The loci method, almost infallible to remember anything.

A mnemonic technique that will allow you to take your memory capacity to a higher level.

Are there mnemonic techniques that allow us to memorize everything? Of course, the human brain's capacity to process data is limited, but that doesn't mean that, following the right methodology and with a little patience, we can't use tricks to expand our memory to impressive limits.

If you have ever done any research on the subject, you will have noticed that there are real specialists in exploiting the resources of your memory. Individuals who, having trained their minds day after day, manage to reproduce data with astonishing ease.

In this sense, the method of loci is one of the most useful tools in this field..

• Recommended article: "13 practical strategies to improve memory".

Narrative-based memory

Traditional education based on master classes (teachers speak, students remain silent) has been based for years on the idea that human beings store memories as pieces of information that "enter" our brains one by one, separately.

Thus, in compulsory education classes it has been very common to see lessons in which the teacher recites the names of a series of rivers, names of kings or parts of the body, in the best of cases adding to this bombardment of data an element of musicality to facilitate memorization.

Today, however, many memory researchers and cognitive science researchers in general hold a radically opposite view: that it is much easier for us to memorize the words and phrases that we have memorized. it is much easier for us to memorize things when we integrate them into a narrationsomething that takes place in a given space and time. A way of understanding memory that is based on the way people tended to remember things thousands of years ago.

The memory of the oral tradition

Nowadays, writing and the ease of printing texts mean that practically everyone has an artificial "expansion" of their ability to remember things. Writing is, in practice, the possibility of creating repositories of memories that we can access with relative ease whenever we need to consult certain data. However, the fact that this tool is based on the existence of a certain degree of technology (writing, printing and computers) means that humanity has not always been able to enjoy this second memory made up of sheets of paper and computer systems.

However, many civilizations prospered and attained a very detailed knowledge of the environment in which they lived, and even managed to create very complex laws, norms and systems of values and beliefs that acted as social cohesion. How was it possible for the members of these cultures to memorize this type of information without having constant access to the scriptures? Possibly, this was made possible by oral tradition and mythology.. What was to be memorized was explained in the form of a narrative, something that can be visualized and related to an environment that is easy to remember vividly.

What is the loci method?

The method of loci is a technique to facilitate memorization whose creation is attributed to the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos.

The term "loci", which is Latin for "place", gives a clue as to what this method is; it relates the pieces of information to be memorized to a three-dimensional environment that we can vividly recall and evoke. In this way, the loci method takes advantage of spatial memory to "expand" our entire capacity to remember things in general.

Its regular use does not make our spontaneous memorization better or make us remember many things that we have not even set out to evoke later, but it is a tool that we can use deliberately at specific moments to accumulate a lot of information and not forget it (without the help of writing). Thus, it can be used as an effective study method: it allows us to retain much more information to be retrieved later.

Placing memories in any narrative plot

The fact that by following the method of loci we introduce a notion of space to our memories makes it possible to create narratives that allow us to easily memorize what we want to remember. For example, if we want to memorize the main tasks we have to do during the week, we can create a vivid narrative in which all these elements are present. It doesn't matter if it is totally surrealistic and, in fact, the funnier it is, the better it will be and the easier it will be to remember.. The key is to evoke many details of the space or spaces in which the action takes place, taking into account all the sensations that each moment conveys: touch, smell, colors, etc.

Thus, each piece of information we have to remember will spontaneously lead us to the next one: a mob of people (representing the meeting we have to attend on Monday) chases us through our town square, and we hide from them in an ATM (representing the bank procedures we have to carry out on Wednesday).

In short, the loci method may not give us a supernatural brain, but it is certainly useful in many contexts. Perhaps that is why it is used both by people who want to improve their work performance and by world champions of memorization.