How the Concept is used in the Episodes
  • The first time Sherlock's Mind Palace is mentioned in an episode is from "The Hounds of Baskerville" where John explains what Sherlock iis doing to Dr. Stapleton: "It's a memory technique. It doesn't have to be an actual place. The way it works, you put information there, and theoretically you'll never forget it, you just have to find your way back to it."
    "So this imaginary place could be anything? A house, a street, whatever?"
    "Yeah."
    "But he said 'palace.' He called it a palace."
    "Yeah well, he would, wouldn't he?"

  • That may be the first time the term is mentioned but in order to pull up into his memory the streets around where they lost the taxi in "A Study in Pink" he would have had to use a Mind Palace to find the information in his head. He couldn't have every street in London at the tip of his mind without having a method to get to the part he wanted at a specific time.

  • Sherlock and real Mind Palaces.

  • How to build a Mind Palace Like Sherlock

  • The following is from Smithsonian.com. and was reprinted on Salon: The Sherlock Holmes of Sherlock, on BBC and PBS has been gifted by his creators with a mnemonic device that helps him find all the information he has collected. The Mind Palace was discovered by the ancient Greeks.

The Concept as it is Used in the Real World
Watch a trained Memory Expert create and use a Memory Palace
"Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything,
Walks us through the process of constructing “memory palaces.” Give it a moment after the Video Starts


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