Make it Simple:
• Most of the time, a person who uses a mind palace won't be remembering anything much more complicated than a shopping list. It's important to remember that less really is more. There's no point in telling yourself a long story to remember every single thing - you might as well just memorize the list by reading it over and over again. A good rule of thumb is that whenever you're trying to remember a list of distinct objects, simply place comically large versions of the objects in various loci in your mind palace (Ex: eggs, cheese, and fruit can code to a giant egg on your porch, a huge wheel of cheese on your couch, and a massive fruit basket on your bed).
• Use Relationships:
• Sometimes, you'll be at loss for what images to place in your mind. My advice to you is to quickly think about things which are related to the item you wish to memorize, and use those instead. As an example, let's say your girlfriend gives you a list of things to pick up - one of these things is hummus. You don't know how to visualize hummus - but you know that it falls into the category of Greek food. Instead of trying in vain to place hummus in your mind palace, you place a Greek temple filled with food in there instead. This will remind you that you are looking for a Greek food item, which will send you back to hummus.
• Homophones are Your Friends
• In a pinch, words that sound similar may also be substituted quite easily, leading to quicker and easier memory storage. A great way to think about this technique is to imagine trying to memorize a list of names of people you've never met. Let's say one of the names on that list is "Kanasha". If you're like me, this doesn't evoke any useful images right off the bat. What I would do in this situation is visualize a few old people sitting around a table playing Canasta (if you don't know what that is either, then you may want to find a different image), and use that.
• More than Just Your Eyes
• In the case that you find yourself working with kind of a vague image, remember - YOU HAVE 5 USEABLE SENSES. You're not limited to just your eyes. You can also use touch, taste, smell, and hearing to enhance the images you've placed. Let's say you don't have a very specific idea about what a tuna looks like. You know it's a fish, but beyond that, you're lost. You do, however, know what canned tuna smells like. Why not imagine a sort of generic fish, then add in the idea that it smells like a tuna sandwich? Bingo.
• Make it Weird
• Nothing hurts a mind palace more than banality. If you want to remember things, for the love of all things cold and rational MAKE THEM MEMORABLE. Think of it as if you were telling yourself a story as you walk through your mind palace. It'll be much easier to recall if you know that it's Darth Vader is waiting for you down the hall as and not your old boss from the previous year (unless you had a really exciting boss). As a general rule, make your images as large, crazy, wacky, lewd, crude, or otherwise weird as you can. You're brain is hardwired to remember those things BETTER, LONGER, and EASIER.

If you're interested in continuing your education in the area of mind palaces and tricks involved, I highly recommend reading Josh Foer's book Moonwalking with Einstein. It's an excellent read and is invaluable in  expanding one's knowledge of the mind's potential (not to mention, it's where I learned much of what I know about these techniques).

As always, I appreciate your input. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to me. If there's ever a topic you don't understand, something you need clarified, or you'd like to suggest an idea for a post - send in a comment or drop me a message and I'll do my very best to help. Happy memorizing!

Where to Look - Hands

 

            A) Left Palm                                 B) Right Palm

                              D) Right Back

A person's hands tell us a lot about them. What they do,where they've been, how they act, and what they're feeling - all fair game if you know what to look for. Today, we'll be examining a pair of hands, and the conclusions one may draw from them.

       C)  Left Back


Gender - There are very few reasons why gender must be deduced from someone's hands alone (perhaps only their hands are in view in an important photograph). That being said, it may still be useful to you down the road. For starters, look at their choice of watch - this person chose a definitively masculine watch. This preference, in addition to the hand-dryness (seen on palms), the state of their cuticles (seen on backs), and the scars from cuts (right palm and right back) push the balance of probability towards male. Keep in mind, as with all of our deductive exercises, we are rarely 100% certain - we deal in probabilities. In this case, the odds are clearly in favor of the gender being male.

Handedness - This is a much more regularly useful deduction to make. The first thing we can look for is, again, the watch. Most of the time, right-handed individuals will wear their watch on their left hand, as it tends to get in the way when they write. This statistic is not as strong in left-handed people, due mostly to the fact that the widely accepted "correct" way to wear a watch is on the left hand. Still, a watch on the right and is a good indication of left-handedness, and vice versa. Other things to be aware of are the scars on the right hand. This would seem to indicate right-handedness in the same way that a worn out tire would suggest more use than one with a lot of tread.

Habits - Zooming in on the fingernails would show no jagged edges. Do not make the mistake of blindly assuming this person doesn't bite their nails. Indeed they might. The only thing this tells us it that they have not very recently (within a day or two).

A look at their fingertips, when examined closely, show a discrepancy between the amount of skin on each finger. Notice that on the right hand, the fingerprints are easily visible, whereas on the left, the skin seems smoother and shinier. This would indicate that the subject performs an activity which regularly removes surface skin from the fingertips of only one hand. This would be a great time to ask if the subject plays guitar, or perhaps the violin. A yes to either question would give us more evidence that the subject is right handed, as the finger positions on either instrument are usually performed by the non-dominant hand.

Another interesting place to look is the pinkie nail on either hand. Having a longer-than-average nail on the little finger is an interesting observation in that it is a potential indicator of many different things. One fairly benign option is that it is used to clean out the ear and/or nose quickly and discretely. On the other end of the scale, it is used by some as a convenient place for resting certain powder-esque drugs before snorting them up one's nose. And somewhere in the middle, some cultures view a long pinkie nail as a sign of wealth or social status. Be careful, for nothing conclusive may be said about this observation without further evidence.

Random Deductions:

While many of the following facts may not present a solid conclusion one way or the other, remember that in day to day deductions, you are not limited to just someone's hands. The following list is simply to get you thinking about things which you may be able to confirm either by asking or deducing from further details.

• Military Experience - on a digital watch, you may notice that the time is set to 24 hour format. This is a great way to shift the balance of probability toward or away from military experience. Military time is an odd system to have to get used to, and most people don't unless they have a reason.
• Income - Notice the watch (brand, material it is made of, number of scratches, etc.). This can help to narrow down someone's income. Be wary - many people give watches as gifts, so this may not be a sure-fire indicator.
• Recent Reading/Writing - Look for ink stains/smudges on the fingertips and the palm-heels (area above the wrist opposite the thumb). This may give an indication that your subject has been writing/drawing/reading a newspaper recently.
• Beyond Ink - Be on the lookout for any odd discoloration as a result of grease, stamps, etc. which can tell you a lot about your subject's recent activities (Ex: half washed off stamp could mean they went to a club the night before).
• Fear/Temperature - The color of the skin on your subjects hand can tell you if they are scared or simply cold. In both situations, the body pulls blood away from the skin and sends it to the vital organs and major muscle groups. This will result in the person's hands looking paler and feeling colder. To decide whether your subject is scared or cold, try shaking hands with them early on to establish a control.
• Diet - Trembling hands can be a symptom of a fight-or-flight response, not eating enough, or a reaction to a stimulant (caffeine for example). Be sure to check for additional details before assuming they're starving themselves.
• Rings - Rings are about commitment. Obviously, a ring on the left hand ring finger tells you who they’re committed to. While some rings are worn for fashion or sentimental reasons, be on the lookout for promise rings, engagement rings, or class rings, which you can use to narrow down where they’ve been.

I hope you enjoyed the first of many "Where to Look" posts. As always, if you have any comments or questions about anything on the blog, be sure to comment or send me a message. Your feedback is important and much appreciated.

Deduction #5

New deduction practice! This time, I’m going to turn it over to you. In the comments section, post your conclusions AND the observations that led you there. You must defend your choices. Deduce as much as you can about this person (I’ll jump in if necessary). Good luck!

Better quality version of this picture available here.

Mind Palace - A How To

Welcome back. Using a mind palace to store information is a bit like tricking your brain into working like a computer. In order to create a mind palace which will function effectively, you're going to need three things. You'll need a place, data, and an encoding method. Your place is a bit like a hard drive - it's the place where all the data goes. More importantly, it's the place where all the data is stored, waiting for you to need it, at which point the data will be right there where you left it. The data is a little trickier to think about - it's anything. Absolutely anything that you need to remember can be data (phone numbers, playing cards, people's names, etc.). And how will you remember it? You'll need an encoding method. If your place is your hard drive, your encoding method is your software. It's what allows your to translate the data into something that your brain (hard drive) can understand and store away for later.

1) A Palace - A mind palace is a place. It can be any place you'd like (your house, your friend's house, your work, even your city). It can even be made up (although I'd advise using "real" places until you've got some practice in). The important thing is that the place does not change - it could be sunny, rainy, whatever - but the building itself, the architecture, does not change. This is very important, primarily because you will be "filling" your place with things, and those things WILL change. It's best to have some element of constancy to anchor the variable things on. Finally, you need to pick a route within your mind palace - a specific path you follow when walking through. It doesn't always have to be the same route every time, but when storing/recalling the same set of data, you must walk along the same route. This will become more clear as we go on. I'll post some more tips on optimizing the efficiency of your mind palace once we have a good understanding of how to use one.

2) Data - In order to store data in a mind palace, you'll need to figure out exactly what it is you are storing. Typically, you'll want to avoid storing multiple kinds of data in the same mind palace (there's no law against having multiple palaces - in fact, it's highly encouraged). In my first experience using a mind palace, I was memorizing a shopping list full of random items. I've since used it to remember a deck of playing cards in order, a list of names of people I'd never met, and even a list of landmarks in ancient Rome for a quick cramming session. The reason I'm telling you this is so that you understand the importance of knowing your data. you can't remember something you've never seen. You have to hear, see, touch, taste, or smell it. You can't memorize a shopping list that you can't read. Make sense?

3) Encoding Method - This is the crux of the mind palace. This is how you turn your hard-to-memorize data into something your brain can use. In order to do this, we'll be converting all of your data (names, numbers, playing cards) into images. Those images will then be "placed" in your mind palace, just like we did in Part 1 of this topic. Then, by walking through your mind palace along your pre-defined route, you can remember which images you placed where, which will then be decoded into the data you originally stored. How do we decide which images to use? The secret - it's all about using your imagination. Your brain very efficiently processes and stores very specific kinds of information - the funnier, weirder, and (in some cases) sexual your images are, the easier it will be for your brain to remember them. For example, in order to remember that the first thing you need to do in your day is call Peggy, you might imagine a pirate with a wooden peg-leg yelling into a cell phone. It sounds silly, but it gets the point across.

To demonstrate, let me take you back over the mind palace we created in the introduction.

We started at the front door, where we found a doll-house, which reminded me to tell you that you need a place to store the images. Then, we step inside to find a giant playing card with things written on it, which reminds me to tell you about the kinds of data you can store in a mind palace, and give you some examples of what you can use it for. Then, as we get into the next room, we see the bank of computers with the large flash drive - this is the part where I talk about the encoding method, which converts images into things that your brain remembers better. The other two images refer to the science of mind palaces, and remind me to tell you about where they came from (history). They also remind me to talk about how to maximize the efficiency of your own mind palace, and the different encoding methods you can use.

But that's for another post. Later!

Mind Palace - Introduction

Okay, it's time - I've been putting this off for a while because quite frankly, I'm terrified of underselling such a valuable concept. In this three-part set of posts, we're going to discuss the Holmesian (actually ancient Greek) technique of remembering absolutely anything, for any length of time, limited only by the power of your imagination.

But before we do that, I have to tell you a story:

Stop what you are doing. Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing at your front door. Yes, of your house. I don't care which house, where it is, or when you lived there - it just has to be a place you remember well. I'm serious. In order for this to work, you have to trust me a little bit.

Now, standing between you and your front door, I want you to imagine a dollhouse. It can be whatever color, size, shape, or level of decadence you desire. But a dollhouse. Don't laugh, just imagine it. Right there on your doormat. See it.

Now, open your front door, and imagine walking two steps into whatever room is there, when you come face to face with a giant playing card - I mean huge. Whatever card you like, just make it gigantic - floor to ceiling. On this card, there's a ton of what looks like graffiti. You can see paint dripping - it's fresh. You can smell it as it dries. Upon closer inspection, you notice that the graffiti is actually words and numbers (names, definitions, phone numbers, somebody's social security #). Got it, good.

Next, move to the next room, which is now completely full of computers - maybe wall-to-wall WWII machines, all feeding into a massive flash-drive which sits at the end of the banks of computers.

Keep walking. Next room. You could be in your kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc. Just be sure it's set up as though you're actually walking through your house. You don't want to be teleporting between rooms. If you are out of space, walk back and go another way (no need to change what we've already done). That being said, in the next room, put a stack of books. In keeping with our theme, make this a massive stack of books. Not just ordinary books - old books. Ancient, dusty tomes as thick as your head. Something you'd see in some thousand-year-old library.

And finally, walk into what will be the final room on your walk through your house. In it, be sure to imagine a giant brain. Maybe in a glass tank, hooked up to a bunch of electrodes, even perhaps floating in some mysterious liquid.

Now, what I'd like you to do is walk back. Take the little walk that we've just taken in reverse. Go from the brain, back to the giant stack of giant books, through the room with the computers, back to graffiti-covered  playing card, and finally out your front door, almost tripping over the dollhouse on the doormat. Then walk it again. This time, walk through as though you're seeing the house for the first time. Be sure to notice the large and strange things that you've placed in the different rooms. You should find it pretty easy to remember which things you placed in which room as long as you see them as opposed to just trying to recall them.

That example may not make a ton of sense right this second, but for now, suffice it to say that you've just stored some very specific information in a mind palace.

Tune in soon  for Part 2, where we'll discuss exactly HOW this works. I'll show you as best I can the techniques that make the above story make sense, and allow you to construct your own mind palace and fill it with whatever you need to know.

New Practice Game - Targeted Intuition

In addition to my existing mental training regimen, I have decided to add a new training game in order to home in on one of my favorite things about perception - judgment. We judge people. It happens. Everything you think about someone else's thoughts, emotions, or reasons for what they do comes down to judgment. It's not a bad thing, as long as you understand what's happening, which through this blog, I intend to do.

WARNING : If you decide to follow my mental training regimen, please don't add this game in until you are comfortable playing the first ones. This exercise is all about directing your intuitions in order to better understand how your brain processes information subconsciously. Without a conscious thought a process to compare to, you are doing something so horrible, so grossly shocking, that any true Sherlock Holmes fan would be humiliated to be caught in the act of - guessing.

With that in mind, here is the Targeted Intuition Training Game:

1) Observe a person. Before consciously ingesting any details, try to allow your brain to give you an intuitive profile, a "first a impression without justification." (In reality, your brain will have some sort of justification, but the idea is for you to be unaware of the subconscious calculations involved.)

2) Once you have your intuition, break it down. Isolate the individual elements, and highlight any unusual ones. (Let's say a woman walks by - Your intuition goes something like, "She's a nervous mother." Okay, fine. Why a mother? Why nervous?)

3) Now take another look. Play the other games. Find details. Make deductions/inductions. See if you can arrive at any specific conclusions. Form a second profile about the person.

4) Compare your two profiles. See if any of the intuitions you formed were justified. Try to find out WHY your brain arrived at your intuition (Try to figure out what your subconscious mind was 'thinking' during step number 1. If you were way off, find out why. If you were dead on, find out why.

The point of this game is to begin to break down what we perceive as intuition, and display it for what it really is - a cumulative sum of countless calculations being made by your brain on your behalf, in order to better prepare you for dealing with the world. My theory, which this blog is a crucial part of, is that by slowing down the process, by training your intuition to see what is relevant, we can gain a better understanding of how we think, and what we can really see when we are watching closely. In addition, with a little extra effort, we can train our conscious mind to see things that were previously unavailable to us.

Introduction (part 2)

My Methods

Over the course of this experiment, I will be designing my own training regimen which will emphasize the three main traits of Holmes' incredible abilities:

1) Observation - Every person has details that make them different. The goal for this exercise will be to observe at least three details per person which make them unique (different colored socks, strange earrings, even something as small as ink smudges on a hand or fingernail cleanliness). Areas of particular interest include wrists and shoes. As a next level, play a game with yourself whenever you're bored. Find the most interesting detail about every person in the room. Have all of the people in the room "compete" in your head for the title of most-interesting.

2) Deduction - The science of deduction, like chicken sexing (look it up), requires a very special kind of practice. It's not enough to go through the motions of adding up information and coming to conclusions - you need to know you if are right. For this exercise, find a proposition (in the logical sense) that you know to be true - I'll say it again, something that you ALREADY KNOW. Your challenge: prove it in as many ways as you can. For example, say you know that your roommate was the last one to open the fridge. You may come to this conclusion by observing that his juice is now in front of yours, or even that it is slightly warmer than yours. If you get very good, you may even be able to deduce that the bowl into which he poured his cereal is sitting in the sink, meaning that he not only opened the fridge, but that he used your milk.

3) Memory - Over the course of Sherlock Holmes' adventures, he makes a habit of pulling useful information seemingly out of nowhere, and utilizing it to finish the case on which he is currently working. The reality is, of course, much cooler. He extracts all of the aforementioned information from HIS MIND. The truly brilliant thing about Holmes is not just his deductive reasoning, but his KNOWLEDGE. In order to function like Holmes does, without the need to look up other than the most obscure details, one must have a lot of background information from which to draw. In order to build this, I propose exercise number three. Whilst noticing your details and making your deductions, should you come across a detail that you believe might be useful at some point, write it down (Ex: "Wow, if I knew more about how a french press operates, I could determine just how new to their job this Starbucks employee is."). At your leisure, look over the list of things you wrote down - look them up. By far the most boring, and equally useful. As to committing the information you learn to memory, I have two words for you: Mind Palaces. But we'll get to that later.

If you have any questions regarding my methods, need more examples, or just want to share your input, feel free to leave a comment.