Vox's Dean Peterson Uses Memory Palace to Recite Chapter 37 of Moby Dick

Dean Peterson from Vox tackled his notoriously bad memory by trying out the Memory Palace technique to memorize Chapter 37 of Moby Dick by Herman Melville. He created a mental journey through his apartment, associating each sentence with a vivid image in separate rooms. This chapter includes Captain Ahab’s famous line, calling himself "madness maddened." Over a few days, he spent about three to four hours each day practicing, leveraging his hippocampus and spatial memory. In the end, he was able to recite the 38-sentence chapter to his coworkers. Peterson noted that this method requires a lot of time, which might not appeal to those seeking quick fixes. Joshua Foer's book, Moonwalking With Einstein, elaborates on this technique, which is also discussed in Foer's TED podcast with Adam Grant, and the article mentions its popularity among students preparing for exams. An earlier version of this piece appeared on Open Culture in 2019.