do anyone know some good practices to improve the process of visualizing things? It feels like I “lost” it or it’s kinda blocked due to normal workload-stress and daily life.
If I would blindfold myself I would come perfectly through my appartment without hitting a wall, but only because i “know” where I am, but without images in mind…I can’t even visualize a cup, a rubber or just a simple tv, it just stays black. Or even if I manage to visualise something it is more the far distant… as if I’m watching at myself from a far distance and barely manage to see something.
I’m working on the stress-load part with improving my working balance and leaving stress at work + meditation.
But are there some daily-basis practices out there to deepen thoses blurry, distant images?
You will always visualize black, unless you plan to put in a ton of work. When people talk, visualization in these forums, they roughly visualize. It’s like remembering a room. Your room is still black when you close your eyes. But you know the details as if it’s a memory.
Now, going a step further is possible. To actually see it in your third eye as if it was really there, you need to start really simple. Black ocean with a black sky. All is black.
Imagine a drop of water, try to watch it fall and eventually watch it splash and ripple in the ocean. This may allow you to eventually see the peaks of waves etc. Don’t get carried away.
Another exercise, is to visualize a blue cube. And then a red ball. But while trying to see the red ball, if the blue cube goes away, focus on the blue cube. make it spin.(fyi for some it seems impossible to see color, your brain is capable, its simply untrained). Now to get more you must practice. Imagine a statue with many arms. Meditate, practice, know that statue. Put an item that means something to you in one hand of the statue. And if the statue and item are clear, add another. This could take months fyi. When your up to 20-40 items(one per arm). It is a very meaningful image and can be used for personal growth, and these same techniques will now let you see just about anything in your minds eye, clear, as if it was real. There are Buddhist books that help with this, but thats the basics. Some people prefer to make a small garden. Start with dirt and one plant, and you make it grow, have dancing plants, a floor of gems etc. If you want it bad enough your mind can take over and streamline this process. Calming the mind with Mantra, Yantra, Dance, other body motions, music and then having clear intentions is the most effective imo. From personal experience, the most amazing visualizations that change your life forever, happen when you speak a mantra, and cry out like a baby crying for mamma(thats how bad you need to want it). I once saw myself as an eagle bla bla after smoking a joint. I don’t recommend drugs. It is nothing in comparison to doing it naturally.
I thought to mention the point of chanting a short mantra, dancing, drawing etc is to distract the mind. Or calm the storm so your intentions become pure and focused.
Also, I have never gone as far as using my minds eye for memory sports. It’s more like How you see the room your in when you close your eyes. But its vivid enough, that I recall it as if it was an image. Or at least associate with an area of your brain, that will help with recall because its connected to stuff.
Experiment with any kind of imagery: pleasant, disgusting, exciting, wishful, nightmarish. Sit and think about everything and think in depth by topic or theme of choice: all from memory. The list of mental exercises are vast, so I’m not going to write you one but do sit and think or look at a image or video of anything and imagine more about it. For instance take Star Trek, look at USS Enterprise ship and think who build it, how, what materials where does materials where collected, what kind of problems arise from constructing the first ship capable of tachyon speeds and think anything else that you can about it, take any topic real or fantastical but try without limiting in doing so to think logical, also try to think absurdly as much as you think… create stories. This simple exercise can motivate your thinking and hopefully you can deduce what are you patterns of creative thinking (I know some of mind, to share them may not make any progress come to you or anyone else, tho, I think all of us think very similarly if not in the same way).
It’s also good to take a look at other people’s mnemonics for any type of data and try and figure why they come about those instead of anything else, also try to come up with a mnemonic image not necessarily to memorize the target idea, but for creativity arising purposes. Creativity is a type of imagination that does not focus on accurate recall of known ideas/images but the twisting, mixing and repurposing of known or remembered ideas. Creativity is the innovation that happens in the mind.