This technique for memory retention has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks. I first learned about it while doing the Dynamic Memory Skills course by Brad Voeller. He calls it a "house list", but it's the same thing. I haven't been using this for very long, but it's really helpful for remembering random bits of information that would otherwise be difficult to remember.
How to build your mind palace:
It's best to start with a location you know very well, such as your house, a close friends house or your workplace. When I get better at using the "mind palace", I'm planning to switch everything over to a location in one of my books. But until I get the hang of it, my "mind palace" is simply my house. Visualize your house in your head. If you want, just start with one floor (I have all three floors of my house in my palace). Visualize all of the rooms and imagine yourself walking into each room.
Decorating your mind palace:
The key to remembering things is to "place" different memories or bits of information in each room. I've turned my entire house into a list, but not all the rooms are full yet. My sister's bedroom is where I've placed my story ideas, the living room is where I'm placing music-related things and my bedroom is where I'm placing religion/worldview related topics.The whole placing things in rooms idea may sound complicated, but let me assure you, it isn't. I'll explain how I have things placed in my bedroom--the worldviews/religions room.
I'm taking a Comparative Worldviews course with CollegePlus right now. In it, I've studied the different worldviews of Naturalism, Transcendentalism, Postermodernism and most recently, Theism. There are several religions or key people that fall into each of these categories that will probably be important to remember for my test. I'm not the best at remembering random bits of information, but by "decorating" my worldviews room, I can remember some basic things about each worldview and religion. After I get these basics established, I can go back and add more detail to it.
I'll start out with Naturalism. Nazism, Facism, Leninism, Marxism, and Secular Humanism are all a result of the naturalistic worldview (which holds that nature is all there is).
I took German 1 last year and am rather in love with the country of Germany, so I have a German flag hanging on my wall. For Nazism, I imagined Adolph Hitler standing next to the German flag with a swastika armband on (this is rather disturbing when you think about it...I've got an imaginary version of Hitler in my imaginary bedroom. Anyways. Moving on). Then, since Facism, Leninism/Marxism are related, I pictured each leader (Mussolini and Stalin, respectively) standing next to Hitler having a conversation. The last worldview/key player I had to "pin" or "decorate" my room with is Secular Humanism and Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger came up with the idea of Eugenics, so to finish off my decorating, I imagined her shaking hands with Adolph Hitler.
So as you can see, it really just takes a bit of imagination. Now I've got the key players in the major religions of the Naturalistic religions/worldviews all in one place for easy access and recall on a test.
Another example I'll give you is of how I have postmodernism pinned to my mirror. I just did this today, so I don't have any prominent postmodernists milling about my head yet (thank goodness), but it helps me to remember the basic definition of postmodernism. Postmodernism says that we're surrounded by a cloud of our own experiences/reason and that's how we interpret the world, but really we can't ever know knowledge. This gave me a picture of someone (not sure who) looking into a mirror and seeing a cloud floating around them--a cloud of their own experiences. This next bit will seem like somewhat of a stretch. When I look in my mirror in my bedroom, I can't see any books. Books are synonymous with knowledge for me. So, the person looking in the mirror can't see any books, therefore they can't know knowledge.
Maintaining your mind palace:
Just like any real palace/house, your mind palace needs upkeep as well. Try "walking through it" at least once a day. This will help you remember things better, and allow you to place other bits of information in. I was reading a blog post that someone else wrote on mind palaces and they said they'd met a person who used this method and could remember a list from 50 years ago. I realize this whole "mind palace" thing will sound a little crazy at first. I certainly thought it was nuts when I learned about it. But after using it for a couple things, I've found out that it really does work. It's also really fun since I'm a writer.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to tour my mind palace.
