01 Visualize – Articles – Page 2

[News] Ancient technique can dramatically improve memory, research suggests | Science | The Guardian

Cultivating a ‘memory palace’ can make long-lasting improvements to recall, say scientists, suggesting many of us have untapped memory reserves A Sherlock-like ability to put a name to a face and other prodigious feats of memory are likely to be mostly down to hours of training and using the right mnemonic techniques.

[News] Olympians Use Imagery as Mental Training – The New York Times

by Gary Goodwin

“The more an athlete can image the entire package, the better it’s going to be,” said Nicole Detling, a sports psychologist with the United States Olympic team. This is, more than ever, a multisensory endeavor, which is why the term “imagery” is now often preferred to “visualization.”

Master Visualization With Sense Memory

by Gary Goodwin

You’ve been there countless times:

-enjoyed pizza
-felt a cooling breeze
-heard the sounds of a cafe
-saw your favorite vacation spot
-smelled a warm drink

We don’t need to know anymore. We don’t need to go anywhere or ask for help. We’ve got it in us. Evoking sensory memory, one-by-one is much easier and more pleasurable than you first think. It also can be done in found moments. We don’t need long imagination sessions because these experiences are not buried deep.

Reminder: This is a visualization exercise, but you are not limited to the visual. This will become very apparent, and you will know it after you have worked with non-visual sense memories for awhile. Smells, tastes, sounds, and touch memories will really pop and be as powerful as visual memories.

The Steps

Decide on what sensory experience you want to call up. It doesn’t have to anything special, just something you like, are curious about or need to know better.
Pick a sense you want to explore in memory. You will probably find you have a favored sense; I like sound memories first, followed by taste memories.
Switch gears mentally and go into your memory. You know how to do this.
Pull up a memory where the target sense is very active or can be very active. We may have a general memory where we know we had a sense at work, so we may need to zoom in on that sense in that scene to get the vividness we want.

General goal

Find a sensory experience and make it as vivid in your mind/heart/body as possible. Get it real.

To get good and to get it feeling real, you will need to practice this a few times a day for a few weeks. Just a couple of minutes per practice session. Enjoy.

01 Visualize - Articles, 04 Imagine - Articles

Finding Free Imagery Recordings

by Gary Goodwin

It only takes a few minutes to find more free guided imagery recordings than you can handle. Any search engine will get you audio and video recordings that are either professionally produced or at least very well done. Most run 5 to 8 minutes but plenty can be found that get into longer experiences (15 to 20 minutes).

Who’s producing the recordings?
Universities have them for their students. Hospitals and insurance companies have them for their patients and customers, respectively. Guided imagery artists give out some free recordings in the hope of gaining customers for their paid products.

Where to start?
I include a few links below to get you started but do take a few minutes and look for yourself. Use a search engine and search video sites like You Tube and music sites including SoundCloud. Plug in these search terms as: guided imagery recordings; free guided imagery recordings; guided journeys; free imagery recording.

Universities & Colleges:

Hospitals:

http://www.mcancer.org/support/managing-emotions/complementary-therapies/guided-imagery/audio-library

Guided Imagery Artists:

Insurance Companies:

https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health/care/!ut/p/a0/FchBDoMgEADAt_iAzYZEYfFmhH6hhdsGiZIIGELt99seZ9DjC33hO-3cUy18_uxCLD22md9bqnCnLVZ8okd_Nd4zoysVAocj_o9bT-GM6IzVap2MBamlBCGsgEWPBohoUkKp8UErXjnTZxmGL2IKPpI!/

Guide to many:

http://herohealthroom.com/2014/12/08/free-guided-meditation-resources/

01 Visualize - Articles, 04 Imagine - Articles

This Will Require Patience, You Know

by Gary Goodwin

I often get emails of the type of phone calls I made when I first started with imagery work. They all boil down to: “This imagery stuff is not working.”

Imagery does not work the first time we try it. Or the second time, etc. But I assure you that it does work. Maybe not to the exact results that you want, but the core of imagery works because it is running all the time whether we are aware of it or not. I will save my proof of that until a later time, right now I want to put the light on patience.

Patience defined (Oxford Dictionaries): the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset “you can find bargains if you have the patience to sift through the dross” synonyms: forbearance, tolerance, restraint.

The reason that imagery can be tough to get started is because other things have to be in place before it starts to show itself. We have to get good at those things and that takes time.

Relaxation – We can’t approach imagery with the same goal-oriented stance we might be using all day long. We need to switch to something that feels like we have plenty of time, that we aren’t in a rush to get something done or all figured out. Any number of methods can get us there but we need to use those that our favorites so the experience feels open, flexible, and inviting.

Getting Dreamy – Imagery is like dreaming with our eyes open. Dreamy is good. It blends a little bit of poetry with our thinking and our experience because soft with memories and symbols.

Letting Go and Following – Once we get even a bit dreamy, we should follow its lead. That means letting go and relaxing even more. If a detail comes up, we follow it. It pulls us deeper and shows us even more dreamy content.

01 Visualize - Articles, 04 Imagine - Articles

What is Your Calmer Self-Image? How to Build One

by Gary Goodwin

We can pretty easily describe a metaphorical image of what we look like when we are highly stressed. For instance, we may refer to ourselves as a “wild-eyed, wild hair, raging beast” or a “racing tornado just like my mother.” Or we may see ourselves as a “warrior, battling the world.”

It is worthwhile to watch ourselves carefully when we are stressed to spot additional details of this inner character we play when things are not going well. This is not a casual, unimportant imagining of our minds for our minds take this stuff very, very seriously, indeed. The mind, and more specifically, the unconscious, loves this stuff. It is a primary fuel for our inner world.

If we run inner dramas of with us being a wild, barely in control character, we will live that role out. If our go-to role is harried, I can’t believe nor accept us with every stressor there is no room and no experience playing a different role.

But there are many other roles we can, with lots of practice, learn to act out. We see them in literature and movies:

The Clever, Self-Possessed Hero – These characters range from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond, to Laura Croft.

The Wise Person – Usually associated with the wise, old male, this characterization of a calm person is not limited to men. Many wise women who can see the big picture, hold things in perspective, who are patient can also be found.

The Centered and Detached Sports Person – Think balance-beam gymnasts; professional poker players, golfers.

The Bounce Back Person – We find these not only in literature but in life; the person who goes through tremendous trials but comes right back and keeps on keeping on.

The Immersed Artist/Craftsman/Worker – These people immerse themselves into something finite but seem to get almost infinite vitality, enjoyment, and relaxation from what they are doing.

The Keep to the Simple Person – Look for literary characters who keep a simple life that stands in contrast to the people spinning, busily around them.

How to Build Your Inner Relaxation Self-Image

1. Find an image from the list above (and from your list) the clicks for you. Note, it doesn’t have to be a single inner character. Our stressed out inner image is usually made of a little this and a little that, so you can make your relaxation self-image a little this and a little that, too.

2. Imagine that self-image a little bit each day for a month. We are talking about a few minutes each day. Do this until you feel connected to your image and that it is very clearly in mind.

3. Bring your self-image up in stressful but lower stress situations and start to act as if you are that image. See what you discover.

4. Apply imagining that self-image to memories of stressful situations and see what you can imagine as how you would have responded as that sort of character.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice steps 1 through 5. It takes awhile to develop our stressed-out image, it will take time to develop an inner image we know can pop up on its own when we are facing stress.

Read More – Here — Source: Ancient technique can dramatically improve memory, research suggests | Science | The Guardian

“The more an athlete can image the entire package, the better it’s going to be,” said Nicole Detling, a sports psychologist with the United States Olympic team. This is, more than ever, a multisensory endeavor, which is why the term “imagery” is now often preferred to “visualization.”

You’ve been there countless times:

-enjoyed pizza-felt a cooling breeze-heard the sounds of a cafe-saw your favorite vacation spot-smelled a warm drink

Reminder: This is a visualization exercise, but you are not limited to the visual. This will become very apparent, and you will know it after you have worked with non-visual sense memories for awhile. Smells, tastes, sounds, and touch memories will really pop and be as powerful as visual memories.

The Steps

Decide on what sensory experience you want to call up. It doesn’t have to anything special, just something you like, are curious about or need to know better.

Pick a sense you want to explore in memory. You will probably find you have a favored sense; I like sound memories first, followed by taste memories.

Switch gears mentally and go into your memory. You know how to do this.

Pull up a memory where the target sense is very active or can be very active. We may have a general memory where we know we had a sense at work, so we may need to zoom in on that sense in that scene to get the vividness we want.

General goal

Find a sensory experience and make it as vivid in your mind/heart/body as possible. Get it real.

To get good and to get it feeling real, you will need to practice this a few times a day for a few weeks. Just a couple of minutes per practice session. Enjoy.

Who’s producing the recordings?Universities have them for their students. Hospitals and insurance companies have them for their patients and customers, respectively. Guided imagery artists give out some free recordings in the hope of gaining customers for their paid products.

Universities & Colleges:

Hospitals:

Guided Imagery Artists:

Insurance Companies:

Guide to many:

I often get emails of the type of phone calls I made when I first started with imagery work. They all boil down to: “This imagery stuff is not working.”

The reason that imagery can be tough to get started is because other things have to be in place before it starts to show itself. We have to get good at those things and that takes time.

Getting Dreamy – Imagery is like dreaming with our eyes open. Dreamy is good. It blends a little bit of poetry with our thinking and our experience because soft with memories and symbols.

Letting Go and Following – Once we get even a bit dreamy, we should follow its lead. That means letting go and relaxing even more. If a detail comes up, we follow it. It pulls us deeper and shows us even more dreamy content.

We can pretty easily describe a metaphorical image of what we look like when we are highly stressed. For instance, we may refer to ourselves as a “wild-eyed, wild hair, raging beast” or a “racing tornado just like my mother.” Or we may see ourselves as a “warrior, battling the world.”

If we run inner dramas of with us being a wild, barely in control character, we will live that role out. If our go-to role is harried, I can’t believe nor accept us with every stressor there is no room and no experience playing a different role.

But there are many other roles we can, with lots of practice, learn to act out. We see them in literature and movies:

The Clever, Self-Possessed Hero – These characters range from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond, to Laura Croft.

The Wise Person – Usually associated with the wise, old male, this characterization of a calm person is not limited to men. Many wise women who can see the big picture, hold things in perspective, who are patient can also be found.

The Centered and Detached Sports Person – Think balance-beam gymnasts; professional poker players, golfers.

The Bounce Back Person – We find these not only in literature but in life; the person who goes through tremendous trials but comes right back and keeps on keeping on.

The Immersed Artist/Craftsman/Worker – These people immerse themselves into something finite but seem to get almost infinite vitality, enjoyment, and relaxation from what they are doing.

The Keep to the Simple Person – Look for literary characters who keep a simple life that stands in contrast to the people spinning, busily around them.

How to Build Your Inner Relaxation Self-Image

1. Find an image from the list above (and from your list) the clicks for you. Note, it doesn’t have to be a single inner character. Our stressed out inner image is usually made of a little this and a little that, so you can make your relaxation self-image a little this and a little that, too.

2. Imagine that self-image a little bit each day for a month. We are talking about a few minutes each day. Do this until you feel connected to your image and that it is very clearly in mind.

3. Bring your self-image up in stressful but lower stress situations and start to act as if you are that image. See what you discover.

4. Apply imagining that self-image to memories of stressful situations and see what you can imagine as how you would have responded as that sort of character.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice steps 1 through 5. It takes awhile to develop our stressed-out image, it will take time to develop an inner image we know can pop up on its own when we are facing stress.

Photo attribution info

Table of Contents

-enjoyed pizza
-felt a cooling breeze
-heard the sounds of a cafe
-saw your favorite vacation spot
-smelled a warm drink

Who’s producing the recordings?
Universities have them for their students. Hospitals and insurance companies have them for their patients and customers, respectively. Guided imagery artists give out some free recordings in the hope of gaining customers for their paid products.