You must take the same route through your palace each time, otherwise you’ll likely get a mental block. No matter what I’m trying to recall I always start in the Slytherin common room, taking the floo to wherever I need to go. If I’m searching I’ll abandon the place as soon as I find what I want, but when I’m storing I always floo or walk ‘home’ to the common room before I leave. It just helps keep things more ordered.
The best triggers are either absolutely ridiculous or logical leaps. I find a combination of both to be best, but go with whichever you prefer.
An example of the logical leap: I had to remember that ‘Belief In’ is an attitudinal belief, involving personal choices and values, while ‘Belief That’ is a factual belief. Now, dear Sherlockians, the link is painfully obvious.
Our belief in Sherlock is a feeling and that feeling governs the fact; the fact that Sherlock isn’t a fake informs our feelings of belief in him. So I have a badge on someone’s lapel which has a silhouette of Sherlock with the phrase ‘I Believe in Sherlock Holmes’ across it.
That little badge means I can remember everything I need to about that hypothesis; about four pages of solid text in the book.
An example of the ridiculous trigger: I had to remember Hume’s objection to something, which centers around him saying ‘you may as well compare the universe to a vegetable’, so I pictured Hugh Grant sitting at a desk chomping on a carrot.
Hugh sounds like Hume, the carrot reminds me of the quote, and Hugh’s happiness at his phallic vegetable informs me of another four pages of the textbook.
YOU ARE READING
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN MIND PALACE (SHERLOCK)
Non-FictionI will try to teach you how to make your own mind palace. (Like Sherlock Holmes)
