Locked Out of the Memory Palace

Have you tried connecting memories with story-telling in your head? I have aphantasia too. I once did a little experiment to memorize the digits of numbers, which is really hard for me. Even 6 digits is very hard. What I did was I made up words for each number from 0 to 9
0 .. frog
1 .. house
2 .. garden
This is just a random example of words to illustrate what I am doing.. you can find better words yourself I am sure. I believe the more extraordinary the words, the easier to remember in your story. Example:
0 .. talking frog
1 .. burning house
2 .. blue garden
Then you start connecting the numbers into a story that you invent on the fly while reading the number.
There was once a talking frog that lived in a blue garden. That blue garden was in front of the burning house where a lot of talking frogs where living.
Aaand you just remembered the number 02210. These stories get easier to remember if you have more than 3 different types of digits 😉
Funny thing.. you will probably still remember that number tomorrow while any other random number in your head would long be gone. I was able to remember 20 digit numbers like that without much practise.

I’m afraid not – I don’t have a reliable system. But very much emphasise with the ineffectiveness of using anything like the visualisation/memory tricks you see people doing on TV/in books etc. 

However, autism has gifted me with an excellent long term thing for some things (but not others – and I have little control over what sticks) but a poor short-term/working memory…which presents a combined interesting set of challenges! What I have found helps with memory is effectively practical use/memory muscle but it has to be tangle – so writing/typing/seeing in the real world…it doesn’t work with just repeating in head.

I struggle even with remembering six digits; it only works if I break up into memorable 2 x 3 or 3 x 2 patterns (really annoying in a world of mass conference calls).   I’ll remember those eventually I use twice a day but not a ‘new number’ I might only use once a week.  But, 25 years later I can still remember the odds of winning a six ball lottery draw using 1 – 49 (GCSE coursework subject in mid 90s…) – 13,983,816 *sighs* 

Good news! I have been trying to figure out how to utilize the memory palace for some time (I also have aphantasia), but I realized a while ago that the memory palace is not all about the mind’s eye. Little did I know, I had been using part of the memory palace technique all along. The main two components of building a palace are visual and spatial memory. Like all of you with aphantasia, my visual memory is about as useful as someone with severe dementia, who’s also blind. However, I have been coming to realize just how much my spatial memory has compensated for this fact. Recently I memorized the first 100 digits of pi… in about a week. Once I got going, it was quite easy. But how could I do it without using my visual memory as the memory palace seems to require? I arranged them in a few dull lines and began memorizing them in groups of 7. The first few became instinctual, but as I continued they became terribly hard to remember. But thats when spatial memory came in. I had, without knowing it, created instant connections between the numbers (their vibes, if you will) and their proper places. The sequence 8841971 vaguely reminded me of a Starbucks (it was founded in 1971 and 884 reminds me of double doors) and the Starbucks sequence belonged in the upper right side of the first long row. I couldn’t help but remember them. So in the end, loose connections with letters/sequences and firm connections with time/place made this significantly less challenging than I had suspected. I hope this has been helpful!