What is a memory palace? How to build one with the method of loci

§ 1What a memory palace is

The method of loci (Latin locus, place) uses something memory already does well: remembering places and the way through them. You fix a sequence of places in a familiar building, attach what you want to remember to those places as images, and recall it by walking the route in your imagination.

It works for two reasons. The places are already learned and come in a fixed order, so they act as cues you cannot lose. The images make abstract items concrete, close to what Allan Paivio called dual coding: material held both as words and as images is usually remembered better than words alone.

§ 2Where it comes from: Simonides, Cicero and Quintilian

The founding story is told by Cicero in De Oratore and retold by Quintilian. The poet Simonides of Ceos (about 556–468 BC) was called out of a banquet moments before the roof of the hall collapsed, crushing the guests beyond recognition. Simonides could name them by remembering where each one had been sitting, and concluded that an orderly arrangement of places is the key to memory.

The oldest surviving textbook description is the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, written in Rome in the first century BC. Its rules still hold: use places that differ from one another, neither too dark nor too bright, at moderate distances; mark every fifth place, for example with a golden hand; and make the images active and striking. Quintilian later described the method with the rooms of a house and was candid about its limits (see how to memorize a speech).

§ 3Does it work? What the research says

The method is one of the better-studied memory techniques, although most studies use word lists and recall in order. A 2021 meta-analysis of 13 randomized trials by Twomey and Kroneisen found a medium-to-large benefit (g = 0.65). A larger 2025 review by Ondřej also found a clear benefit for remembering lists in order, while rating the certainty of the evidence as low, so the exact size of the effect is uncertain.

Memory champions are not born with special brains. Maguire and colleagues (2003) found that top competitors did not differ from other people in intellectual ability or brain structure; what set them apart was a spatial strategy, the method of loci. Dresler and colleagues (2017) trained novices for six weeks, in 40 sessions of 30 minutes: their recall of a 72-word list improved far more than in a working-memory training group or a passive control group, and the gain remained four months later.

Two findings help beginners: a simple virtual building studied for a few minutes worked as well as a familiar one (Legge and colleagues, 2012), and the places of your own body worked as well as a route (Kluger and colleagues, 2022).

§ 4How to build your first memory palace

1. Choose a place you can walk through with your eyes closed. Your home is the easiest start.
2. Fix a route. Enter by the front door and always move the same way, for example clockwise through each room.
3. Pick five to ten distinct, well-spaced places along the route: the doormat, the shoe rack, the kitchen counter. Mark every fifth one.
4. Walk the route in your mind, forward and backward, until the places come without effort.
5. Turn each item into a concrete image that interacts with its place: a giant loaf leaning against the door, batteries spilling out of a shoe.
6. Take a short break, then walk the route and say what you see at each place. Walk it backward too.
7. Walk it again the next day and a few days later; spaced walks make it last.

Five places are enough for a first test. Most people recall all five in both directions; that is the moment to build a larger palace.

§ 5Making images that stick

The Ad Herennium recommended images that are unusually beautiful or ugly, comic or stained with blood. Later research is more precise: Wollen and colleagues (1972) found that interaction between the items in an image helped, not bizarreness as such, and McDaniel and Einstein (1986) found that bizarre images help mainly when they stand out among ordinary ones. Aim for a scene where the item does something to the place, add a sound or a smell, and put yourself in it.

§ 6Common mistakes

• Places that look alike, such as four identical chairs.
• Places so close together that the images blur.
• Flat images: a word written on a wall is weaker than an object doing something.
• Never walking the palace again. Without review it fades like any other memory.
• Expecting it to replace understanding. A palace stores items and their order, not explanations.

Reusing a palace is fine: Massen and Vaterrodt-Plünnecke (2006) found no extra interference when places were reused with the method of loci. Let a day pass before you load a palace with a new list.

Questions and answers

Is a memory palace the same as a mind palace?

Yes. “Mind palace” is a popular name for the same technique; in research it is called the method of loci.

How many places should a memory palace have?

Start with five to ten. A small palace you can walk without hesitation is better than a large one you cannot; add places as you need them.

Can I reuse the same palace?

Yes. Reusing places did not cause extra interference in a 2006 study. Many people let a day pass between lists and keep separate palaces for different subjects.

What if I cannot picture things clearly?

You can still use it. In a 2022 study, how vividly people could imagine did not predict how well the method worked for them.

What is a memory palace good for?

Material with an order: lists, the points of a talk, the steps of a procedure, dates and numbers. It does not replace understanding a text.