houseofmartyrdom

[houseofmartyrdom]

Some more detail added to the first two rooms of my mind palace. I want the entrance room to both be a hallway into all the different areas (hence the three doors) as well as a reminder of my values and beliefs. The left wing of the building will include semantic memory (informational) and the right will be episodic (my personal memories). The third door will lead to the enclosed garden, but this will be developed much later.

The image above is a colourised explanation of the table in the middle of the main entrance room. On the table are small symbols to remind me of those values I share with Buddhism, and will act as a reminder. Beside it will also be a decorated tree for Bodhi Day.

This image shows a bigger picture of the rooms, colourised. On the left is the main building, with the lower image showing the door into the next room. Beside it are arrows hung up on the wall, to symbolise a friend of mine that passed away this year. Then, on the right is the second room, which is the first of the right wing. Coming down the stairs, you see directly opposite you three rows of shelves, which are currently empty, but will hold some important memorabilia. To the right of this is a large map of this side of the building, which of course will be added too as more rooms are added. On the other side of the building is a sofa, and then a painting (wheatfield with crows by Vincent van Gogh).

[houseofmartyrdom]

I’ve wanted to create a mind palace for a while, but as someone who has aphantasia, I’m told it’s impossible. However, I feel as though I could create one through drawn images, and access it through conceptualising walking through rather than physically visualising it. I think aphantasia was a blessing for me, however having a mind palace is something I’ve always felt that I’ve missed out on, so I wanted to come up with a way around it. I don’t know how successful it will be, but I’m here to try and document that journey. This is the first quick sketch I did of the entrance:

While in a lecture, I came up with this idea for the entrance room, inspired by the building for the British Museum (which was inspired by The Parthenon). The outside consists of a semi-circle platform surrounded by eight columns in the ionic order. They throw warm light across the ground inwards from the base, adding colour to the beige marble and stone materials. Making your way across this platform, there are two steps up towards the front door which lead to the rectangular room behind it. This is going to be a place of Buddhist worship, but also a hallway into the different rooms of the building.

This of course is only the entrance, and I am posting it to create a journal of adding those extra rooms and extensions onto it, and keep track of what I have built. This is the House of Martyrdom; my mind palace.