John,

Glad to hear about your positive results. This is an interesting development! I found this web site about 5-HTP(near the top of the google search): http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/h...ology/5htp_myth.htm.

It would seem that "just being open and relaxed," as has often been suggested, is part of the key, and this may be helped by drugs.

Perhaps others on the list will comment about other drugs or herbs.

5-HTP definitely helps! While taking 5-HTP, I have finally began to experience some visual imagery. The visual imagery usually occurs while I am beginning to fall asleep, however, I have had some, although vague and fleeting, imagery while conscious. I am excited about this and hope my visual imagery improves. From what I understand, 5-HTP increases the neurotransmitter serotonin. Are there any other neurotransmitters which effects visual recall / visual imagery?

Robb,

Thanks. You have also contributed quite a number of posts and insights here. As for the study, there are a few contacts I can pursue here (near Atlanta) and possibly some in NYC. Pressure to have some kind of official study done has been building for some time, and I probably mentioned before that I might look into it -- but this time, I'll try to look into it in the next week or so.

BTW, yes, people should go for it. But the waters of academe are extremely trecherous. With a total time commitment averaging about 9 years for a Ph.D. and the initial pay usually very low, it has a high cost of entry.

I was fascinated to look back and read Dave's 172 posting; I think it's an excellent insight into the confusion and perculiar problems that non imagers experience on discovering the majority of people experience the world in a fundamentally different way.

My personal experiences are remarkably similar to what Dave talks about with one important difference; I have always been an accomplished artist and regularly draw things from scratch. Friends and colleagues find it difficult to accept that I can create such convincing ilustrations from memory without the aid of mental images.

This has puzzled me, but on analysis, my approach to creating a drawing is more to do with muscle memory, and understanding the shapes that go towards the appearance of something, than working from image memory. I first truely experience the image I'm creating as the marks appear on the page. My approach to creating a piece of art is a scientific one where I understand the elements that go to make a convincing representation of something. I reckon that I would be far more successful as a police artist rather than a witness describing a suspect.

Dave said, "I wonder if perhaps I could shoot for a PhD in Psychology, focusing my efforts on study within this concept". I think you should go for it Dave. All too often I find people seem to be merely humouring me when I explain thatI can't create conscious mental images, but the reality is , out of necessity, a non-imager's perspective on the world and thought processes would seem to be radically different to the majorities.

Tony's excellent thread here has opened up a serious and much welcomed debate, and I would love a clinical study to be undertaken to measure the differences in brain patterns. I'd be willing to contriburte my experiences and, if locality permitted, take part in a few of the studies. Perhaps, if the tests showed any significant results, the rest of the world would take the subject more seriously.

Dave,

Thanks so much for posting this info. I am sure many others will find it useful.

This is on the heel's of Paul's post 213, which also describes how to induce images.

NOTE TO USERS: Dave's previous post appears to be 172. You can use the SHOW ALL button at the bottom and EDIT > SEARCH to find previous posts.

DAVE: Your 172 post is very insightful and, I imagine, quite helpful to non-imagers.

When you say "non-focus" this corresponds exactly to the way Richardson (see my site) describes the way in which spontaneous imagery is generated. Your description of activity (as blocking spontaneous imagery to some extent) also appears to match with the idea that some scientists appear to have little or no imagery.

When you say "choose to see them in a way that visually thinking people take for granted," I believe (speaking for myself) there is a certain amount of choice involved, while some imagery is spontaneous, and other imagery requires effort. Spontaneous includes having "a tune run through your head" or "imagining a pleasant scene at the beach" (aural imagery also counts in widest sense of imagery). Effortful includes "let me see if I can rotate this figure in my head." Some of these include what may be termed "thinking," but this term is controversial in the literature and (as I have pointed out many times) philosophers in general do not accept the idea that one can think (e.g., in the strict sense of the term, as in making deductions) using images. Images are generally understood to be concomitants of thought, but their role is controversial, ranging from epiphenomenal to "symbols and objects in and through which we think" (Price's view). (I lean toward Price's view, the idea that there is a range of applications, according to imagery "types," that generalizations about the role of imagery are difficult -- if not impossible -- to make, and that "imagery" is a question-begging term which often implies that there is linguistic content inherent in the image.) So, while “thinking” captures the way many people feel they use imagery, remembering, imagining, and daydreaming (as you point out in 172) is also very much a part of it -- which I am pretty sure is what you meant by the general term "thinking."

Thanks once again for posting.

freidah, thanks for the update. . .i find your experience very encouraging.

I posted in this thread a while back, and I wanted to include an update.

I have spent a lot of time practicing meditation lately, and have found that visualizations CAN come to me under certain circumstances.

It seems to require complete non-focus in regards to my visual input. Rather ,I place my focus on my "inner body", my sense of "being" (Eckhart Tolle talks a great bit about this concept), and, once having cultivated a relaxed state, images may spontaneously pop into my consciousness.

I do not yet seem to have control over what images pop into my mind, and they vanish as soon as I realize they are there. Like Wily E Coyote running off a cliff, staying in mid air until he realizes he has no ground below him; In this way, I continue to see images until I realize I see images, and then they shut off immediately to be replaced by the visual input of the back of my eyelids.

So it seems when I become consciously aware of my visualization (rather than effortlessly allowing the pictures to flow into my being), my mind becomes overly active, and it brings me out of the prerequisite state of relaxation necessary for the images to occur in the first place.

I hypothesize that if I can get to the point where I do not get excited by the prospect of mental imaging, I may gain some control over them, and an increased degree of conscious awareness of them in day to day life, perhaps to the point that I can choose to see them in such a way that visually thinking people take for granted.

-Dave

Edited by author 06-17-2008 10:59 AM
Robb,

Good points. Another thing: how would you remember the images after hypnosis, and how does the hypnotist verify that you are actually "seeing" images rather than working from verbal descriptions/memories? As I said, it's all very complicated, especially with regard how empiricism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to work. Once again, I am reminded of Wundt and Brentano who expressed skepticism regarding empirical methods despite the fact that they pursued them. In Wundt's case, he actually invented equipment, which I simulated on my site.

If you pursue the hypnotism angle, let us know. You might ask the hypnotist to employ special techniques.

Tony

Hi Tony,

I get the feeling that the majority of us are all potentially capable of some kind of mental-imaging, but in some of us that ability is being comprehensively blocked from reaching our conscious minds. I can create dreams but I can't create cognitive mental images, so I feel there must be mental blockage somewhere. Whether this is hard wired or a reprogrammable error remains to be seen. If it's the latter then Hypnosis could be a fruitful avenue to pursue.

Perhaps some forgotten trauma early in life could have produced an over active self defence reaction to prevent access to re-imaging the event and, subsequently, any further attempt at imaging. If that is the case then I'm hopeful that Hypnosis could release that defensive block. However, there is a catch 22... a lot of hypnotic induction seems to require a degree of mental imaging. Have any non-imagers managed to be successfully hypnotised?