Why Is Philosophy Important? The Answer Can Change Your Life

People who use memory techniques enjoy a diversity of terms.

“Memory Palace” is my favorite, but more and more I’m leaning towards adapting Lynne Kelly’s use of the term “memory spaces.”

I like it because that’s essentially what a Memory Palace is: a space for storing information.

Of course, we’re usually using an imaginary version of that space.

However, there are times when we can use these memory storage areas in much more direct ways.

On this page, I share some of my favorite approaches.

Why should you care?

Because when you’re able to rapidly learn and remember information using these techniques, your quality of life goes way up. You can:

• Pass any exam
• Learn languages faster
• Remember everyone’s name
• Absorb entire books
• Master mathematics

And that’s just for starters.

Ready to learn more?

Let’s dive in.

What Are Memory Spaces?

A memory space is literally any location you use as a foundation, canvas or platform for encoding information with associations.

Let’s say you want to remember the name Luke. You can place Luke Skywalker on his shoulder.

His shoulder becomes a “memory space.”

In the method of loci, this specific spot would be called a “locus.”

Generally, though, I would just call this a station in a Memory Palace, particularly because I usually remember names at events. Luke would be just one of many I would memorize.

But these are all typical approaches. Let’s look at a few more.

The Lukasa

Now, there’s a sneaky reason I used the name “Luke” in the example above. That’s because my first example of an alternative memory space was going to be the lukasa.

Also sometimes called a “memory board,” the word means “long hand” or “claw.”

Typically made of wood, they often come shaped in a way that might remind you of an hourglass.

People would cover them in colored beads to help them remember histories, plant locations and names of medicines. Folk wisdom, military matters and other information would also be encoded.

These devices also helped people remember how their societies were organized and give them a common point of focus for discussing the law.

As far as I understand, they would run their fingers along the surfaces. Each bead would help them recall a story or piece of information.

The relationship to how encoding in a Memory Palace is clear. It involves all of the principles related to the linking and story method.

Related to the lukasa are many other items. You can learn about them from Aboriginal and indigineous memory expert Tyson Yunkaporta.

The Guidonian Hand

Can you imagine holding 75 hours of music in your mind?

Anna Berger suggests that people regularly memorized and retained this amount in her book, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory. She quotes Kenneth Levy who estimates that their knowledge “would correspond to the selection of Beethoven’s instrumental works plus the full Wagnerian canon.”

That’s a lot of information!

How did they do it?

Many scholars, including Berger, have shown that a lot of the memorization was done by the medieval monks using their hands.

Basically, they would turn their fingertips and the joints into memory spaces. Each spot would be marked with a name that corresponds to the musical staff they were using at the time. The approach gets its name from Guido of Arezzo.

In contemporary terms, you could use your hand to memorize the clef notes quite quickly. For example, if you take the notes of the bass clef that appear between the lines, you could align them like this on your pointer finger:

The hand doesn’t just have to be used for music, however. Tyson Yunkporta gives a great example of using your hand to remember knowledge in his book, Sand Talk.

I’ve also used my hands to remember and practice Sanskrit verses that I’ve memorized. The important thing is to figure out the grid you’re going to mentally layer onto your hand and then stick with that configuration. Otherwise, you risk confusing yourself.