Hi Alex,

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Lets move away from an assumption that you need to know how first... wouldn't it make sense to ask is first impression important? Why does the author think yes or not? What creates a good first impression and perhaps what creates a bad one. Does the author offer any suggestions useful to me as to how I might create a good first impression and are there any limits where the suggestion might not work?



I asked "how" first because from my own experience I know that the first impression is important.

Conversing with a book . . . after Matt's suggestion to see it as a conversation with the author I had made a major improvement in understanding PR but in the last two days when I activated books there was always a voice in my head that said: "Conversing with a book? Are you crazy? You can't converse with a book. It's lifeless. Just black ink on paper."

How do I recognize that the author doesn't have the information I want?
If I have to superread the whole book or at least a chapter every time the advantage of PR to conventional reading will become irrelevant.
I read that some experienced PRers are able to ask themselve a question and then their sub-con leads them to exactly the line in the book that answers their question.
But I assume that as long as my mind is not used to PR I won't be able to do this.

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It's not easy to overcome passive reading and then one can overcome it quickly by deliberately being proactive by mind mapping. I always think it's a great idea to mind map the first 12 or so books you use PhotoReading on. Whether for pleasure or studying. It moves the mind to actively thinking about what you want from the book so you can use the information in your life.



You are right.
Basically every step of PR demands you to be active.
I've read that the brain prefers to work in routines as they are known to it and need less energy to process. So it makes it hard to go against the routines, in the case of PR to overcome the learned laziness.

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Just keep working with the book until it gels. I calculate for most average readers working with a 200 to 300 page book need to do no less than 4 20-minute activation layers and possibly as many as 6 or even 8 to get the book to fully gel in the beginning. Work it out, that's about 2 hours 40 minutes. The same book would normally take them 6 to 12 hours.



This is an important point.
Since I read the PR book I am totally impatient. I want to get all the information of a book in 10 to 20 minutes. I completely ignore the fact that, if I read a 300-page book conventionally it takes about 6 hours.
On the other hand for the first three steps of PR I need approximately 15, maybe 20 minutes. Depends on how long I need to relax.

If I add this to your 2 hours 40 minutes I would need only half the time as usually with a much higher comprehension due to the active and purposeful approach to the book.

But going multiple times through a book . . . I know that I will be faster with PR but my mind tells me that I will be slower. It seems that it takes the time I would need to read a book conventionally with the number of activation layers and then comes to the result that I need 6 to 8 times more time to get the information out of the book.
One should think that your brain works for you. It does but sometimes you have to constantly force it to do so.

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So often the beginning PhotoReader short changes themselves by quitting too soon.



I won't. But I have to be more patient.
At the beginning I had the mind-set: "I have read the PR book and now it's my brains job to use the system."

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Yep the first layers don't feel like you're getting much if anything.



Good to know.

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If you search the forum you'll find my experiment where I gave a detailed report of my experience with a number of activation layers. My user name was AlexK.



I'll read it.

I have to thank you again for taking the time and being responsive to my questions. You probably answered questions about every step of PR dozens of times.
I want you to know that I appreciate your effort and patience.

Korsakow