Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Photoreading questions... still have doubts

well, i like to discuss books in great details... similies, metaphores, allusions, themes, motifs, etc. I was just wondering if it is possible to get the same out of something like, say, Shakespeare.

Ah, can't help you on that one. I believe that Shakespear must be watched to be appriciated fully. Perhaps it is my prejudice as a drama major.

You have a couple options. One is to PhotoRead the play or sonnet you're after. Another is to PhotoRead the complete works of Shakespear (not too hard to obtain from a library or bookstore), and then regular-read the play or sonnet in question. Another is to PhotoRead just about everything you can find on the play or Sonnet in question, on the time period, supporting texts, etc. For example, PhotoRead Ovid's Metamorphosis and then regular-read a Midsummer Night's Dream. Some people use PhotoReading as a "background process" to regular reading. Regular reading becomes faster, because you have the "essence" of the text in preconscious memory, even if you haven't manually activated it. Another option is to make multiple passes and then do Rapid-Reading to fill in any gaps.

I would also take Zig Ziglar's advice in enrolling in "Automobile University." The time spent driving can also be spent in listening to audio education methods. If you can find a performance of said play on CD or tape (depending on what your car's sound system supports), you can make use of your driving-time. I'm currently listening to muder mysteries, as I find them unreadable yet very listenable.

So far, on the Great Works of Western Literature side of things, I've PhotoRead and activated the Illiad, the Oddessy and the Anead. I've been horidly lazy in regards to my great-books project, but I've been making good use of my time in other areas.

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Originally posted by zebo:
Wow, i learned a lot from what u siad AlexK. I just wanted to know though when u said:

Were you saying that we actually READ for 20 minutes, or activate or photoread?

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Just plain read the book like you usually do with regular reading from cover to cover. Only time yourself to see how far you get.

It's a great way to compare what you get out of a book in an hour straight through reading and how much you have already gotten from another book through the photoreading system.

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elgan_5

You get from a book exactly what you normally look for. The only difference is instead of spending 12 to 15 hours getting that information out of a book you can find it in 3 to 5. Your goals from what you want from a book will still deterimine how much time you want to spend with the book. When you spend 6 hours plus reading a book only to finish and discover the author had disclosed nothing new to you - that's frustration and a waste of time. If you can find this out in 20 minutes you at benefited. If the book contains a lot of useful information that you want to study, naturally you will spend more time with it.

Alex

this clears up alot.

Study? Who study? LOL. Yes, studying is necessary even after learning PR. Balance it out between activation and studying mindmap.

AlexK wrote: "....Sorry about the long post folks if there was an easy way to explain, how easy activation can be, if you would let go of the irrational fear of repeated activation passes and allow yourself to let your first books come together with 2, 4, 6 or even 8 activation passes...."

To be honest, I don't have a problem with or fear for repeated passes at all. In fact I could say I really hate linear reading. I also do believe that going through a book say multiple times, while having set clear goals, allowing yourself limited time per pass, making mind-maps and using good concentration techniques, altogether pay off tremendously, both time-wise as comprehension-wise. Perfectly fits me.

The question that is really bothering me at the moment is why doing this 'photoreading' part of the whole mind reading process. Is this really adding something?

Alex (or anyone else), do you really experience signicant differences in comprehension etc. when simply omitting the actual photoreading step in the whole process? I mean, from your replies you appear to be a very experienced photoreader, meaning that you must excel in each of the PR steps. Have you ever tried (recently) what you would get from a book using all these techniques but without doing the photoreading itself? If so, did it make a great difference?

The standard answer is try your next book without the PR step and see for yourself.

If you've already had a book gel, I don't think you'd be asking.

Shortest answer is YES.

Play with it.

Iam2

How ironic that you should ask that question. I gave this a shot about 5 hours ago and I was asking myself why I did it, now I know.
I regular read the book without photoreading. I went through it in one rapid read 45 minutes (mighty slow). What bothers me is that my memory of it right now... just on 5 hours later is pathetic. I can barely explain the main theme of the book and yet the idea of the book seemed so simple.

Now that was a trip down memory lane. Putting a book down, and not, really knowing the significance of why the Author wrote it.

Given my experience with direct learning. Discovering that I knew stuff that I just Photoread without activating because I was looking for 'other' information. I know the Photofocus step is significant. The real difference is that all the information is in your mind for analysis before the conscious mind starts adding its colours to it.

The significance of photoreading as I have come to understand it and experience it is; when we regular read we continuously link the information to stuff we already know, this slows us down looking for the 'ideal' connection. We also have to guess what comes next so that what follows is connected. It seems to be like a lot of switching back and forth between right brain and left-brain while regular reading. (I came across a study that agreed with this. I've been trying to locate it again.) You do left-brain reading and then switch to right brain search for memory associations and then jump back to reading again.

Regular reading would like washing a potato at the sink (reading) then walking to the kitchen table to peel it(understanding) and then getting up and getting the next potato washing that and taking it to the table and repeating the process till you're done. Compared to washing all the potatoes (photoreading) and taking them all to the kitchen table to peel them(activating).

With photoreading you skip the switching by looking at all the word in photofocus allowing your mind just to read. Then you let it incubate, during this time your mind is connecting the information to your memory. Then you activate the information by some how calling it up to your conscious mind so that it becomes part of your conscious memory.

Re-reading a book usually creates a stronger memory and better understanding the second time around. Well, in a sense, I see the activation process as the same thing. You read the book once (photoread) and when you're activating it you are re-reading it and discovering the connections your mind has already made during incubation. This, to me, also explains why a book is much easier (easier in the sense that its a lot faster) to activate after at least 20 minutes of incubation.

I am sure that one-day science and research will be able to give the correct information as to how and why photoreading works and mine may well be redundant.

Thankfully you don't need to know how an engine works in order to drive a car. There are some steps you follow to get the car moving. Turn the key, put it in gear, step on the gas and turn the wheel in the direction you want to go and away you go. Yes, there are a lot of tricks and quirks drivers discover about driving that makes driving easier and better, for them. In thinking about it, when the car was invented most of the population did stand around looking at it wanting to know how it worked and why it worked before they would try it too.

Alex

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited February 20, 2003).]

Originally posted by elgan_5:
1) Is photoreading less enjoyable compared to normal reading?
not at all. in fact it's more enjoyable because you have a clear overview of the material before you start studying it, not after. that makes all the difference. it's like seeing the forest and the trees instead of choosing one or the other.

2) Are you able to make the same literary connections with your material with photoreading? Not being able to break down sentences word by word must have its disadvantages.
with pr, you break the ideas down, not the sentences per se. once you get into sr/dipping and rapidreading, you do break down words, and they're the right ones

3) Activation just seems too long, and has never seemed to work for me. I have only attempted to activate a half dozen or so, and I still get nothing.
i had this problem myself, so this is what i did:
i took a bunch of books and mmapped them 2 ways without pr'ing them. i call them the toc map, and the index map. toc map is mapping the table of contents. take the most important word (usually a noun) in each chapter heading and underline it. most books have around 12 chapters, so that's 12 words. then turn to the index and find all the keywords with the most page explanations and underline those too. write these down. all this takes roughly 10 minutes if you're slow like me. if you're fast you can do it in around 3 minutes. as an added step, you could take the toc keywords and try to figure out which index keywords go best with which toc keywords, in other words figure out which chapter each idea is described in. all of this without even reading the book. it's surprising that you can do this with some books without even looking at the introduction!
a full activation operates on the same principle, except you do it on deeper levels, for each book section (group of chapters that go together), then each chapter individually, and if you really want to get into it, then each subsection of the chapter and even individual paragraphs.

Could someone describe what it feels like durring spontaneous activation?
never had that happen to me. i wish it would...

i like to discuss books in great details... similies, metaphors, allusions, themes, motifs, etc. I was just wondering if it is possible to get the same out of something like, say, Shakespeare.
you can! paul suggests for fiction where you want to get a general overall understanding that you do a pr followed with a rapidread. for something with as many levels of meaning as shakespeare i'd do 2 rapidreads but that's because i like to take my time my rapidread through ayn rand's the fountainhead is taking forever but that's what i want, the totality of the experience. you're allowed to regular read in pr it's a very flexible system!