Linda,

Of course you are right. My advice, intended to be helpful, would not apply to such cases. But as I have observed several times, some "non-imagers" are really just "low-imagers," so they may be able to do some of the things I mentioned. Also, there is no harm in trying. Such efforts might even "turn on" the function that is turned off, which is also are reason for suggesting exercises.

For those of us who consider our imagery to be "normal" (whatever that is), I also think visual mental exercises are a good thing.

Thanks again for the reminder about this issue.

Tony

Hi Linda, I can relate to your frustration about not being a visualizer since I am in the same boat. . .There are, however, ways that being an auditory thinker has been more beneficial than not, particularly in my ability to recall the things that I've read and talked about.

I also have an excellent memory for past conversations which sometimes exceeds that of my visualizing friends - at least it does when I pay attention. And the odd thing is, even though my imagal field is a grey screen, I can match a black sweater in the store to a black skirt I have at home despite their being a million shades of black.

I've come to think, considering the last statement about color recognition, that I have something akin to "blindsight" - I don't know I can see, but I do process visual information. What I'm exploring currently in relationship not only to visualizing but to other forms of creativity as well, are practices that are said to balance ones right and left hemispheres - neurolink pro, emotional freedom technique (eft), etc. One thing that stops my inability to visualize as irritating but not devastating, is how interesting I find people's (including my own) it that people's ways of knowing are so different.

ps. You might also want to look at Dawna Marcova's book "The Art of the Possible" which describes different ways of knowing and how to build on them.

Thanks Helen. I am aware that I've developed other cognitive "superpowers" to compensate for my mental blindness, and have been getting a lot of insight into the emotional trauma that occurred to me as a small child that caused my mental vision to shut down. I get aggravated when people like Tony, who has no way of knowing what my cognitive experience is like, insist on either denying my reality altogether, or negating the impact of this limitation. Maybe some people who characterize themselves as non-imagers are actually weak imagers. But that's no reason to respond to all non-imagers as if they were weak imagers. I would be thrilled to experience a weak image mentally -- that would be a life-changing event for me,' it would mean that my mental TV has been turned on, and would provide hope for further mental visual experiences, albeit "weak". Tony has no idea how functional or dysfunctional we non-imagers are. As far as I can figure, tests that evaluate your ability to rotate letters mentally are seriously lacking in the study of visual imagery, because they don't address the most significant uses of visual imagery, nor do they address the implications of mental blindness. The fact that I can't rotate letters mentally has never caused me much grief. The fact that I cannot dredge up any childhood memories, not to mention memories of last week, in an experiential way in my mind, is a problem. How about studying the impact of mental blindness on memory? I would love to see Tony shut off his mental visual imagery 100% for a week, then hear how fully functional he felt in the absence of autobiographical/episodic memories.

I've noticed that most of the posts to this list are from people who describe themselves as non-imagers, and Tony routinely responds to us by telling us that mental blindness is not really any big problem for us, we function so well, and anyhow we really do have mental visuals, we just don't know it, so what's the problem? The reason this list gets so many messages from people who are mentally blind is because our condition has been almost completely ignored by cognitive scientists and neurologists for several decades, and we have nowhere to turn for information and support. Tony, I would suggest that you might study our cogntive functionality instead of dismissing our concerns.

big love to you all
Linda

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:59 PM, QT - Helen A2 <
qtopic-20-Z85yvCpH8FP@quicktopic.com> wrote:

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Linda,

All I can say is that I think you have completely misinterpreted the intent of my posts. Nevertheless, I encourage you and others to express your frustrations and concerns here. As for studying the cognitive functionality of non-imagers (e.g., memory), I have been giving some thought about how best to do that lately. But one method is already being used: people post here and explain how they experience the world. This is the kind of thing I encourage.

Helen,

Thanks for the post. You said:

"I've come to think, considering the last statement about color recognition, that I have something akin to "blindsight" - I don't know I can see, but I do process visual information."

That would be my conclusion as well.

Let us know if anything comes of your exercises regarding creativity and/or visualization. There have been cases of the visual system suddenly changing. For example, color vision has been lost and then suddenly restored. I recently I saw on PBS how nutrition can sometimes restore better functionality to some areas of the brain. This is another avenue to pursue.

I mentioned to John (201 below) that there may be ways to stimulate imagery through "passive attention" or using the imagery-related abilities that you may have, such as the color memory you mentioned. Perhaps you also have a good memory for the size of objects (objects that you have not touched, so the memory is based on visual information)?

Hi.
Indeed, the (almost complete) absence of mental images is something very frustrating for me, too. There are so many useful things which can be done by using them and not only for the usefulness, but for the beauty: ex: the ability to image a beautiful landscape.
The good news for me (at least) is that I am a low imager (perhaps I became like this since last year from non-imager). Unfortunately, the progress is really slow, mostly because of the fear of them (a person who is used with (almost) vivid mental imagery doesn't understand how unusual/strange experience it is (from a non-imager or a very low imager point of view).

I talked on the net with a person who became an imager from non imager, so I believe that is possible. Even Win Wenger (the person who invented the "image-streaming" exercise), say that he was a non-imager, before discovering this mental exercise.

There is anyone here who, like that person, is an "ex-nonimager" ? I would like to talk with him/her (on yahoo messenger).
Also, I would like to talk(on yahoo messenger) with a non-imager who is frustrated because of this and want to become an imager. Please contact me on 'paulgfx' account from yahoo messenger.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks so much for posting this news.

Do you have some specific links or exercises you would like to share? I easily found one description of Win Wenger's technique: http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/Image-Streaming.html
I am sure there are many others. Note that this involves many forms of imagery (sounds, smells, etc.). This fits with the idea that images are essentially complexes and visual images have narrative/verbal component, which is essential to their meaning. This also fits with the idea of "passive attention" to processes already going on in your mind that I mentioned in message 210. Although the process asks you to describe what you "see," I would guess that the point is not to get frustrated if you do not innitally "see" anything and let other modalities/functions work.

Images can be both useful and disturbing -- I quite agree.

If you have anything to suggest in the way of what should be included in a permanent page/link about how to improve imagery capabilities, please post or contact me directly.

Tony

Hi.
1) about image streaming
Since the first time I attempted to do image-streaming exercise, I could describe the internal imagery, even if there was only "knowing". After this, I experienced started to experience some vague mental imagery. The problem is that the fear started to kick in. And this is the most big disadvantage of image-streaming exercise: it's quite sensitive to mental blocks. But, for the one who hasn't this problem, this exercise is a very powerful exercise (I know persons who, in few weeks, with this exercise, enhanced very much the mental imagery; it became (with eyes closed) like real-life). Until I will get used with some mental images and know how be able to relax, I am using other exercises (which are less effective than image streaming, but (I hope) not as sensitive to mental blocks). After I will get used with these, I have the intention to continue with image streaming.

Other important thing about image streaming is that you can start from scratch (i.e. completely mental 'blind') and to become a vivid imager. I talked by mail with a person who was a non imager and since age 39 (because the image streaming) became a visualizer. I believe that there is no "too old" age to start becoming a visualizer, because, anyway, during REM sleep (and not only REM sleep) everybody dreams (at least 1-2 hour a night, even if no dream remembered next day), so the brain does the obligatory imagination exercises :-)

here is more about image streaming:
http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm

here is how to start if you are completely non imager:
http://www.winwenger.com/isbackup.htm

So, now I am doing other things (until I can "return" to image streaming):
1) try to look a bright light and look for after images. I noticed that, sometimes, just before the after-image becomes invisible, I see that it moves (or rotates 3d)
Here is what I found (on a lucid dreaming forum):
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=29491

2) I try to visualize a simple object(eg: scissors). Here is the weird fact about my imagination: it is only 3d (without images). I have success in about 1-2 from 10 tries. How to explain...it's hard, but let's try. Look in front of you and pay attention to the feeling of depth of the objects near you. Now, close one eye (while avoid movement of the head), and you'll see that only remains the image and the feeling of depths dissapears. So, you can consider, in this example, the sight = the image + the depth. Now, image that, because some reason, you will not be able to see any image, but the "depth part" of the sight remains (kind of blind-sight?). You can see an object that it rotates, or moves, but no image. It's not the sense of touch, but the part of the depth from the sense sight.
Now, kind of this is my imagination. The sense of depth is not detailed as the sense of depth from the real sight. But, because the image part is almost non-existent, the imagination is very unstable: I "see" (with only depth) an object, who rotates a fraction of seconds and dissapears completely.
A fun thing that I found about some imagers is they have a image without depth in the head (it's like pictures).

3) I talk very much about the mental imagery (to find out more) :) and to remove the mental blocks. Also, I read a lot of documentation about this: what are the benefits, what are the risks (well, anything in this world has some risks, right? :) ), how to avoid problems (eg. I found out that vivid mental images can relax, remove phobias, but also, they can produces phobias). Also, I am trying to contact persons who are interested about this subject(and the best to discuss somehow in real-time; this is the reason why I asked about persons who want to discuss using yahoo messenger). Unfortunately, most visualizers are just too used with mental images and they are not interested about this subject.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks for the post and links! I will review these more carefully later.

You said something about sleep I also wanted to mention when people ask about stimulating imagery. You may be able to catch yourself dreaming simply by suggesting to yourself that "I will remember my dreams" or "If I have a dream, I will wake up." Naturally, this interferes with sleep, so I don't recommend this if you have a high-pressure job, but I have used the technique in the past, I have read about it, and it might work for non-imagers.

Your post also reenforces two other ideas. First, I think many studies have shown that everyone (or nearly everyone) has dreams (or at least has REM, which may not be the same thing), so everyone has "images" in this sense. Second, "seeing" is generally to understood to be always in quotes when we speak of waking, self-directed, mental images.

Tony

Hi, Tony.
You said: "Second, "seeing" is generally to understood to be always in quotes when we speak of waking, self-directed, mental images."
From what I understood by talking with others, the mental imagery experience is very close to seeing a real object, but they know is not real (usually the image appears something else, not in the front of eyes, BUT many claimed that when close the eyes the images appeared right in the front of physical eyes). As far I understood, most (vivid) imagers, when the eyes are closed, projects the mental imagery in front of the eyes, but when the eyes are opened, the mental imagery are projected somewhere else (in "the back", "up", etc).

This confirms what I have read here (the definition):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_imagery
A mental image is an experience that significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but that occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses (McKellar, 1957; Richardson,1969; Finke, 1989; Thomas, 2003).

P.S. Before knowing about this subject, everytime when I saw the phrase "see in your mind", I thought that is just a figure of speech and no image is really experienced :-)

Paul,

Yes. You are entirely correct, and this is exactly what I meant by the necessity of using quotes. The definition you gave is the one I follow and have used in my work.

Nothing is actually seen (for then a physical object would be present), but something is "seen." Or, as you said the experience is close to seeing a real object, but one knows it is not real.

Tony

Hi.
You said: "Or, as you said the experience is close to seeing a real object, but one knows it is not real."
Of course one knows that is not real; otherwise it would be an hallucination (like it happens in dreams, while sleeping).

I love this topic because it really does highlight the frustration that non-imagers, like myself, feel when we try to explain to the world of "imagers" that we really don't see anything. There seems to be an attitude of "Oh, don't be silly, you're mistaken..everyone sees something!".... but we don't. Its as incomprehensible to an imager that I don't create a mental image, as the concept of people creating images is to me. Only those people who break through the non-imaging barrier will be able to really appreciate both sides of the fence.

It looks like some of the experiments mentioned here could really help break the barrier down. Has anyone had any success with hypnosis to kick start the imaging?

Robb,

Thanks for the post. I think since we have had some reports of success things may beging to change for some people. Hypnosis sounds like a good idea to me.

You stated: "There seems to be an attitude of "Oh, don't be silly,
you're mistaken..everyone sees something!" Well, maybe. But non-imagers apparently dream, and some can perform tasks that would seem to require image processing. Reminding people of this is just a way to point out that their image processing may not be entirely absent; it is just unconscious. On the other hand, an "unconscious image" is not an image at all, to my way of thinking, and according to the definition of mental images I use. So, non-imagers would be correct in their self-assessment. Then again, empirical studies, which discount self-described experiences and just measure iputs and outputs, also tell us something. The whole thing -- describing quasi-visual experiences, attempting to measure them, attempting to correlate them with brain events, etc. -- really results in a LOT of confusion for philosophical psychology!

In the last couple years, as we have had more posts about how to experience images and how to describe them, I am wondering if image memory can be an acquired skill like perfect pitch. For a long time, perfect pitch was thought to be an innate faculty. A couple of years ago there was a fellow selling a course claiming to teach you how to have perfect pitch (sorry, no link). Everyone has the capability; it just has to be developed. The process involved "paying attention" to sounds. In some respects, it sounded similar to the exercises Paul mentioned.

Tony