by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
Winsights No. 18 (10 August 1997)
With all our references to and even columns instructing on, how to Image Stream…
–That powerfully brain-integrative process 50 hours of whose easy, entertaining practice builds 40 points’ improvement in both “I.Q.” and in more meaningful forms of intelligence, according to independently conducted state university studies–
–That simple, pleasantly entertaining practice which absolutely no one out of thousands has been unable to learn and do and thus to start benefiting therefrom–
…some of you must have wondered what you might be able to do for your own young children. Of many things, two are given you today in this column, freely. Use them with your children, aged 2 to 11 years, and please share with us your resultant joy in the results.
As cited above, we know some of the rate of gain in adults. For young children it appears to be far more helpful and powerful even than for adults. And only takes a few minutes to teach.
The impact of Image Streaming in a young child, upon language, brain, perception, understanding, thoughtfulness and apparent intelligence is so great and so immediate, that to see those immediate effects has been, time and again, this writer’s most rewarding experience ever!
Each time you have a young child Image Stream, in the days ensuing you will find extraordinary improvements in that child’s general joy of life, not “merely” that child’s quality of perceptiveness and insightfulness, from then on! What is now known about the brain in relation to such processes makes it appear that such improvements always will result from a young child’s Image Streaming.
For another good look at why, and to teach yourself Image Streaming well enough to model it for your child in the manner shown you below, you might want to take a look at the following sources: a concise summary of the technique of Image Streaming, and the online book, You Are Brighter Than You Think. It contains excellent instructions on how to Image Stream.
Become, then, at least a little smooth at Image Streaming and you not only build your own intelligence, but you are able then to model the procedure for your own child in the way shown you just below. Following that, a brief set of instructions how to make your slightly older child (age 6-12 years) not only able to sustain such a practice but to become far better at solving problems and difficulties. First, and for as young as the child is able to use language, is basic Image Streaming–
Teaching Image Streaming to a Young Child:
- Be fairly smooth and/or practiced with your own Image Streaming so the following example is a real one and from you, and not just a script. Say something like this to your child:
- “John (or Mary), I think that even when we are awake, we still have dreams going on somewhere inside of us – let’s see – when I close my eyes and look to see what’s going on there, I see…..
(such as the following, only your own Image Stream segment: “Two green bushes, must be springtime because most of the leaves are dark green but some leaves are smaller and almost golden toward the tips of the branches. two entirely different sets of leaves on the same bush. The grass is just starting to turn green, still a lot of grey and brown there. I see a moss-covered brick sidewalk in front of the bushes….”)
- “O.K., for fun – John (or Mary), when you close your eyes, tell me what you see there…..”
If need be, “play the game” with another adult or older child to model the process, then the young child joins in. Because of shorter interest span, a young child responds to this approach far better than to the lengthier steps used in Project Renaissance’s adult instructions, not only to the simpler vocabulary.
Often, a very young child will just name objects instead of describing them. Although this is an important start, you want to get the child into describing things – whether things actually visualized, things just made up, or things present in the here and now and objectively looked-at. The more word-picture sensory evocative adjective-rich the details described, the sooner and stronger the resulting brain and language development. If this is performed with eyes closed, building up the visual feedback effects, the sooner and stronger will the child’s own innate visual thinking abilities, originally his prime mode of thinking and learning, will come back on line and develop and enrich.
The tradeoffs– its easier with older children with better-developed vocabularies; it’s effects are more powerful and immediately visible in younger children. The benefits do appear to be permanent, and to view these and to know you had something to do with that child’s richer, higher and more wonderful development, is truly one of the most profound joys an adult can know.
If need be to encourage actual descriptions instead of mere namings of things envisioned, model this describing aspect as a separate game, with another adult or older child until the young child joins in. If need be, for starters go around the house seeing how colorfully you can make richly detailed descriptions of even the most familiar, ordinary, objects and situations. Even without the visualizing, this is an invaluable way to develop the left brain of the child, together with the child’s entire perceiving and reasoning apparatus and intelligence. The child is still a child – but far more richly so, fully as himself or herself, than would have been the case otherwise.
Until recently, the strongest known method for integrating left and right brains in young children was to teach them to sight-read and play music. That is still a very effective way, especially if done early enough to make much difference in the maturing of the corpus callosum, entirely aside from the high value of the music as such. Now it appears that to describe from ongoing spontaneous mental visual imagery is far more powerful even than that, and far easier and quicker to accomplish. –Still better, though, if you did both…. (If you go back to Winsights Part 14, though, we outline there a pleasant game-like way to teach even 2-year-olds to sight-read and play music, instead of the harshly driven methods familiar to some of you – and with some effects even more remarkable than any cited here thus far!!!)
Extending Inner-Image Response into Practical Problem-Solving:
With somewhat older children, ages 6-12, here is a simple way to extend Image Streaming and equip the child to cope effectively with many things which other children are helpless before. Once some problem, question or difficulty has been identified, tell the child:
- “Imagine a door. Something like a dream is on the far side of that door. That dream may tell you an ingeniously clever wonderful effective solution to this problem – or at least a way that works.
- “Dreams being what they are, that answer may not be in words, but somehow in what is shown you. Maybe some of what is shown you will surprise you, or seem to have nothing to do with answering the problem but when we look at it closely, maybe we’ll find somehow that the answer is in there somehow.
- “Let’s see if you can tell me everything in this dream-behind-the-door, or in what you imagine on the far side of the door, tell me everything about it while you’re looking at it…
- “–So when you’re ready, open your door suddenly and start telling me what you see there on the other side of it….”
If the child has had some Image Streaming experience, he should be ready to get intelligible answers from beyond the door. If not, he may or may not. You might need to just make a game of seeing what you can see-and-tell about what’s beyond the door, without regard to any problem or difficulty, a round or so before using this on problem-solving.
If the actual answer is not fairly readily apparent in the content of what’s beyond the door, have the child go through another door in answer to the same problem, but with an entirely different scene behind it which somehow is nonetheless the same answer. If you have enough descriptive detail from both scenes, some detail or adjective or aspect will overlap. What’s the same when all else is different, is core to the actual answer. Looking for same and different, in this inductive inference solution-finding, may well be better for the child’s mental development and for the child himself/herself than any particular answer might be. Please refrain from interpreting for your child and getting between him/her and access to those inner resources. You can ask slightly leading questions, but not heavily leading: let the child discover, even if it takes awhile. You’ll be so very, VERY glad you did.