Hi, everyone.

I'm a brand-new photoreader and am devouring the home study course. Had it for a couple days. I love what it's done for my reading already, and I'm only half way thru the program.

I'm curious what people's experiences are with using the Photoreading Whole Mind System with novels, and also with nonfiction books that have no heads or subheads (like biographies and certain history books).

I haven't tried using PR on the latter (still skill-building on the simple and easy stuff), but I've started to play around with using it on novels.

I happened to have just begun reading an extra-long Star Trek novel when I got the PR course. Last night I decided to preview the novel (learned a surprising amount just from that), then photoread it front and back. Continued regular reading of it today, but it seemed to flow a bit better. Certain passages I had confidence breezing past, for example, and I could take more in with my eyes while I was reading. One scene seemed particularly vivid and clear. Wouldn't you know, Gee, the writer seems to have suddenly improved! ;-) Tonight I photoread it again front and back, and am curious how my reading will go tomorrow.

I wonder what would happen if I photoread it every night before going to bed, then continued my regular (or rapid) reading of it the next day.

I read somewhere else on the boards that you only need to photoread a book once, suggesting there was no value to photoreading it repeatedly. But since I can't really do any activation on the text, I wonder if photoreading it repeatedly will make a difference. I'm also trusting that the incubation I'm doing overnight is working and is worthwhile.

Has anyone else played around with using PR on novels, or history books with no subheads? (I'm anxious to read a biography of Stalin, for example, but with little more than chapter numbers and a time period at the start of each chapter, there's little more to go on with previewing and activation than there is with a novel.)

I'd love to hear about your strategies and experiences. Thanks!

P.S. Also, as soon as I finish photoreading a book, my mind feels "dense." It does feel like I just downloaded a bunch of information into my brain, and the lower half of my brain feels weighted down, and like it's getting busy sorting through it all. It's a great feeling, because it makes me think that something really did happen when I photoread the book. <shrug> Anyone else feel any different immediately after photoreading?

Hi Hotwheels71,

Yeah PhotoReading a book once is more than enough. Having said that there is no hard and fast rule that you should not PhotoRead it more than once. If you think PhtoReading the novel is helping you understand it, go right ahead and do it as many times you like. You are absolutely correct, when you say that with novels there is no activation step. Instead after you have Photoread the novel and incubated it, you go right ahead with Rapid Reading. Remember with Rapid Reading you just start and stop only once at the end of the material.

This is, once again, the approach I will suggest you that you take while PhotoReading History books and biographies. To be honest I didn't have any chance to PhotoRead novels.

I hope I have been of some help to you.

God Bless You.

Kind regards
Vaibhav Sharma

Rapid reading is an activation step It's an optional technique of activation. because in most cases it's the slowest and unnecessary step that drags you back to passive reading especially in the beginning.

Watch your dreams if you decide to PhotoRead exciting novels before bed. You can find the story meshed in with your dreams.

Alex

I have been photoreading biographies lately and a few of them didn't have any subheadings or real chapter titles. In those cases, I've found it useful to extend my previewing just a touch and instead of just looking for key words, I look for key sentences. Trust your brain and let it pick and choose. Flip every twenty or thirty pages, scan the page, and let it pick up a sentence or two that tells you where the person was at that point in their life. I spend literally about four seconds on a page, but it's useful. Previewing is just giving you a map of the territory. The map is not the territory, but it gives you an outline of what to expect next. It gives you a place to start forming and asking questions. Basically, just try to get a feeling for what the time periods meant or what major events were happening, and if you cant figure it out then you have a perfect question to ask. Just ask your unconscious mind to fill in the blank and you'll be surprised by how often it does way more than just fill in the blank.

Best of luck.

I usualy PR the novels then rapid read it, the flow is a lot much better almost like wathching a movie : ), and i understand it better when i PR beforehand.