Unable to see/imagine pictures

Hi,
I have been interested in all things spiritual, esoteric, occult, magickal.... since i was a boy.

However almost every practice - memory rooms, astral projection, opening 3rd eye, lucid dreaming..... require you to picture 'things' in your mind.
I have never been able to picture anything in my mind - perhaps a nanosecond flash of an impression but that is it.

Does anybody else have this issue? - nobody i have ever spoken with about these things has any issues with it.

Also has anybody found any other techniques that do not require imagining pictures?

My inability to do this has good and bad points:

Upside: I don't get horrendous images flashed back at me if i am thinking of them or people talk about them - i hear people often saying "thanks for the mental image" usually sarcastically

The downside is I cannot picture the things i love

I wonder whether it is a physical anomaly in my brain or perhaps at a very young age somehow i blocked it out?

I suppose as this is ATS I should be claiming it was the govt or aliens though

reply to post by johnb


THIS.. is an egg.

I give it to you.

Can you see it?

reply to post by johnb


Pick up a pencil and paper and draw something. Start simple, like maybe drawing your dream car or boat, (houses are too easy), and move on from there. Don't use the web or tv or magazine to refresh your memory. Just imagine how YOU would want that car to look like.

I don't have the problem all the time, but I have, so I go back to basics. (For me)
I blank my mind. I imagine it is a blackboard, even when I can't "see it". Then I just start with a small horizontal chalk line on the board.

I try to "see" the line, then focus on zooming in, seeing the chalkline imperfections, the dust.
It takes a little bit, in the beginning. But sometimes it is just the simplest things, that can help you "see".

Hope this helps.

reply to post by johnb


You have no memory? If you have any kind of memory, then you can see things in your mind. Like that egg a poster showed you. What would it look like sunny-side up? Laying on the floor? Thrown as far as you can throw it?

If you truly cannot visualize then that is something you should work on as long as it takes. Asking for comments from this community is a great step. Can you access your memories or imagination on other sensory readouts? Remember what the wind feels like, what something (your favorite childhood food) smells like? The touch of your favorite childhood toy? What were your favorite childhood toys and other things (work with those). Can you remember crawling around on all fours and looking at the furniture in the room from that perspective?

Find your favorite childhood toy.

I cannot see your egg unless I can physically see it.

I have tried focusing on candles, imaging a line, dot, circle......

Yes i have memories but it's more like a book than a film if that makes sense - i've had this conversation many times and nobody can make sense of it.
As i said it's like a flash of an impression, fleeting at best.

I have been working on this for almost 40 years ever since 1st reading about it. Probably memory tricks were what got me started but i can't remember for sure.
I can and do imagine but again more like a written story of words not a movie with pictures - make any sense?
I remember both feeling cold in the wind and enjoying the freshness of a cool breeze on a hot day but it's the physical sensation i remember not the where or what was happening.
Never been one for favourites but i vaguely remember losing a soft toy on the farm when i was 4 or 5 - it was small and i think a dog as it was called Dougal (after the dog in Magic Roundabout- memory just popped up) but as to colours pattern i have no memory.

No memory of crawling at all but i have seen many pics of me from being a baby onwards on. Starts with black and white
I can recognise smells and know i have smelt them but i am trying to remember a smell and really struggling - i remember occasions when there would have been a smell -farm, compost sites, bakeries, hospital but not individual instances - do you understand the difference i am trying to make ?

Touch would be the same - i know sandpaper is rough and glass is smooth but again remembering a specific event and feel - no

P.S. Thanks i now realise not only am i internally blind, i am senseless as i am now trying to recall specific memories including sound and i can't do that either.

An example - birth of my 1st son - i was there helping at the action end and i can't picture it, hear his 1st cry, smell the afterbirth or how he felt in my arms moments later - i remember i was amazed, ecstatic, tears in my eyes but i cannot re experience the memory in my mind - i can remember i felt great but not how it was to be feeling that - does that help or explain at all?


edit was grammatical - i'll change them as i notice them

That's interesting, John, I don't believe I ever heard of that before.

reply to post by johnb


Sounds like you did well after just a few minutes of trying. There is a book I'd suggest, but people go nuts about anything to do with the subject so, first of all, I am not a scientologist, at present don't know any scientologists, and I warn people not to join that organization unless they are multi-millionaires (a scientologist and his money are soon parted). That said, Ron Hubbard's book "Self Analysis" is all about happy memory retrieval and a way to do it. Your ability to visualize may be blocked way back in your life, so getting as close to that point (which is why I suggested imagining you are crawling around your first childhood home, looking at stuff, bumping into it, the texture of what's under your hands and legs, etc) as possible may jettison the decision that caused it (unless it is brain chemical in nature, but you don't know for sure). "Self Analysis" just allows a person to dig those up, and to do so in a way that's quite fun.

I haven't put in the hours on the book that I should. My perception teacher said he spent hundreds of hours doing the stuff in the book, one of his early ways of working on himself.

And again, keep well away from scientology, the ones you would meet are programmed to wrangle you in and keep you wrangled (at least that's how it used to be, I haven't even met one of them since the early '90s, and that one just tried to get me into his center to take the communications test - the one they wrangle you with).

johnb

The downside is I cannot picture the things i love

I'm not intending to offend you, but to what I quoted from you I wanted to say: You're just being silly right.

You're probably good as you are. I never try to imagine anything. Why would you do something which goes against your nature?

My words might seem harsh, but what difference does it make when you make an image in your mind of brocolli, or one of golden light encompassing yourself. You need to appreciate images when they come to mind, you don't need to force there being images in it.

My opinion.

Faith without works is dead.

I believe a lot of newagestuff turns you into a lifeless plant.

reply to post by oktopus


i think you miss my point then - i am divorced and no longer live with my sons and my ex makes it very difficult to see them - i cannot picture their faces unless i am looking at one of the many photo's i have of them.

To be able to see in pictures means i could remember much more and store it more efectively as every memory improving technique i have ever come across involves visualisation of some kind.

Also i don't get any images brocolli or golden light so i cannot appreciate them as no images come to my mind.

I cannot see all the beautiful scenes of nature and life I have witnessed from the sea to the tops of mountains, from slums to palaces unless i have an actual picture to physically look at.

Of course i remember being there and that it was beautiful, awe inspiring, humbling as relevant but i cannot recall the sights,smells or sounds to savour again.

Does that help you understand the issue better?

johnb
I have never been able to picture anything in my mind - perhaps a nanosecond flash of an impression but that is it.

That's all you're going to get. You don't see images in your mind the same way you do with your eyes, so don't expect to. Focus on the idea, the totality of it, not the image. If you manage to get any sort of coherent image it will only be a rough facsimile.

I haven't done it in a long time, because I no longer need to, but when I visually map a room with echolocation it looks something like a white mist clinging to the walls. Getting that simple image takes most of my concentration, and the moment I move the cost rises exponentially and the image shatters. Once you get the hang of it you don't really need the visuals though, you just sort of know where the walls are.

reply to post by johnb

Im not really sure I understand what you believe you are not seeing. So, I find it difficult in believing you aren't "seeing" anything-eyes closed. Youre either expecting too much, or don't know what to look for. I think you need to relax perhaps and let the thoughts and images flow.

Stop now. Look across the room. Close your eyes. What did you see in the room? Wall? Colors? Pictures? Furniture? Lamps or daylight? What images do you see when you lay down to sleep? A mistake is in anticipating the "seeing" part. Don't make it more than is it. Keep a journal of things. No matter how insignificant those images may seem at the time.

What we are attempting with Astral Projecting, meditation etc....is to let the images come and go without direction or input from our conscious. Then we try to learn from what comes through.

Im sure you are seeing pictures of some sort or form...Good luck

Wait, I can't either.

what?

I would love to have a TV in my head like I think others have. So I suspect this is your problem too.

I reckon (because I am the same as you, been trying for many years to get images as clear as others say they have) - where was I... oh yes. I reckon that you do see images as I do, but just not as in your face as we think others see them.

When I do a meditation or visualisation, I never see the images as I do a movie, BUT, I have realised that I get the impressions NOT the movies - and thats the difference. Some people like us just dont get movies in their head I am afraid, but we get other impressions and feelings which are our equivalent of what others get. It is just the way we are made.

If I was asked to imagine the colour yellow, I would THINK of the colour yellow and I cannot 'see' it in my head, so I think this is what you are telling us. Is that correct? I might even say the word 'YELLOW' to myself inside my head hoping that it will somehow pop up with a completely yellow screen, but for me, that doesn't happen and saying the word or thinking 'yellow' is the best I am going to get.

If you accept that the mind is a receiver and the brain is the interpreter of those radio waves, then everyone else seems to get an oscilliscope(?) image of the wave, but I just get the raw data not the pictorial representation of it.

Yes, it is extremely frustrating for me even after nearly 40 years, but I have come to realise that I am just not like other people in the way I receive my impressions and it sounds like you are not either.

reply to post by johnb


Johnb, here's a question I don't think was asked and is relevant. Do you dream?

Thanks, this has been an interesting thread.

reply to post by johnb


Are you able to imagine anything else besides images? I notice (via articles of studies that I save) that when one part of the brain is underdeveloped, other brain regions are unusually active. When you use your imagination, can you imagine something via smell, hearing, touch or taste? These are questions you should ask yourself.

Edit: I forgot to add that if you are able to imagine by way of your other senses, then you may be able to further your spiritual progress through those avenues. We may automatically think that imagination is strictly vision, but when people who are born blind dream, do you think that they dream using images? Hint: they don't.

This doesn't appear to be a unique or even uncommon problem. This blog post and accompanying discussion are very interesting: psychsciencenotes.blogspot.co.uk...

reply to post by johnb


I'm starting my path towards enlightenment and I came across this book (which I started using ) which specifically asks you NOT to imagine or visualize anything (he explains in the book that the point is to "see" what's there whenever you "awake" rather than doing so while imaginating thigs, cuz that may lead to madness. The book is called "awakening the third eye" By Samuel Sagan.
Samuel Sagan's Bio
I hope It works for you, I just started reading it two nights ago so I don't know what's gonna happen yet

reply to post by johnb



I can give you a little demo, as one does not need to see, in order to see.

I want you to try and remember back to a nice warm, summer day - Instead of picturing the sun rising, feel the warmth of its rays falling gently on your skin, warming any area that the rays fall upon. Above and around you, hear the noise of the birds, along with the occasional sputter of the neighbor's lawn mower, its engine cutting through the air like a knife. Smell the freshly cut grass, the faint and yet fragrant flowers, and taste the smell of freshly-brewed coffee or tea.

In the above, I walked you through several of your other senses - Visualization is a bit of a misleading term; most people assume you need to create a "picture" when the base idea is to insert yourself into the picture. That means, if you can only "hear", then focus more on creating noise (For example, the surf of the ocean, or wind moving through the trees). If touch is your vision, then try to feel the environment you have created (for example, almost everyone has a memory of what sunlight feels like on your body; same goes for a campfire).

-fossilera

PS: Practice - No one becomes a guru overnight, and those that claim they did are trying to sell you something.

johnb
Hi,
I have been interested in all things spiritual, esoteric, occult, magickal.... since i was a boy.

However almost every practice - memory rooms, astral projection, opening 3rd eye, lucid dreaming..... require you to picture 'things' in your mind.
I have never been able to picture anything in my mind - perhaps a nanosecond flash of an impression but that is it.

Does anybody else have this issue? - nobody i have ever spoken with about these things has any issues with it.

Also has anybody found any other techniques that do not require imagining pictures?

My inability to do this has good and bad points:

Upside: I don't get horrendous images flashed back at me if i am thinking of them or people talk about them - i hear people often saying "thanks for the mental image" usually sarcastically

The downside is I cannot picture the things i love

I wonder whether it is a physical anomaly in my brain or perhaps at a very young age somehow i blocked it out?

I suppose as this is ATS I should be claiming it was the govt or aliens though

I wonder... have you ever attempted to quiet your mind... think of nothing?

Or just be in the moment?

Perhaps I could recommend meditation... Might help ya

reluctant-messenger.com...