Furthermore, Ive found that if you stare for too long at a very bright object (especially on the computer screen or a light source like a candle) the chances are youll see negative colors. I find it easier to focus in the dark with my eyes closed. I usually spend 10-30 minutes per day. Others can only see grey shades. Persistence is the key. Well later. Aphantasia allows you to view (process?) I have a question, did you have to build a visual library from scratch, or were you able to recall images you have seen in the past? I notice that if I even notice the outside world at all, I am often at a loss of words to describe it. On my phone, I created a folder with a) shapes and b) photos (goal images, landscapes, fruits, symbols, etc.). I dont understand why I have this issue because I know the colors and Im aware how red or blue or any other color looks like. I am in the same boat as Sam H. I began my visualization regime 11 days ago, prompted by your sentence about how most self-help books already assume that you can visualize. Be it a table, desk, chair, shelving or otherwise, ensure what you buy serves its purpose for use. Like a red spoon on a white napkin, or keysor shampoo bottle with contrasting colours. Anyone who follows this guide and learns to visualize things does not have aphantasia; they simply havent been using their ability to visualize. 3. I never realized there were people who couldn't. Ihav been doing this for two years still no images in my mind, Sorry to hear Ed. Always been able to dream now and then. Youre an amazing person. Marko this question is redundant to the reply to the second question I asked you but just wanted to make sure you didnt miss it so here it goes again: Especially effective with remembering vivid dreams with lots of action. The more you dig for details, the ore you magnify the little things, the more clarity youll get as a result. This is perfect as a catnap to recharge your batteries. Hi Leo, I think you can compare the visualization process to something like this: See yourself as a confident, successful person in as much I struggle with it and end up having to open my eyes to get control back of my own mind. Sometimes it doesnt work for me, but other times, never before ~10 min, but once I really zone out, stop TRYING TO SEE like straining my eyeballs, my brain must take over and I can get some shapes and things. Thank you. AND my problem was not only stress which damage hippocampus(neurogenesis,neuroplasticity) not only depession! Hi Arka, I appreciate your comment. So fuc***g unfair matter with my stone brain, visualisation is the best skill that you can have, this skill by image streaming technique can absolutely change your IQ and life. What did your friends wear? What you do is you consciously relax through with preferred method. Never have I referenced an image seen in my minds eye. Go ahead and apply gentle but persistent effort. # In the past Ive seen things and heard things in lucid dreams, but this is the first time I was aware of feeling the texture of something in a dream. And it happened twice during the same night (one with, one off pressure mat)! You could spend your days at leisure, relaxing on the beach, snorkelling, surfing or hiking. I wish there would be an easy hack to improve very quickly but so far I havent found one. Thanks again. Jim Harbaugh dropped out of the running for the Broncos head coaching gig yesterday, ahead of todays interview between Denver and Sean Payton. Basically is takeing the shape of any object I know in the room but I have to turn my head in that direction (keeping my eyes closed + my hand to be sure I do not see anything). So the question is do I try to take in the details of all these moving parts for two static positions of the mug, one upright and the other upside down or one turned one way and then turned the other, memorize those two positions and try to train my brain to do mental rotation or again do you think that once images can be seen in the minds eye that the brain will be able to start rotating those images. I wish you good luck. Now, before we get into the how-to part Lets quickly talk about why you would want to visualize. Marko this question is redundant to the reply I asked based on the answer you gave me to anothe question but just in case my reply gets lost in all the new comments and questions I figured I would post it again. Not very clear but was unexpected. If you really try your hardest to hide the bruises or the swelling from the guards, youre gonna get much respect in that block and it tells everybody that you are not a snitch or a rat. How do you want to apply it? This will help engage the subconscious in your focused effort toward your desired outcome. In the beginning, I mostly stuck visualisation exercises that focus on creating a visual afterimage. Even if you see blackness, or blurry images, keep describing something. # You should do this at least 30 times during one practice session. For this exercise youll need your dearest cellphone and some other phone, such as you home landline. # Give it a try. Ask yourself a few questions about it:Which colors do I see? First of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all these clear steps and the hope you gave me. 1. We need locate that muscle and strengthen it voluntarily. First one Ive had in a few months. Try to continue a botched transformation and repair it into a successful one, like morphing that hexagon into a real circle. Try to imagine what happens when it receives an incoming call from your home line. None of these happened before; not the amount of creativity I felt and neither being lucid. Its in black and white, almost always reversed from the way its supposed to be. I use guided visualization a lot since I find that it helps me the most compared to visualizing all by myself. Hi Alex, 90 % days i think i made 0 progress BUT 6 days ago i had one very strong visualisation day and next day was good too but worse. I recently decided to meditate in order to be less stressed and found that not being able to mentally see images transforms the process into a nightmare. Am on my second day of trying these excersizes the first day i could see absolutely nothing today i can see the shapes contained in a small rectangle in the centre of my closed eyes but very small sized. One has more melonan than another. If you were able to see a horse in your mind, then you have a mind's eye. The more effort you put into it the better youll get. Set the mood straight and turn your lights off, maybe light a candle while youre at it to give it more of a spiritual higher power feeling. Sorry for this long comment, I know youre not my confessor. For a bit of context I do dream in full color and sound, so I feel that I do have at least some capacity for visualization. Is this supposed to be like this? Then, and this is most important, describe out LOUD what you see in as much DETAIL as possible. Dead Sea Mud. When you stare at a color for a length of time, you will see the opposite color when you close your eyes. I started practising yesterday AND I SAW A RED DOT AND I SAW PUPRLE. This has always been a massive mystery to me. Practice. And, I guess, youve already heard people saying, your mental blindness is called aphantasia. As in, can I go from only ever seeing afterimages to being able to conjure up images at will? Are there any small details on it? However, when I turned away this once and opened my eyes and stared at a white wall in my room, I felt like I saw a shadow resembling the flame of the candle, but with no colours. Dont give up, i am prepare for long long time, even year, Marko needed 6 months to be good at it. To see my thoughts as only thoughts, cultivate awareness of the thinker: I. Who or what thoughts (mental objects) appear to, am I (subject). Cultiv What does the environment look like? In addition I also tried to visualize and memorize hiragana. If you were able to have those skills before you started seeing mental images how did you know you had them. Say, for example, a triangle or a circle.No need to make it perfect. I also purchased the $14 self hypnosis from the link same effect but feels like Im falling asleep (Im not very present in the moment is more like a trance, at some point I dont hear the voice anymore). This is my new toy! Sorry if I sound confusing.. Can you describe it? There are fun water features, plenty of Was there few seconds with my eyes closed and/or open. This is your minds eye at work. Heres a short list what you can do with the power of visualization: In a nutshell, you can apply visualization all areas of your life. I havent felt anything special to say that visualisation works BUT it gets a solid score because I get deeply relaxed every single time. Alternatively, you could book some adventure activities such as a helicopter tour or glass-bottom boat trip. The more the better. You can delve into old memories and over time rediscover lost details or you can use the mechanism of your mind to go into the future (using the principles of Psycho Cybernetics): Rehearsing a future scenario (like a meeting with yours boss, a lovely evening with your loved ones, the ideal golf shot, etc.) Just make sure to relax your eyes and your eyelids when closing them. Finally, and this took me several months, I occasionally got moments of great visual clarity. 1,5 hours a day sounds too much but I noticed that if you trully want it, you dont even think about it. We'll look at each of these in turn. I only mostly get impressions of extremely dim pictures that only lasts like 2 seconds, but I can still use these to do the problem solving technique I am able to do. Ive been working on this for about 5 months now, and am committed to doing this for a year. If you can while youre dreaming, maybe theres some change in consciousness happening, even if it isnt sleep. It was like I had a small TV (1/4th in size) in the corner of my mind. Ive tried for years, but as you said, I havent try hard enough. I couldnt get any image with my eyes shut and at one point I felt like I saw a small pink line, but it was random and it all could have just been my imagination. Note the differences. All I got was afterimages. My current state is extremely accurately described by this quotation: You close your eyes, and all you see is blackness or, at best, you see some blurry shapes.. I mean, neurofeedback is about fine-tuning your brain through electric stimulation and changing unwanted behaviour/thinking, so I dont think it was unreasonable to except SOMETHING. The iMac was on my right side and was most vizible, including some shapes on the screen (my iMac was on, of course). So when i try to think about these experiences i miss a lot of important details, and i have trouble to translate them in words. If I keep looking into the darkness, after a few seconds another after image will appear, though this one has the colors inverted (only light/dark at this point) . # I didnt use a candle Yesterday I used my iMac (youtube was open, no fullscreen) and today my window (natural light). or just think about the colour? The color of these shapes is a little bit greenish but mostly white/light. Does it move, or does it make a sound?Answer these questions internally and in silence. E.g., when you visualize a dice, trace its contours continuously keeping your focus in motion. The keys are persistence and regular exercises. 2) if increase my visualization skills to good/high levels will i have always images and videos in my mind s eye? Read a line and internally replay it on your mental screen. To me, this experience was entirely profound. Every time you close your eyes make sure they are absolutely relaxed. At any rate I was constantly going into lala land as it were while trying to stay awake and I noticed that once I saw a mental image of the picture I was working on manipulating on the computer. Hi Marco. Far from me the idea of being pretentious, I just want to share my story with people and I hope I can be helpful to even one person. It looks just like the candle and Im aware its there, but it fades too quickly to hold onto, sometimes I can barely see it. This is the particular after-image you should try to hold on to. It points upwards. Yes, I think so. To my mind, there are three depths or levels of visualization: Level One - The Mind's Eye. Try to think about nothing for as long as you can until something pops up then bring your attention back to nothing. In some of them, I see only people/objects without a background like are cropped out. The same can happen with our mental eyes. is 15 20 minutes okay? 2) Learn to use your imagination more consciously. Much of the confusion goes from the fact is that when you visualize something, you dont actually SEE it. Please share your thoughts and theories below. So practising visualisation durning brain degeneration and without hormones may be impossible form my experience ;) I do two things, I either stare at the whole image, then close my eyes and try to hold the afterimage as long as possible, or I stare at the hedges until I start seeing shapes (usually faces) and try to hold onto them as long as I can. Do this over and over, and then progress to a wider landscape: everything you can see through your eyes, for example. 6. Thank you again Marko for this article. Do you think I should just give up? Well, in my experience, learning to visualization (from scratch) is not impossible. 12/1/19 Well, my 2019 New Years resolution to learn how to visualize is not looking so good. If you can imagine, control, manipulate things in your way, then thatd might be perfect for you to put it to practice and apply it in a useful way. If you really get bored with any of these exercises, try to get some variation. Just think about the idea of how something would look like. Found a different aphantasia cure? Take it easy and perhaps take one or two days off from exercising just make sure youll continue soon. 3) Learn to use symbols more consciously. I knew were the knob should be, I could visualize how the know was moved (like pulled off and mounted in the correct position), but then everything was deleted and I had the original image. Its like we see the exact colours and stuff after closing the eyelid the same we see through our eyes open ? I thought if I command my mind to see things, she will listen. What is the difference between an afterimage and a mental image? So I was stunned when Ive found out on google what visualization actually is for people. Its generally very simple, but if you cant do it for whatever reason, you may try to move a shape in any direction until it is no longer in the field of view. basically creating a future memory so that youre likey to act as youre used to do (in your mind). I am not giving up but it is possible that some people really cannot visualise? This is what I mean by not controlling images as a child. Its like only one technique is to be practiced in a day or we can do other mentioned ones too ? Despite all this, Ive made no real progress in the last 4 months or so. Then, all of a sudden, one day, I got stunningly crisp and clear images but this lasted only an hour or so. Ive heard of a lot of people getting very relaxed or sleepy when they do visualisation exercises. I will report all progress, now its 2 months 25 days, well see later. Vital key is you keep practicing on a frequent basis. LONDON ART FAIR: The capital's art scene swings into action for the year at the London Art Fair at the Business Design Centre in Islington. I do not remember for how long. Because if I close my eyes all I see is blackness and the focus shift to seeing through the eye instead of recalling image from the mind so is this normal ? Hi William! Many people say that when we are children we can imagine and see things as we want them to be I remember trying to see my future, like all the other girls, but I saw nothing so I believed I will die at a very young age and thats how I explained the impossibility of visualising. Sure, you could! Keen Observation During my research I found out that at least for some people (I didnt really have this issue) common incandescent lights present a huge problem. This is very true. Please dont give up man, I will not stop, i want get better so so much, but its may be impossible. All the exercises here are simply a means to an end to gain more control and clarity over the images you fashion purposefully though willpower. Describe it all as if youd have it right in front of you. While the purpose (and money that went along with it) was for something else, I had hoped to get something out of it that would boost my visualization. Great effort youre putting into it. For some people it appears to be easier. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. One time I could keep the afterimage going for almost a minute. Whatever works best for you Rajan. Next, shut your eyes. Personally, I would affirm to myself the positive outcome of being able to confront the situation and gaining control over ittaking a deep breath, deepening relaxation and trying again. #4 is also good. I cant wait to see (literally) in 7 days how is going to evolve. But Im still discouraged. Wow this REALLY WORKS! Im so happy that I found your explanation and exercises. 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