andrival, thank you for the reminder. I had forgotten I had ever written this post, let alone having responded to it. However, I would first like to address Alex’s latest post, as it is clear we’re not addressing each other’s needs. So, I’ll be going through his comment in detail, and in the process, giving my experience in “imagination” vs “visualization”.
You're trying to see with the third eye?
No, Alex, I’m not trying to “see” with my third eye. I’m just trying to access it, to open it. That’s an entirely different thing.
That's not necessary for visualisation, yes memory is.
I would respectfully disagree with you, Alex. I’ve read enough books; I’ve listened to enough tapes, CDs and radio shows; I’ve watched enough videos to realize that the third eye is the seat of all visualization-type experiences, as well as many other extra-physical experiences.
I’ve heard of too many visual experiences people have had that they had never before experienced; hence, memory had nothing to do with them. Yet, they were highly visual.
Why do you want to take memory out of visualisation? It's a huge part of it. Without memory you cannot begin to visualise.
Memory may have something to do with directed visualization, but not, so far as I’ve been able to tell, with, say, setting up a mental workshop, complete with “guides” who are there visually to help you, to answer questions you give them, to offer advice, to show you things, and so forth.
While I can remember what four walls look like, a desk, a chair, and so forth, all the things necessary to build a mental workshop, I’m not able to make use of them, even by “imagining”.
I’ve tried “imagining” the way Coach Rik suggested, and while I can sort of “imagine” a workshop, I’ve never gotten any benefit out of it. While I can “imagine” (sort of) a “guide”, and I can ask questions of the “guide” until the moon turn into green cheese, I can get nothing out of the “guide”. No acknowledgment of any kind.
So, what good is memory in situations like this? Absolutely none.
I appreciate the time you took, Alex, to respond to me, but it’s clear, at least to me, that we are not on the same page here. While you may have had good experience with memory and visualization, why cannot you accept that I haven’t?
The more you play with memory, remembering dreams replaying past reels of experience the more you tap your visualisation skills.
First of all, I am not able to play with my memory. I barely have one. That means I have to take a different direction.
Secondly, I am not able to play “past reels of experience”. I’m hardly able to remember them, let alone play them back as if I were looking at a video recording. I’ve heard of others who can do exactly that, but I’m not able to.
Third, I’m not able to recall, say, smells or songs or anything out of my past and play them back. For instance, I’m not able to think about my favorite cologne when I was in the Air Force and bring up the smell memory of that cologne.
I can remember a song, but I am not able to hear it in my mind, although I can “imagine” it—but only if I can remember the words and sing it either in my mind or aloud.
No memory at work here, so far as playback goes, only bringing back the fact that I can remember the words (very rarely) and the melody. I’m not able to play back the song in my mind, not as I heard it on the radio way back when. If I can remember a song at all, it’s in my voice, not in the original voice, and without music.
I don't see a white screen, I remember what one looks like. Then I remember a polar bear, wearing a pink bikini with lime green polka dots, dancing on ice followed by a huge rabbit carrying a blue umbrella sliding on it's oversized brown fluffy tail across the ice bowling over the polar bear. The polar bear lands in the overturned umbrella spinning like a top.
I can remember what a white screen looks like, but it doesn’t help me remember one visually when I close my eyes. Total blackness is not a white screen, no matter how well I can remember what one looks like. Black does not equate to white, at least to me.
I can try and “imagine” such a thing you described here, but all I get is black on black “images”, if I can call them that. And I’m using the word “images” really loosely here.
I can sort of “imagine” a polar bear, but only a black polar bear with a black background.
I can try to put a pink bikini on it by mentally forcing the idea onto the black polar bear, but no pink. And I can sort of do the same with the rest of your description, using Coach Rik’s suggestions, but what do I have in the end? Black on black. In other words, nothing.
I have no memory of such a creature, but I tried relying on your memory of such a creature, which I suspect you have none. But you painted a picture and I tried to duplicate it, but all I have in my palette is the color black.
What you're trying to do is see with the eyeballs. Seeing with the minds eye is subtle and you find it by tapping your memory.
First of all, that is not what I am trying to do. If you remember, one of the statements I made earlier is, “I understand visualization is not seen through the physical eyes.”
Secondly, I still have not seen or heard anything that makes sense that describes how a mental memory of something can equate to a visual representation of that memory, let alone how someone can get a visual presentation of something for which he has no memory.
Thirdly, while I believe memory can be an integral part of using the mind’s eye, I have not seen anything to suggest that it is the only way to tap into one’s mind’s eye, other than your saying so.
In my understanding, the mind’s eye, or third eye, or whatever you wish to call it, is the portal, if you will, to putting oneself in touch with the “universe”, so-called. And I suspect there is much more in the universe that can be “seen” that has nothing to do with one’s memory, let alone all the memories on earth. And I’ve heard of many such experiences from the experiencers, and unless they were all lying, memory played no part in their experiences.
And I am not even looking for that, just something simple, like a green tree that is actually green.
Play with image streaming from the Genius Code Course.
No more courses. No more money spent on things that have a 100 percent zero track record. They may work for you and for others, but I have been unable to make any of them work for me.
I’ve worked with several different methods, such as Matrix Energetics, obviously Paraliminals, Quantum Touch, and several others to try and fix whatever’s wrong here, but I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m glad memory has worked for you, but it hasn’t worked for me.
Unfortunately the ability to visualise with clarity you are looking for atrophies in adults to be almost non-existent by the age of 40.
I don’t buy that. If it atrophies at all, it’s because it’s not used, not because it’s just something that happens when one grows older, like wrinkly skin, and that doesn’t have to happen either.
However, in order to atrophy, one must have had it in the first place, and I’ve never had it in the first place to lose.
It can be recovered by playing with memory techniques that require you to recall images.
I’ve read the memory books, tried the suggestions. Parts of the Silva Method and the various memory books rely heavily upon this technique. However, I wasn’t able to remember the memory pegs. Some of them, but not all.
Anything that requires memory to have success has been a bust for me. I had the same problem in school where the more I had to memorize, the worse my grades got.
Image streaming is also a good way.
I don’t know what this is. Given that, I must say that my memory doesn’t stream very well, I’m afraid.
The fact is it's not a skill we are without it's one we don't recognise because we judge, jump to the first answers.
I believe that it’s a skill that everyone has; I just haven’t been able to find it. And it’s an assumption on your part, if you are insinuating that I am judging, jumping “to the first answers.” I’m not even sure what you mean by this, except that you’re assuming that I do this.
As I’ve said, I’m not uneducated in these matters. I’m highly read, if you throw in audios and visuals. I assure you that I am not jumping “to the first answers” in all this material.
Tap your memory if you want to build your visualisation skills.
Summary: It just doesn’t work that way for me.
Now, to get onto the “imagination” idea of Coach Rik.
As it turns out, I think I’ve already addressed much of this imagination issue in the above remarks to Alex. I can only add this:
If all I can imagine is blackness in a background of blackness, what have I got, really? If you wish to call this visualization, fine. But it’s totally useless to me. And this has been my experience for years on end.
I can imagine an apple, say, but I cannot imagine a red apple, or any other color, for that matter. I can imagine the softball-sized hail dents in my metal front door, but I can’t feel the dents with my inner sense of touch. I am out of touch with all my inner senses. Visualization is only one of them.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And it hasn’t gotten any better over the years I have worked at this. So, Coach Rik, I have been using “imagining” for many years, I just haven’t been able to get anywhere with it.
I do not think my expectations are unrealistic, nor do I think my standards are way too high. I just want to experience something visual in my mind, other than blackness. Is that unrealistic or too high an expectation?
By the way, to me, hallucinating is something caused by something external, like drugs or hallucinogens. Visualization isn’t externally caused, it’s internal. And you really don’t want to “experience life like a schizophrenic.” Believe me, you don’t. So, I hope you weren’t serious when you said that.
Thanks for all your suggestions and for taking the time to write them. I’m not trying to be negative or a nay-sayer, but it’s just that I have been trying for decades to access something pretty much everyone else can access.
All I want to do is open my third eye, mind’s eye, or whatever you wish to call it and let happen what will happen. But techniques just do not seem to work. For me.
I constantly listen to binaural beats with music, isochronic beats with music, have watched all the open-the-third-eye videos on youtube, listened to Paraliminals, hypnosis audios, used light and sound technology, all on a very consistent basis.
Nothing seems to work or want to change. So, maybe it’s all in my mind after all.
