![]() Special Insert Back-Up Procedures Page 1 of 2
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Back-Up Procedures For years it was cited as "a scientific fact" that one American in three is unable to "get pictures," to visualize. In our experience, not one person out of thousands has been able to get through the following "back-up" procedures without getting pictures in his or her mind's eye and thus begin to harvest the benefits of visual thinking. And: oh, yes this writer was one of those who "absolutely can't visualize" until, by dint of methods much harder to use than those here, he finally became able to "get pictures in his mind's eye" and to start thinking visually. He found visual thinking so very, very useful, that he began teaching it to others initially by methods similar to the ones he had been taught by, only those didn't work for a lot of people. Consulting his own visual thinking for guidance how to enable this person or that one to begin getting visual imagery, one method after another literally taught itself to this writer. One of the first remains one of the strongest, the "Helper Technique" version of Image-Streaming.
Normally, it's preferred that you simply close eyes and begin noticing and describing whatever images happen to be there. Imagery is going on there all the time, an ongoing commentary on everything. For some of us, though, that natural, ongoing process is far enough unconscious that this "Helper Technique" may be needed Though that imagery goes on all the time, some images come through a little more strongly than do others, and while this is happening, you automatically make little responses which are visible to outside observers. These little responses are "attention cues" because you make these responses when you start to give attention to some stimulus. A partner observing these cues can, whenever they happen, gently ask, "What was in your awareness just then?" until the one who was asked, realizes s/he was seeing something just then, and thus begin the flow of description from that point. Here are ways to make two of these attention cues highly visible and obvious enough that an untrained observer can spot them and appropriately ask you that question
Meanwhile, if the one who is to Image-Stream notices any images happening, go ahead and start describing them anyway, instead of waiting for your partner to ask you what was in your awareness just then. Once anything at all is spotted, the would-be Image-Streamer is to describe the dickens out of it in as much detail as possible, even forcing some made-up detail if need be, to get the flow started. (Spotter asks no more questions unless flow falters, in order not to slow the flow or interrupt it.) More, much more imagery will come and, after awhile, the Image-Streamer can truly begin enjoying functioning as an accurate reporter of increasingly meaningful and intriguing internal event perceptions. This spotting and identifying of attention cues is the preferred way to get Image-Streaming started if you weren't able to simply look in and self-start as above. However, with so many other back-up techniques available: if 10 minutes' try of such closed-eyes breathing and cue reinforcing does not bring about the sought-for perceptions and experience of "pix," switch to one of the following alternative methods. In each of these procedures hereafter, we will refer to the person seeking to see images as the Image-Streamer, and the listening partner as Listener. Once both of you get images going you can both play both roles simultaneously, one of you describing until you have to pause for breath, the other then rushing in with some description of his/her own images and vice versa, to get a lot of viewing and describing into the available time. Some of the following, including # 2, "After Image" next below, can be done by just the Image-Streamer working alone with a tape recorder.
Unreinforced after-images last only a few seconds. Reinforced by attention and description, your after-image can last long minutes we've found experimentally some which lasted 4 hours! If yours fades out after a few moments, recharge on the light again and resume describing. At some point in that process of examining and describing your after-images, you may notice experiencing some other kinds of image, whether just trace impressions or a momentary eye, face, landscape, vase or whatever. It's those other kinds of image which we're hoping to get to and describe in this experience, so please notice when this happens, and switch to describing that new image in present tense, as if you were still looking at it even if it were only a momentary glimpse that you caught. With sufficiently forceful and detailed sustained flow of description, more images will come. Again, if 10-20 minutes' sustained effort with After-Image did not lead you to more interesting images, try another procedure. The same for any of these procedures. No one has "run the gauntlet" of these several various procedures without getting pictures in their mind's eye with which to begin visual thinking. Once you have a procedure productive for you, practice the imagery-and-describing as such. After getting started, do not try out all the other back-up procedures since that would slow down your more essential practice, unless you plan to teach visual thinking to others and so wish to familiarize yourself with all the techniques for getting people started into imagery. What matters is the Image-Streaming itself, not how you got it started.
If, after 10-20 minutes of reporting blobs of color, this has not led to any other kind of imagery that you've noticed, you can, with eyes kept closed:
The next two procedures become deeply enough introspective that it's easy to nod off the reason Einstein kept a rock in either hand so for these two we strongly recommend using a live partner as listener and "spotter." Another reason for using a live partner with either or both of these is that we will be using again those "attention cues" from "the Helper Technique" The instructions for these next two procedures are worded for the use of your listener/spotter partner to follow in working with you as the intended Image-Streamer.
Keep encouraging description until it is flowing, even if it has to be from word-memories or make-believe and not pictures, until images are in fact flowing. Once description is flowing, "get out of the way of the flow" by not interrupting with questions or with any encouragement more involved than a lightly positive "um-hm." The flow of description will bring flow of pictures, sooner or later, if that description is in richly textured detail, sustained without interruption or lapse or much repetition, and if the describer keeps eyes closed to see more freely.
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