Thanks Sageous, Robot_Butler, Mancon, Dark_Merlin, Duncan, and great idea demoo!
I read the wiki on The Method of Loci and The Art of Memory. Additionally, I got the book "The Art of Memory" by Frances Yates and read some of Rhetorica ad Herennium (in addition to the quotes from it in Yates'). I highly recommend these to anyone who is interested in a "Memory Libary", in the dream world or not.
Locations and where to store the data
Apparently, it is much better to use things like buildings, houses, and locations as apposed to a library. Quote from Rhetorica ad Herennium:
"He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty (of memory)
must select places and form mental images of the things they wish
to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order
of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of
the things will denote the things themselves, and wr shall employ
the places and images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the
letters written on it."
I was thinking, after reading just the wiki of Art of Memory, to just have a series of hall ways with stands and desks that I could use as locations (loci). I have found that it is better to use much more unique places versus having more simplicity. Quote from "The Art of Memory" by Frances Yates:
"...a building is to be remembered, as spacious and varied a one as possible, the forecourt, the living room, bedrooms, and parlours, not omitting statues and other ornaments with which the rooms are decorated." Continued "Memory loci should not be too much like one another..." Continued "...and not too small for then an arrangement of images will be overcrowded."
Also, for this method to work well we obviously need a great imagination (shows how truly correct Einstein was when he said that imagination is the true sign of intelligence), remember a large number of real places, or both. Quote from "Art of Memory": "If we wish to remember much material we must equip ourselves with a large number of places. It is essential that the places should form a series and must be remembered in their order, so that we can start from any locus in the series and move either backwards or forwards from it."
As Yates says here, order is very important. Simonides realized after the banquet disaster that "...orderly arrangment is essential for good memory."
Quote from "The Art of Memory":
"..for the same set of loci can be used again and again for remembering different material. The images which we have placed on them for remembering one set of things fade and are effaced when we make no further use of them. But the loci remain in the memory and can be used again by placing another set of images for another set of material.
"...it is useful to give each fifth locus some distinguishing mark. We may for example mark the fifth locus with a golden hand, and place in the tenth the image of some acquaintance whose name is Decimus. We can then go on to station other marks on each succeeding fifth locus."
I don't think that this is needed since we can easily create new loci (locations) in our dreams. Although, if we are recording events of the day and need to quickly place such res/items/things a common locus (location) would be good.
I also do not think that deserted loci are needed since we will be creating them in our dreams and we choose if we want DCs in them or not.
Objects and the method to resemble the data
We should use obsurd, very beautiful, funny, or otherwise things that stand out according to the Von Restorff effect and to the auther of Ad Herennium, since these things will stay in memory longer than plain or boring things. Like the example in the Method of Loci article on wikipedia to remember a grocery list, the first being a loaf of bread. Instead of placing a simple loaf of bread in the locus, put maybe a absurdly giant loaf of bread. And instead of simple eggs, put maybe lots of broken and disfigured eggs.
They should not be cluttered or too close together or we may loose data. Of course, as the auther of Ad Herenium pointed out, Metrodorus found three hundred and sixty places in the twelve signs of the Zodiac.
Finally, onto my theory
So after reading through the suggested treatises by Robot_Butler, parts of Ad Herennium, and Yate's work I have concluded that maybe mupltiple cities, as suggested in the Method of Loci article in wikipedia, with different routes and journeys, and maybe some actual, readable books along the way. And each city represent a certian subject or area of study. And then there are the undiscovered cities, which are actually all the data I learned but "forgot". Have a visual map of all the discovered cities and a central city where the current house, similtude to RAM of a computer, that I store the data that I have just learned and may need sorting or just holds temorary data. For example, one city could be the city of dreams where the dream is held in a house or building similar to that of the dream with items all throughout the house. And the central city would have my map and also detailed maps of the other cities. And also of course hold the "RAM" house where, mostly during waking life things that only temporarily need remembered can be placed. Quote from Frances Yates, "...for the same set of loci can be used again and again for remembering different material."
So let me know what you guys think of it. Most of it has already been done, except now we're doing it in our dreams and on a much larger scale!
P.S Sorry for any typos, didn't read down through it over very well..
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