Method of Loci and Lucid Dreaming

**TheCosmicOctopus** · 07-21-2008 12:57 AM

Okay so this may seem like an odd question. Is anyone familiar with the Method of Loci/ "Memory Palace" technique of mnemonics? For those who aren't, it is essentially a technique in which one composes mental 'pictures' to aid in remembering. The images are placed along a path or road or such that is very familiar to the person. Alternatively, an elaborate 'memory palace' can be constructed where each step of the mnemonic series is placed in a specific location. That may not be a good explanantion, but Wikipedia has a pretty good article about it-(Link).

Anyway, so obviously when attempting MILD, it is important for the stimulus to 'remember' that you are dream to come from internal prompting. But if you are using a technique like the method of loci to keep track of dream signs and such, would this skew your ability to remember to do reality checks in a LD?

Also, having a memory palace or path involves what I think is high visualization ability. Am I correct in assuming that the ability to recall the path through a building with vivid detail and 'summon' it before the mind's eye is the same as visualization? In that case, can this technique have any use for attaining LDs?

**onyxdreamer** · 07-21-2008 01:11 AM

I am familiar with it. I recently read an article on it in either Discover or Scientific American (cant remember

), and I tried practicing it with a string of numbers. One stood for sun , two stood for shoe, three stood for tree and four stood door.

If I wanted to remember the dates 1432, I could visualize myself for example, standing under the sun (1) and then walking to a building with a big, wooden door (four), walking to a tree (3) and thanking it for the sacrifices trees like it make in providing wood for doors, then climbing the tree and finding a shoe (2).

I was supposed to devote more time to it, but I got distracted.

I'm not sure how this would work with lucidity. Doesn't it have to do with order and remembering things in sequence?

How would I use dream signs in an orderly way? Would I remember to check my palms if I see someone flying for example? Maybe pinch my nose if I am swimming? Dreams don't happen in orderly ways most of the time.

I'm curious to see the other responses.

**TheCosmicOctopus** · 07-21-2008 01:17 AM

Well, for me, I use it as a general way of remembering things and visualizing things, not so much as a way to keep an order. I'm a very visual thinker, so it helps me to make 'pictures' in my memory palace to remember passwords, page numbers of important passages, things like that. I'm currently practicing a technique for increasing my ability to associate dream signs with reality checks (taken from LaBerge) and each morning I 'program' the day's targets into a part of my memory palace. It works well and if I miss the stimulus the first time, I almost always get it several more times that day at least. So that is just one application of the technique.

**TheCosmicOctopus** · 07-22-2008 05:47 AM

Sorry to 'bump', as it were, but does anyone else have an ideas?

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