Due to popular request, I thought I'd take some time and answer a few questions I received regarding the creation of a mind palace. This will hopefully be a clear and concise tutorial, but if it isn't to your liking, there are many others out there.

First, it's important to understand that what you put in your mind palace isn't exactly a full memory (unless that works better for you). It's usually made up of multiple triggers. For instance, if I want to remember that I have a dentist appointment at 8:30 AM next Thursday, I'll take care to place a stereotypical dentist on the lawn of my mind palace with the sun already up. That works for me, because I know that I have to see a dentist in the morning, and will then remember it's an 8:30 appointment.

When trying to create an actual mind palace, most people find it easier to start with a single room that they know extremely well, such as a bedroom. I started with the bedroom I grew up in, and then kept adding new rooms until I reached the point I'm at now, and I continue to add more as needed. Always make sure that you truly do know it though. It is possible to create a mind palace that doesn't exist in reality, but is a construct of your imagination. I have many rooms that are rooted in reality, but I do also have rooms that have been created from my imagination.

It's an easy concept, but it does take some time to really figure out what works for you. Some people enjoy "walking" through a palace where all the rooms are interconnected. That's not my case, as I enjoy having rooms that are quite separate. In many cases, the rooms I've dedicated to memory are rooms that I learned the particular fact in. I use this method to more easily remember groups of facts that could otherwise become scrambled if categorized differently. Things like a person's birthday, favorite band, favorite color, sexual preference, etc. are generally things that I keep in the room in which they told me. It's just what works for me. Find what works best for you, stick with it, and always refresh the mind palace. It becomes easier the more you do it.

I was also asked to give some things that I consider a "must have" in any mind palace. This will differ greatly from person to person, but I'll tell you what's in mine. Some of this may get a little personal, but I don't mind sharing. As far as concrete, objective information, I have thousands of facts memorized that range anywhere from which types of cloth are synthetic and which are organic, to the various statistics related to male/female death causes (although those need to be updated because I still have information from 2008). I also have more abstract and personal things in my mind palace. I used to be a person who I didn't like, and I never want to be that person again, so I have a younger version of myself being portrayed as Moriarty in a padded room with shackles. The room and idea did come from a Sherlock episode. I have things I would much rather forget, but I know that I never can, and so they have been organized into my mind palace so that I can remember them without letting them haunt me.

Moving on to less personal things, some of you would like to know how I encode specific types of information (numbers, faces, names, etc). Like I said before, mind palaces, or at least my mind palace, is more about triggers, but it does vary with the information I'm given. Names, faces, and other information about a person are grouped with that person in my mind palace in the room that I acquired the information. If I'm trying to remember something that I read, I'll organize the information in a room that it would make sense to be in. Example, if I want to remember that there are 1,792 steps in the Eiffel Tower, I'll imagine walking up the first four stairs to my mind palace, looking down and reading 1,7,9, and then 2 as I go up. That fact is about stairs, and belong near stairs in my mind palace.

Do I go through every trigger during my walk-through? In a way, yes. I don't take time to really go in depth with every trigger, but I do remember where everything is supposed to be and visualize what they are. The closest comparison I can make is the difference between looking through the pictures of an album, and looking closely at one picture. It's a fairly subtle difference, but it saves time.

My largest asset in creating and maintaining my mind palace, and having sharp observational and deductive skills is my ability to vividly visualize what I'm thinking. I recommend that all of you do whatever you can to improve this in yourselves, to the point where you can actually see what you're imagining.

Hopefully this answered a few questions, but if you guys have anymore I'd love to answer them. It's not every day that I get to share my knowledge about this sort of thing, so I really do enjoy giving advice on this topic. Thank you for the feedback, and I'm sure I'll be writing here again!

I have read some books and this subreddit often, but I can't seem to make many observations on strangers/people that I spend a considerable amount of time with. Please help!

Edit: I greatly appreciate the insight provided by u/Oberan_Swanson and u/the-flying-fin. Thank you! For any others with more, please surprise me!

I know there isn't much activity around here and those are pretty much the only posts keeping this place up, but there are other subs specifically for that, /r/DesktopDetective and /r/RoomDetective.

Is it just me or is anyone else a little annoyed with all the 'Deduce Me' posts??

I don't have an issue with the posts themselves but rather the fact that they are being posted here. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this sub meant to contain posts relevant to the science behind deduction? A place for people to discuss experiments and provide links for us to educate ourselves?

TL;DR - Can we stick to education and experiements in this sub and use /r/roomdetective & /r/DesktopDetective for practice?