The method of loci (loci being Latin for "places") is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and efficiently recall information. The method of loci is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique. Many memory contest champions claim to use this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions' successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more to do with using spatial memory and the use of the method of loci.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci
Correlations have been found between memory and the playing of 3D video games, which also utilize our spatial memory. (Though wandering around in a video game is probably a subpar surrogate for doing the same thing in meatspace.)
https://news.uci.edu/faculty/playing-3-d-video-games-can-boo...
I also recommend this BBC video of a persistence hunter tracking and running down a Kudu, just as an illustration of how walking/running, language/tracking, spatial memory, and planning/creativity are all tied together as a system that was once necessary for our survival:
After months I've been able to recall exact details about the random video I watched by returning to the same place inside the gameworld.
Kinda problematic if I listen to an unnerving passage in a place I enjoy visiting!
Here is an article with a description of the idea and an attempt to explain the mechanism: http://mobile.www.daysyn.com/Wardetal2008.pdf
Maybe related? But I also get the same kind of extra-sensory feeling when I copy data (doubly so if I cut data) -- like my hand is charged with something extra until I "unload it" by pasting the data. This has saved me many times when I get distracted at work mid-task, and before I go copy some new piece of data I can feel that I haven't pasted in the old data and go take care of that first. (I Wonder if anyone has done a study on this, and how many people experience something similar.)
A colleague in my phd program went on the job market this year with research that is related to this, especially to the connection between writing and walking discussed in the final paragraph.
In a nutshell, his theory and experimental evidence suggest that we use the same cognitive mechanisms to process real maps as we do abstract maps. In particular, he shows that we often have mental "landmarks." He focuses on number lines as maps, and suggests that the round numbers behave like landmarks. He shows that all of the known cognitive signatures of the way we process landmarks on, say, a road-trip are present for these abstract landmarks.
He shows the same thing with textures in the context of anchoring and adjusting (we anchor on an initial texture and use it as a cognitive landmark.)
To me, his theory is extremely compelling and explains a lot. It makes sense that our brains, as our environments have become more complex, have adapted to use spatial cognition to process the abstract.
EDIT: Here is a link to his CV: http://marketingphdjobs.org/sites/default/files/Gaurav%20Jai.... The paper I'm talking about is called "Presence of Numerical Landmarks and Their Effects on Judgments." He hasn't posted it on the web, I'll see if I can get a copy from him and post it (if he's ok with me doing so.)