How to Memorize an Entire Chapter from “Moby Dick”: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Some­times, when I can’t sleep, I men­tal­ly revis­it the var­i­ous homes of my child­hood, wan­der­ing from room to room, turn­ing on lights and peer­ing in clos­ets until I conk out. Turns out these imag­i­nary tours are also handy mnemon­ic tools, as Vox’s Dean Peter­son explains above. Hey, that’s good news… isn’t the sub­con­scious rumored to do some heavy lift­ing in terms of pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion?

Peter­son con­quered a self-described bad mem­o­ry, at least tem­porar­i­ly, by traips­ing around his apart­ment, deposit­ing vivid sen­tence-by-sen­tence clues that would even­tu­al­ly help him recite by heart one of his favorite chap­ters in Moby Dick. In truth, he was plant­i­ng these clues in his hip­pocam­pus, the rel­a­tive­ly small struc­ture in the brain that’s a crit­i­cal play­er when it comes to mem­o­ry, includ­ing the spa­tial mem­o­ries that allow us to nav­i­gate famil­iar loca­tions with­out seem­ing to give the mat­ter any thought. What made it stick was pair­ing his every­day coor­di­nates to extra­or­di­nary visu­als.

Chap­ter 37, for those keep­ing track at home, is a mono­logue for Cap­tain Ahab in which he describes him­self as not just mad but “mad­ness mad­dened.” Here’s the first sen­tence: I leave a white and tur­bid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. Not the eas­i­est text for 21st-cen­tu­ry heads to wrap around, though with a lit­tle effort, most of us get the gist. Let’s not get hung up on lit­er­ary inter­pre­ta­tion here, though, folks.

Hav­ing set­tled on his front stoop as the first stop of his mem­o­ry palace Peter­son refrained from pic­tur­ing frothy spume lap­ping at the low­er­most step. Instead he plunked down a funer­al wreath and direc­tor John Waters, pale of suit and cheek, weep­ing. After which Peter­son moved on to the next sen­tence.

There are 38 in all, and after sev­er­al days of prac­tice in which he men­tal­ly walked the image-strewn course of his apart­ment-cum-Mem­o­ry Palace, Peter­son was able to regale his cowork­ers with an off-book recita­tion. The time fac­tor will def­i­nite­ly be a let­down for those hop­ing for a low-com­mit­ment par­ty trick. Peter­son spent three-to-four hours a day pac­ing his spa­tial mem­o­ry, admir­ing the odd­i­ties he him­self had placed there.

The incred­u­lous com­ments from those ques­tion­ing the effi­cien­cy of giv­ing up half a day to mem­o­rize a page and a half are bal­anced by tes­ti­mo­ni­als from those who’ve met with suc­cess, using the Mem­o­ry Palace method to retain vast amounts of data pri­or to an exam. That may, ulti­mate­ly, be a bet­ter use of the Mem­o­ry Palace. Peter­son gets an A for spit­ting out the lines as writ­ten, but his expres­sion is that of an actor audi­tion­ing with mate­r­i­al he has not yet mas­tered. (No shade on Peterson’s act­ing tal­ent or lack thereof—even great actors get this face when their lines are shaky.