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Lacking the ability to visualize

visualization

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#1 oxiguy

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 01:08 PM


Hi longecity.

 

I have recently discovered that most people can visualize things in their mind. When I close my eyes, I only see the back of my eyelids; I cannot visualize. Just the other day I realized that when people say "imagine if .." they are not talking figuratively. Much more has been written about this here: http://dfan.org/visual.html so for brevity I won't go into more details unless anyone has questions.

 

This discovery explains many things for me, e.g. why I find doing mental math very challenging. I would like to fix this deficiency. I have a plan for this. I will take as many visual-spatial intelligence tests as I can find. I will also take some general IQ tests. Then I will spend a month doing visualization meditation. For 20 minutes per day I will sit and attempt to visualize shapes, manipulate them in my mind and such. I might also practice drawing, and I am open to other ideas. After the month I will re-take the tests and evaluate.

 

I figured bringing the discussion up here might be interesting. There is very little material on the internet about this condition; as far as I can tell there is no widely used scientific term for it. Still I imagine some of you bright people might have plausible explanations.

 

- Can this phenomenon be explained by imbalances in brain chemistry? Or might it be genetic?

- How much do you think this matters for problem solving? To how big a degree do "normal" people use visualization when problem solving?

- Which nootropics might help?

 


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#2 platypus

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 01:19 PM

I can "visualize" but I don't "see" that stuff behind my eyelids. I think you should not try to see the visualized shapes behind your eyelids but just be able to hold the shape in your mind. As an exercise, try to figure out by visualization which way the Earth is spinning by using the fact that for a terrestrial observer sun rises from the east. 



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#3 Metagene

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 01:39 PM



http://discovermagaz...-into-minds-eye
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#4 son of shen nong

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 05:46 PM

You didn't state which type of visualization meditation u wish to pursue.  Have u selected one?  If so, which one is it.

To enhance my visualization skills both while awake in meditation & in the hypnagogic state between wakefulness & sleep, I have used trataka meditation & found it to be a great help.

http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Trāṭaka

 

Altho the first stage of the meditation is prerequisite to some extent, the 2nd stage, is, imo, where your power to vizualize begins to grow.  Focusing on the afterimage, you will find out certain things about how to concentrate so as to fix an image firmly in your minds eye.  A jumpy restless mind will have the afterimage moving around haphazardly as well as changing size & focus.  As your mind quiets down & you relax into your breath & body, the image will stabilize in size & shape.  You might find @ this time that you can also move it around @ will, more to the L if you wish, or a little up & to the right.  This is fun to find out.

 

Morphing the image successfully into something else that you've selected is a little trickier.  This is the stage I'm currently on.

 

You needn't limit yourself to a candle,  a sheet of paper w a geometric shape printed on it works fine as you do need a bit of light to stimulate your retinas optic receptors properly.  Experiment w the size of the object you're concentrating on.  For me, smaller objects seem to work better than larger ones, altho I use both.

 

Last thought; it's kind of like a ganzfeld inside there when you close your eyes.  You can stimulate whatever it is inside your head that makes the image (sorry for the lack of A&P knowledge here) thru willpower alone, but most everybody has to follow the steps in order cultivate the ability to do it while awake.  As far as sleeping & having a nice vivid dream, the ability then comes naturally.



#5 Blackkzeus

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 05:47 PM

Everybody's born with the ability to visualize. You were properly able to visualize as a child but suppressed your visualization abilities due to seeing disturbing images. That's usually the case. You can regain your ability to visualize by image streaming and doing he after image technique. Google them.
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#6 oxiguy

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 08:27 PM

You didn't state which type of visualization meditation u wish to pursue.  Have u selected one?  If so, which one is it.

To enhance my visualization skills both while awake in meditation & in the hypnagogic state between wakefulness & sleep, I have used trataka meditation & found it to be a great help.

http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Trāṭaka

 

 

I didn't decide yet. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Everybody's born with the ability to visualize. You were properly able to visualize as a child but suppressed your visualization abilities due to seeing disturbing images. That's usually the case. You can regain your ability to visualize by image streaming and doing he after image technique. Google them.

 

I don't think this is plausible in my case. I had zero issues in my childhood. Anyway the pointers are appreciated.

 

 

This article is interesting because it confirms my expectations of how others visualize. "We take visual imagination for granted"..



#7 Keizo

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 12:34 AM

I am 2 standard-deviations above norm on spatial reasoning (top 3% or something like that), however I don't "see thing behind my eyelids" so much as the bare essence of said things. I also don't need to close my eyes. And it only is...just enough.

I do think a lot in terms of geometry, or images, however it is very basic bare-bones type stuff that often isn't entirely easy to keep track off (my working memory is extremely mediocre).

 

I have some rare moments now and then where things truly come to life, but that is very rare. And I am really unsure if that much visual vibrancy inside your brain would actually help you think better, unless you want to do something specific.


Edited by Keizo, 30 April 2015 - 12:47 AM.

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#8 fairy

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 08:49 AM

Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be 'true' "picture thinkers". http://goo.gl/kQDtQowiki/vusual_thinking
 
I find the underlined part quite difficult to believe though. How on earth do you exclusively thing in words? I speak with my internal voice almost only when I'm thinking of a song, of what I'm going to write or speak, these sort of situations. Usually I don't even think by means of pictures, it's like I'm not thinking at all. I use images when I daydream, when pictures are tightly tied to places, when I remember real life occurrences, etc... I see them with my mind's eye and certainly they are not clear, although I can see them more clearly during the hypnagogic-hypnpompic state.


Edited by fairy, 30 April 2015 - 08:53 AM.


#9 Keizo

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 11:35 AM

Usually I don't even think by means of pictures, it's like I'm not thinking at all. 

Yes I agree. A lot of my thinking is not apparent to myself. It is sort of like an engine that just rumbles, and perhaps you know the general direction which this engine is working towards, but then eventually it or parts of it gets translated into more explicit forms.


Edited by Keizo, 30 April 2015 - 11:36 AM.

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#10 Area-1255

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Posted 02 May 2015 - 02:04 AM

Pineal gland meditation, detoxification, hormone optimization and dopamine-serotonin reuptake inhibition (but not one or the other, emphasis on dopamine) will help this greatly. 


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#11 Dichotohmy

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Posted 02 May 2015 - 08:00 PM

I used to be able to close my eyes and "imagine," literally visualize things. I've completely lost that ability along the way as just another symptom of cognitive dysfuction, which is just another symptom of something else. I can do arithmetic in my head relatively well, but I also have no ability to visualize functions, 3d shapes, or higher mathematical things in my head. I would bet that "imagine if" has huge implications in one's ability to emphasize with those who can or cannot imagine if.

 

What doesn't make sense is that if I try to take a nap, I 100% of the time can't fall asleep despite sleepiness, but will get a crazy flood of closed eye visuals, 5-10 second bursts of dreaming while still aware of what's happening around me, and other hallucination in stage-1 sleep, so I guess I can say the ability to visualize things is still there, but otherwise lost.

 

 


Edited by Dichotohmy, 02 May 2015 - 08:02 PM.


#12 OneScrewLoose

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Posted 04 May 2015 - 03:16 AM

The best thing that will help with this is meditation. If that is difficult, then look for substances that increase attention and help your meditation. This is something you must simply train your mind to do, and with patience it will happen, guaranteed.


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#13 Blackkzeus

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 01:24 AM

Area 1255 why does dopamine and serotonin reuptake inhibition work?

#14 Area-1255

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 01:39 AM

Area 1255 why does dopamine and serotonin reuptake inhibition work?

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC4001035/

http://psychcentral....ativity/0003505

http://www.psycholog...us-and-madness/

 

Because dopamine is able to empower specific pathways in the mesocortical/limbic areas which influence creativity.

Serotonin..well, think LSD; it's a potent hallucinogen that acts on serotonergic neurons. 

Dopamine influences creative drive and productivity, serotonin makes it more visual and profound.


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#15 VerdeGo

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 03:56 AM

What is the safest (and most effective safest) medication/supplement that works on both dopamine and serotonin without adverse effects, and with very little effect on other brain neurotransmitters or organ systems? I'm asking this out of curiosity. Speaking of amino acids, lysine seems to work on serotonin. Theanine seems to work on GABA and dopamine, though sometimes it can lower serotonin. Phenylalanine works on endorphins and dopamine. And the list goes on, but from my research it's hard to find a naturally occurring  dopaminergic/serotonergic substance that is relatively devoid of adverse or long term reactions. Any ideas? 



#16 Area-1255

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 04:22 AM

What is the safest (and most effective safest) medication/supplement that works on both dopamine and serotonin without adverse effects, and with very little effect on other brain neurotransmitters or organ systems? I'm asking this out of curiosity. Speaking of amino acids, lysine seems to work on serotonin. Theanine seems to work on GABA and dopamine, though sometimes it can lower serotonin. Phenylalanine works on endorphins and dopamine. And the list goes on, but from my research it's hard to find a naturally occurring  dopaminergic/serotonergic substance that is relatively devoid of adverse or long term reactions. Any ideas? 

L-Lysine is a partial serotonin 4A antagonist, that's why it helps irritable bowel syndrome. 

Also helps anxiety by that route...serotonin 4A receptors are tricky, agonizing/activating them results in a cascade of neurotransmitters being released, but it also results in cortisol elevation and gastro-entero symptomology as well as possible tachycardia...prolonged activation of that serotonin receptor can also cause the heart to enlarge and this is hypothesized to be a major reason why anabolic steroids can cause organ enlargement is through indirect serotonin 4A over activation secondary to 1B downregulation(!).

 

@VerdeGo - I would go with KANNA (natural SSRI with PDE4 antagonist properties) +  FLOWERING QUINCE (natural DRI) extract or CATUABA (SEROTONIN-DOPAMINE-REUPTAKE-INHIBITOR) + FLOWERING QUINCE.

 

 

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Dec 23;100(26):15370-5. Epub 2003 Dec 15.

L-Lysine acts like a partial serotonin receptor 4 antagonist and inhibits serotonin-mediated intestinal pathologies and anxiety in rats.
Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a nutritionally essential amino acid, l-lysine, acts like a serotonin receptor 4 (5-HT4) antagonist, and if l-lysine is beneficial in animal models of serotonin (5-HT)-induced anxiety, diarrhea, ileum contractions, and tachycardia and in stress-induced fecal excretion. The radioligand-binding assay was used to test the binding of l-lysine to various 5-HT receptors. The effects of l-lysine on 5-HT-induced contractions of isolated guinea pig ileum were studied in vitro. The effects of oral administration of l-lysine on diarrhea, stress-induced fecal excretion, and 5-HT-induced corticosterone release, tachycardia, and anxiety (an elevated plus maze paradigm) were studied in rats in vivo. l-Lysine (0.8 mmol/dl) inhibited (9.17%) binding of 5-HT to the 5-HT4 receptor, without any effect on 5-HT1A,2A,2B,2C,3 binding. l-Lysine (0.07 and 0.7 mmol/dl) blocked 5-HT-induced contractions of an isolated guinea pig ileum in vitro (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01). Orally applied l-lysine (1 g/kg of body weight) inhibited (P < 0.12) diarrhea triggered by coadministration of restraint stress and 5-hydroxytryptophane (10 mg/kg of body weight), and significantly blocked anxiety induced by the 5-HT4 receptor agonist (3.0 mmol/liter) in rats in vivo. No effects of l-lysine or the 5-HT4 receptor agonist on plasma corticosterone and heart rate were recorded. l-Lysine may be a partial 5-HT4 receptor antagonist and suppresses 5-HT4 receptor-mediated intestinal pathologies and anxiety in rats. An increase in nutritional load of l-lysine might be a useful tool in treating stress-induced anxiety and 5-HT-related diarrhea-type intestinal dysfunctions.

 


Edited by Area-1255, 07 May 2015 - 04:24 AM.

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#17 OneScrewLoose

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 07:16 AM

What is the safest (and most effective safest) medication/supplement that works on both dopamine and serotonin without adverse effects, and with very little effect on other brain neurotransmitters or organ systems? I'm asking this out of curiosity. Speaking of amino acids, lysine seems to work on serotonin. Theanine seems to work on GABA and dopamine, though sometimes it can lower serotonin. Phenylalanine works on endorphins and dopamine. And the list goes on, but from my research it's hard to find a naturally occurring dopaminergic/serotonergic substance that is relatively devoid of adverse or long term reactions. Any ideas?

'Works on serotonin/dopamine' is a very broad thing, as 75% of drugs do that. It, of course, depends on the receptors. Serotonin receptors in particular, have so many different types and an extremely wide variety of effects.

One possible approach you could be interested in might be to increase both Serotonin and Dopamine in a non-stimulant way. You can do this with OTC 5-HTP, L-Dopa, and very importantly, EGCG:

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2916818/
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22107329

EGCG seems to act like a combined version of Carbidopa (an L-Amino Acid Dexcarboxylase Inhibitor, almost always given with L-Dopa), and Entacapone, a COMT-Inhibitor. The LAADI prevents the conversion of L-Dopa to dopamine and 5-HTP to serotonin before it gets to the brain. The COMT Inhibitor extends the effect of L-Dopa in the brain significantly and also prevents unhealthy metabolites. EGCG is about half as potent per dose as Entacapone, which is quite potent or an OTC supplement (IC50 = 174.9(EGCG) 76.8(Entacapone)). The mechanisms and potency of the LAADI is a little more unclear, but it does seem at least somewhat comparable to Carbidopa.

L-Dopa and EGCG or Entacapone/Carbidopa is one of the few ways of increasing dopamine in a non-stimulant way. The only other one I can think of is an MAOI. DAT inhibitors like cocaine and amphetamines cause stimulation with dopamine release, and I don't think we know yet why these two things differ.

Increasing levels of dopamine can decrease serotonin and vice versa, which is why many recommend that one takes L-Tryptophan (the precursor to 5-HTP, btw) or L-Tyrosine (the precursor to L-DOPA), they take them together. together. Serotonin lowers dopamine in the Ventral Tegmental Area (and perhaps the Substantia Nigra), a major pleasure center of the brain, through the 5HT2c receptor. The mechanisms through which dopamine lowers serotonin appears to be more complicated, but there is good evidence that this occurs. A great study:

http://www.gatsby.uc...apers/dkd01.pdf

The reason for 5-HTP and L-Dopa over Tryptophan and Tyrosine is that your body has a mechanism that regulates the conversaion of Tryptophan & Tyrosine to 5-HTP and L-Dopa. Your body does not have a mechanism to regulate the conversion of 5-HTP and L-Dopa to Serotonin and Dopamine. This allows you to increase the respective neurotransmitters simply based on the dose you're taking (and of course, given this, you should be careful with the dosage).

Tell me if you decide to go with it and how it works for you. I take the 5-HTP and L-Dopa because of my Vyvanse. It's a higher dose, and I often feel depleted the next day, especially if I take the full 70mg. This helps a lot in countering that.

Edited by OneScrewLoose, 07 May 2015 - 07:24 AM.

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#18 VerdeGo

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 05:02 PM

Thanks for the info, but it was just a question out of curiosity. I normally don't have an issue with low serotonin, though I've encountered low GABA and low dopamine levels at times. For these I take theanine, calming teas, vitamin B9, etc. 



#19 OneScrewLoose

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 07:59 PM

The effect of theanine on dopamine levels is extremely inconclusive. It doesn't mean it doesn't do anything, but the science is everywhere on it, and I don't like taking things where the mechanism is unclear.

I am not saying that you need more 5HTP. I'm saying that if you take 5-HTP, it will lower DA levels, and some goes for L-Dopa and 5HT levels. So if you take one, say to increase DA levels, you should also take the other, maybe at a lower dose, to balance it out This study is important:

http://www.gatsby.uc...apers/dkd01.pdf


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#20 DonManley

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Posted 08 May 2015 - 12:58 AM

I think one can not lack the ability to visualize, otherwise he would not be able to think or even understand speech. Your brain is able to understand what a pig with wings is or what is it not, despite never seeing one in real life. In communities that use techniques requiring visualization, practitioners usually call "lack of the ability to visualize" as unconscious visualization or rapid visualization. In other words you still do it, but you don't notice or are unaware of it.  I'm not sure whether this is true when it comes to actual neuroscience, but this resonate with my own experience a bit. Anyway, let's try a simple experiment. Think about your house. Pick 10 distinct places in your house than don't look alike. You can just use my places, if you like:

 

  1. Door
  2. Doormat
  3. Mirror
  4. Hanger
  5. Shoes below the hanger
  6. Toilet
  7. Kitchen Table
  8. Kitchen Sink
  9. Fridge
  10. Window in the kitchen

Now the experiment (the example uses the places I have above):

 

  1. Fat Man. Think about a fat hairy naked man rubbing his sweaty manboobs on your front door. "Do have a beer?", he asks, as he burps loudly.
  2. Ants. Think about the doormat. It's covered with giant ants. One ant is so big that it's chewing on a corner of a doormat. You're trying to be careful and not to step on any ants.
  3. Dog. Think about a dog looking at itself in your mirror and saying to you "What are you looking at bro, I need to look pretty to get all the bitches.". It's an extremely furry dog too. It also sniffs the mirror and lick it a couple of time, leaving drool all over it.
  4. Toilet paper. Think about toilet paper on a hanger. Who covered the hanger in toiled paper? Is this a prank? It's all over the clothes, it's everywhere. Perhaps you can wear a toilet paper today? Is this a new fashion?
  5. Blood. Think about shoes below the hanger being covered with blood. You try to put your foot in there and it's soaked in blood, "WHAT THE F..."
  6. Ship. Think about a huge ship suddenly appearing out of a toilet. Water splashes on the floor near. Its sails are so big that they manage to push and drop the toilet paper onto the floor. You just wanted to take a shit and now you have to take a ship.
  7. Baby. Think about the kitchen table. There is newborn baby on your table. Its umbilical cord is still attached and hanging in hair between the table and the floor. The baby is screaming loudly. You think you wouldn't eat a baby, so why is it on your table.
  8. Baboon. Think about the kitchen sink. There is a baboon in there washing its red butt. In fact, there was a dirty plate in your sink. Baboon, picks it up and throws the plate at you, making some primal sounds. Apparently, in some gesture of dominance or pointing out how rude it is to leave your dishes where baboons wash their asses. How rude indeed.
  9. Head. Fridge. You open it and there is a head in there. Its eyes open, it looks at you and whispers, "Help me. So cold. Find my body." But then it starts to chew on your vegetables.
  10. Soccer ball. Think about the window. You try to look outside, but a soccer ball breaks the window and hits you in the head. Glass shatters everywhere. It bounces off your head and gets stuck on a piece of broken glass that is still attached to the frame. It's slowly deflating, making "shhh" sounds as the air inside escapes.

 

Now don't look at the objects that you tried to remember (1: fat man, 2: ants, 3: ..). Only look at the first list, which consists of places / objects in your home. Now, just looking at the first list, try to remember what objects is associated with each place (door: fatman, doormat: ants). With enough practice, you will be able to remember all ten of them, then all hundred and even all thousand, if you want. The only reason you can remember them, is because you were able to visualize this. You can't hold that many objects in your head in the short term memory.

 

You can test that this is about using visual memory, because it will override things. In fact, try to remember all 10-100 things by imagining them in your kitchen sink. You won't be able to. Each thing will override another. But if you imagine 10-100 things each having its own place, then it will be easy. So it's like painting.  You paint one image in one place. If you try to paint several images in the same place, only last one / most vivid one will be visible. Also, to convince yourself that this is visual memory (in case you don't notice how you remember it), you can try to remember 20 car models you know or any other look alike objects, it will be incredibly hard. The more visually distinct the objects are the easier it will be to remember them. If you practice this enough, you will start to understand how you do it, you will start to notice images inside your head.

 

To further explore why this relies on visualization, try to remember objects like "economy", "love", "eternity", "infinity", "friendship". Remembering, friendship as visual object like a dog will be much easier than remembering friendship as an abstract idea.

 

I was into many different things when I was younger, including lucid dreaming. I was also curious about various new-agy material like NLP seminars (I'm not saying any of them were / are scientifically credible) and I never understood what they meant by changing a representation's color to black and white or making the imagine small and distant. Over the years, mnemonics gave me the best idea and control over my own visualization. It's inevitable to start to understand visualization, when you stress your brain to rely on visualization. You perform a task, effectiveness of which directly depends on how well you can imagine something.

 

When people visualize they never really see an image as clearly as the real object (perhaps unless you have a mental disorder).  I think this is what you're confused about . You can't see an imaginary image as real one. Imagination is very fast and dynamic. For me it's hard to hold an image, it constantly changes or moves. It's a bit like a lucid dream. In a lucid dream you can't hold a dream in a stead state. If you have a lucid dream, try to just sit there do nothing and stare at the wall. It won't be static. You'll either wake up or something will change (it's not just my experience, most people claim this to be true). 

 

Anyway, I hope that was helpful. You can do it with many different objects and more places. Try to remove completely sounds and ideas when you associate objects with each other. I cheated a bit when I described you an example of how you can associate them. I used many modalities (auditory: baby was screaming, fat man was burping..; ideas: dog near mirror because it wanted to look good to get bitches, baboon being angry at you for putting your dirty dishes near it). Then, if you're already only in visual modality, you can dial down the intensity of it. I described the baby on a table with the umbilical cord intact. It's even more disturbing that I mentioned eating it. It's on purpose. That is a quite intense experience and hard to forget, if you really think about it. But with more experience, you might realize that you only need to distort one object with another to remember it.

 

In other words, when you see one object it has to contain a part of another object on it. Also association itself happens instantly, you can memorize it in 1-6 seconds. If you do it more than 6 seconds per object, you're probably overdoing it. For example, dog -> mirror. Dog bites the side of the mirror. Earth -> Table. Dirt on the table. The crucial part, in my experience, is that dog is in contact with the mirror and that dirt is in contact with the table. I call it distorting one object with another. E.g. imagine mirror jumping up and down. Then imagine dog biting the right side of the mirror. Then mirror being dirty. All those are distortions of one object, but they can co-exists. As soon as you imagine, e.g., a train smashing the right side of the window, the dog is gone. It's pretty much as erased as if you would press delete on your harddrive, or more accurately, painted something on top of something else. Now there is a train instead. That being said, it does not mean that you actually erased the image from your memory. I personally like to think about it as changing a pointer to another memory (speaking in computer science terms) or having another key or painting something on top of something else. A side of a mirror is key that opens a memory (a dog). Sometimes, you can't quite fit that key, but you try again then it fits and the memory appears. It sometimes opens a whole gestalt, i.e., you can remember how a room smelled like when you imagined a dog biting a mirror, in what place and context you memorized it and whether it was dark outside the window.

 

It's a simple memory palace technique. If you can remember 5 things this way, you can do hundreds of associations with near perfect accuracy. The size does not matter, that's why memory champions can remember thousands of random cards.

 

You can also try chaining objects with each other like fat man -being bitten by-> ants --getting their butts sniffed by-> a dog --being stuck in--> toilet paper -that has -> blood on it -->which has a ship swimming (in the the blood) -> a ship -- has -> a baby captain on it --on baby's shoulder  -- there is --> a baboon who speaks like a parrot --- baboon has a -> head stuck inside its ass -- a head bounces --> soccer ball on its nose --> ∞. Again, to test that this is visual, you can try adding repeated elements to your random chain of objects that you want to associate with each other. Put two baboons in there or four dogs. (ship -> dog -> baboon -> blood -> dog -> watermelon -> baby -> dog).  Things will start to overwrite each other, as surely as if you would try to paint two things over one another. The more you do those exercises, the more visualization intuition you're going to develop. In fact, there might be "aha" moments when you failed to remember something, like "Aha, I failed to memorize this because the dog was not really biting the mirror, it was standing near the mirror, so when I looked just at the mirror trying to remember an associated object, the mirror itself was empty and I failed to see the dog."

 

 

Going a bit off topic, years ago I attempted some interesting experiments with visualization inside a lucid dream. The plan was to use mnemonics inside a lucid dream. I wanted to memorize there a sequence of objects (using a memory palace) and then remember them on waking up. Needless to say, it's quite complicated logistically. I tried it once and I did not succeed, because I was not lucid enough. In other words, something distracted me and I went on doing my usual dream business. Then life happened and I did not have enough time to practice lucid dreaming. But there was still a period where I remember imagining something while standing a room. The room in a dream started to fade out the more I imagined the object. So I used the usual technique of touching everything I can in a dream to make it stable. In that dream I was standing in a kitchen. I was touching and rubbing walls to prevent the dream from fading away , while I was visualizing objects that I tried to remember. Unfortunately, it was long ago and I got distracted pretty quickly, so I don't remember all the details.

 

Now now as I'm older and I have a more scientific mindset, I wonder whether it's actually possible to imagine something inside a dream or whether that will appear as a real object in that dream (I don't remember how my imagination looked there, e.g. if there was a wall behind my imaginary object, or if the imaginary object started to look real as soon as I wished to imagine it). It is an interesting question, in my opinion, as right now I can imagine a banana and quickly focus back on a wall that is in front of me. Banana clearly looks imaginary and the wall is clearly real. But it will be a bit fascinating to see whether the brain will have same two "channels", when something is imagined inside a dream. For somebody who has experience with lucid dreaming, the experiment would be to try to stand in room in a dream and imagine another room as your memory palace and try to remember random objects. Then watch whether you're able to both be in a room in a dream and imagine objects inside your memory palace. The only problem is that with dreams is that you're never really conscious in them and it's hard to determine whether you BELIEVE that you're doing something in there or whether you're actually doing it. You might be thinking that you're imagining something, but in reality there is a "real" object floating in the middle of the room or something like that. That would be easy to test, as the object should be in your memory palace when you wake up and not in the room that you were standing in a dream. I wish I would experiment more with it and actually be able to pay attention to a real dream object (like a wall in a room I'm standing in) behind the imaginary object and be lucid enough to compare that experience to the waking state.

 

If anybody practices lucid dreaming, I think that will be an interesting thing to try.



#21 DonManley

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Posted 08 May 2015 - 01:35 AM

5-10 second bursts of dreaming while still aware of what's happening around me, and other hallucination in stage-1 sleep, so I guess I can say the ability to visualize things is still there, but otherwise lost.

 

Were you able to:

a) Move your body, while hallucinating those objects. If so, how you were sure that this is your real body and not a body in a dream.

b) see your real room while seeing those objects

 

From my experience, if I see an object as "real" I'm already in a dream. I can be very lucid and think "holy shit that this looks so real, I'm totally tripping balls right now", but if I move it will disappear. In other words, I wake up, because moving your real body is synonymous to waking up. If this is true, then it's not really visualizing, it's dreaming. I suspect that visual input is already blocked, i.e., if you open your eyes you won't be able to either see the dream / visualized object or see the real world. Dream states are defined by the lack of input from the real world. If somebody can see the real room and actually visualize an object floating mid air as if it's totally real, then that would be something strange. But I sort of see the what you describe, as I had multiple flashes of images floating mid air with my eyes closed.  They have this feeling that I'm being awake. I usually go into a lucid dream by rolling out of my bed and hitting the floor. And during that time I don't get that feeling that it's a dream. It feels that if I try to roll out now I'll hit the real floor and embarrass myself. I still think that the realness of this is an illusion, that they are dream states (visual input is already blocked) and not something accessible in a waking state without hallucinogenic drugs.


Edited by DonManley, 08 May 2015 - 01:41 AM.


#22 Keizo

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Posted 08 May 2015 - 02:15 AM

PRL-853 increases my ability to visualize (5-10mg), but I don't know if it is more memory related rather than "ability". I.e. I become better at organizing/working/remembering visually, but it doesn't necessarily make it any more complex than usual. This seems to mainly work for 1 day, since tolerance develops.


Edited by Keizo, 08 May 2015 - 02:16 AM.


#23 Hotforpips

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Posted 08 May 2015 - 08:46 PM

This is very interesting, read this and the article link and it rang true.
I have the same inability. When I was about 15 I had a head injury and suffured from a lack of oxygen. I believe this must have damaged some pathways. I remember after the incident flashes in my minds eye and then nothing a kind of black static.
Be following this thread :-)

#24 OneScrewLoose

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Posted 08 May 2015 - 11:57 PM

So, OP, what's your first approach going to be?

1262055260350.jpg


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#25 Godof Smallthings

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Posted 09 May 2015 - 06:48 AM

I recommend reading 'The Mind's Eye' by Oliver Sachs. He goes into some detail exploring visualization ability.

 

Many mental training practices both secular and religious develop the ability to visualize. Also, there does seem to be very wildly varying degrees of this ability. Tesla seems to have had an extremely strong ability to visualize, also Temple Grandin and some other autistic people.


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#26 nightlight

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Posted 09 May 2015 - 04:46 PM

The upside is you can now think more deeply without distraction from shallow imagery. You can still see imagery when you want it, with open eyes i.e. you gained manual control over it, like on/off button for TV. After all, seeing is also imagery constructed by your brain from the electrical pulses sent by your eyes.


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#27 Blackkzeus

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Posted 09 May 2015 - 09:04 PM

I was once like you and in a way I still am. But after a couple months of meditation, doing the after image technique I told you about in my previous post, and trying to visualize random things before I go to bed ( makes you dream more vividly every night for some reason) I now see swirls of light and what I believe to be dull images when I close my eyes. So, whenever I close my eye lids I see swirls of purple and some geometric patterns. I'm not seeing full blown images yet but I will be soon.
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#28 VerdeGo

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Posted 10 May 2015 - 03:51 AM

In the old days of my youth, I used to take dextromethorphan for this very effect. The CEVs were breathless and amazing, but they began to go away after continued use. For some reason, after mowing the lawn on an old tractor, these visualizations would become more intense (of course my brain was in a state of vibration while being on the tractor, and it caused visual space/distance distortions once I put it into neutral).

 

I could close my eyes and literally see another reality, with near crystal clearness, and it was as if I was then experiencing an alternate reality because the visuals were so clear and colorful. I don't know if this relates to your visualization, but I could, for instance, tell myself to show me a beautiful woman, and one would appear before my closed eyelids in near perfect detail, though facial features appeared random. It seemed I could control the type of visualization at any moment, though if I simply viewed them as a spectator, the people in my visuals would continue on with mundane tasks as if I had no control, as if I was simply viewing a person or object from afar, and had no control in their actions.

 

Antihistamines like benadryl also produce this effect some times, but they're usually brief glimpses and not sustained for hours like with dextromethorphan's case. I know dxm affects dopamine and serotonin, but I'm not sure why antihistamines would have this effect. During this time, I also found it easier to visualize colors other people were thinking of, but I'm not sure if it actually increased ESP or if that has anything to do with the same part of the brain as visualization. It would be interesting to see if these substances activated or accessed the same part of the brain that you're manipulating through meditation. 

 

I'd love to achieve this again, but through a natural state.



#29 Keizo

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Posted 10 May 2015 - 04:41 AM

VerdeGo, my experience with 4-HO-MET (psilocin analogue) was also that I to some significant extent could choose which closed-eye-visuals I was seeing.  Very visual drug, though I have not much to compare it to.


Edited by Keizo, 10 May 2015 - 04:42 AM.


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#30 OneScrewLoose

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Posted 12 May 2015 - 08:07 AM

In the old days of my youth, I used to take dextromethorphan for this very effect. The CEVs were breathless and amazing, but they began to go away after continued use. For some reason, after mowing the lawn on an old tractor, these visualizations would become more intense (of course my brain was in a state of vibration while being on the tractor, and it caused visual space/distance distortions once I put it into neutral).

 

I could close my eyes and literally see another reality, with near crystal clearness, and it was as if I was then experiencing an alternate reality because the visuals were so clear and colorful. I don't know if this relates to your visualization, but I could, for instance, tell myself to show me a beautiful woman, and one would appear before my closed eyelids in near perfect detail, though facial features appeared random. It seemed I could control the type of visualization at any moment, though if I simply viewed them as a spectator, the people in my visuals would continue on with mundane tasks as if I had no control, as if I was simply viewing a person or object from afar, and had no control in their actions.

 

Antihistamines like benadryl also produce this effect some times, but they're usually brief glimpses and not sustained for hours like with dextromethorphan's case. I know dxm affects dopamine and serotonin, but I'm not sure why antihistamines would have this effect. During this time, I also found it easier to visualize colors other people were thinking of, but I'm not sure if it actually increased ESP or if that has anything to do with the same part of the brain as visualization. It would be interesting to see if these substances activated or accessed the same part of the brain that you're manipulating through meditation. 

 

I'd love to achieve this again, but through a natural state.

 

DXM brings you to other worlds. Don't ask me how I got to this conclusion, but I found that combining with Lyrica and a little bit of Rhodiola can teleport you into your own memories.

DXM (well, it's metabolite, Dextrorphan) is a potent NMDA antagonist, and therefore a dissociative like Ketamine (also an NMDA antagonist). DXM itself potently prevents serotonin reuptake, so you can't combine it with SRIs or MAOIs, or you risk serotonin syndrome. It is also a strong sigma agonist, but we really don't know much about what that does yet. The metabolite is the hallucinogen though, so DXM is technically a pro-drug. Another pro-drug is heroin. It actually does next to nothing on it's own, but it gets metabolized to super morphine (ironic as it was first sold as a cure for morphine addition, among other things).

The reason Benadryl causes hallucinations (one of the gnarliest and most profound experiences of my life) is not because it's an antihistamine, but rather because of its anticholinergic (specifically anti-muscarinic activity. Drugs that are hallucinogens through an anti-muscarinic mechanism are what we call deliriants. This means they produce hallucinations where you can not tell if they are real or not. So you don't end up in a situation where you're like "man, I'm tripping so hard on this acid, I'm seeing the craziest shit), you believe what you see. Others examples are Belladonna and species of Datura.







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