Last time I looked I was and still am definitely female. And you made my point perfectly. You used your memory and to compare my "talk".
Alex: Okay, I think I've landed on the ground now. Sorry for the misgenderizing. Obviously, the odds weren't with me.
And sorry for the griping and complaining. Point taken. I did use my memory.
You say you've never experienced visualisation or seeing with the third eye. Rest assured visualising, seeing with the third eye and lucid dreams are all different mental constructs and they do look different.
Okay, this is even more confusing to me. I understand about lucid dreams, as I've had three, two of them lasting about one second.
You say visualizing is nothing more than memory. I haven't totally bought into that, but I'm open to the potential fact that I may actually be wrong. Heaven forbid that that could happen.
This leaves us with the third eye business. Is this where inspirations come from, like Einstein's E=MC2? I hear all the time people having things "come to them" in their minds, often with very visual effects—things they've never seen nor known before.
I read or heard the Bee Gees discuss song writing one time and the twins said they often would see lyrics appear to them visually in their minds at the same time! Both visualizing/seeing/whatever at the same time. Where does that come from?
Visualisation can best be described as trying to see through a dirty window. Yep you see blackness but still remember your way to the office. Men are particularly good at looking at a map and knowing which way to go. Like it or not it takes visualisation skills to do that.
This is the part that confuses me. Even people I know who visually visualize do not "see" anything, except what's in front of them, when they are going to their offices. My understanding is that, through repetition, it becomes "hard wired" into them.
It's like driving "in the zone" and not realizing you have just gone ten miles without being aware of it. I know, you say that's visualizing, but I say it's hard-wired rote memorization.
It may be that I'm just stuck on words, but, hey, I'm a guy and guys do that sort of thing with a fair amount of regularity.
It works from memory. What you remember what you've experienced. Nothing new has ever been imagined it's all been created before by building with memory.
The Bee Gees description of their song-writing would tend to disagree with you on that last point. If I remember correctly, the Silva Mind Method (SMM) differentiates visualization from imagination.
Hmmm. I'm going to stab myself in the foot by bringing this up. But, now that I do recall, SMM said that visualization is based on memory. However, that imagination was something else, more like the Bee Gees's experience.
I'll have to do some more thinking here, it's plain to see. Even if it's so, so many people can remember with visual acuity, as well as remember/visualize smells, sounds, feelings, etc., none of which I can do.
So, if visualization is seeing into blackness/dirty window, why can others "see" so clearly, with no blackness? And why can't I do the same?
I've really been working at this since the last time I ranted, and I think I'm making some progress. There have been times, say, when I've thought of someone and, without actually "seeing" anything, I sort of get a dirty-widow image of that person, but it's in a place I can't seem to access, in order for me to make the image clearer or larger, for instance.
It's really hard to explain because I've spent so much time and energy complaining about just seeing black, which is what I see when this sort of thing happens on rare occasions.
I couldn't actually describe what that vague image looks like because I'm not able to tune into it. But if this is what you say is visualization, then I guess I'm making progress, eh? Even in this posting.
You say you recognise images against blackness... why do you choose to make that form of visualisation wrong?
I'm not sure what you are asking. Whatever image I "see" isn't against black; it's out there somewhere else, where I'm not able to tune into it. It's separate from the blackness, which is still there. Again, it's kind of hard to describe, not being over-experienced in this.
One oft overlooked thing when it comes to proper visualisation is to use all your senses, hear, see, smell, feel and touch with your imagination. Create with your remembered experiences.
As I mentioned, I'm unable to do this. And again, according to the Silva class I took, imagination is different from visualization.
And the original thread was is "Visualization is necessary, but I'm told it isn't" It isn't necessary for Paraliminals. It isn't necessary to succeed with the Silva Method, not in the way you think.
Yes, but something was necessary for the Silva Method to succeed. One of the exercises was getting relaxed, then imagining you are slowly floating upward, through the roof, and out of the house. Others were able to do this, but I was not.
I'm suspecting this had nothing to do with visualization but having some kind of ability to cast about one's consciousness outside of the body, yet being different from an out-of-body experience. Whatever it is, I didn't/don't have that ability, and it's not been for lack of effort.
To succeed you take your memory against the blackness because if you can name it you have to visualise it. If you can name an apple red or green and know there is a difference you are visualising it against the blackness.
Which doesn't really amount to much. So, say I visualize, per you and Silva, a red apple against, not just a wall, but total blackness, the image of the red apple is lost in the blackness. So, what good does it do?
I guess it's a start to pretend something is there, for if it is or isn't, the result is the same. Nothing discernible.
And what I have actually "imaged" or visualized, you are wont to say (you see, I'm still not totally wanting to give up on years of programming), however briefly, and however unclearly, and however unmanipulatable, it's at least a start.
But I'd still like to do the mental mirror and other exercises I learned in the Silva class, which means "imagining" a blue-framed mirror, putting something in it, changing it to a white-framed mirror and putting something else in it, moving one mirror off to the right, or something.
If I ever get to that point, I'll have to go back and review the class.
One other thing, in Matrix Energetics, and other energy modalities, you're asked to imagine a pond and drop a rock into it, the rock representing whatever, and watching the ripples go out, and letting go.
Here's the thing. I can sort of pretend I see a pond, then sort of pretend I'm dropping a rock, and I'm even able to sort of pretend I'm seeing ripples going out. Rather I can sort of pretend to see the ripples, but they never move unless I forcefully move them with my mind.
It's like pretending I'm throwing a ball in my mind. I can go through all the mental motions, but unless my mind actively makes the ball move, the ball won't move.
In other words, I can start something, but it won't go on its own. I'm not sure what is required to have things "go it alone" without my having to mentally "push" it along.
So, what I have just described, it would seem, is the process of visualization, as described by you and Silva. But this pretending I'm talking about isn't the same as those images I talked about earlier. Not even close.
So, there's something different going on between these two examples (meaning the earlier one and these last two or whatever), but I don't know what it is.
All I know is that if I am indeed visualizing, by the things I have described, then how does it come to the forefront where I can see, smell, hear clearly those memory-like things?
I've gotten back to reading "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain and taking copious notes. While I have a hard time developing new habits, her suggested use of affirmations have taken root in me. I have a list of twenty-six of them, based on ones she had in her book, but I made them my own, and I've been writing them out every day for just over a month now. None of them are about visualization, nor any of the other "seeing" ways discussed here.
You're much more patient than I deserve, and this is a long one, but, well, there it is. Peace.
