Part 3
13 April 1997
Image-Streaming: Your Own Most Powerful Mode of Thinking
Here, as promised, are the instructions for your
most powerful mode of thinking and perceiving: receptive visual
thinking, or Image-Streaming. 25 hours of Image-Streaming
increases intelligence with meaningful gains in "I.Q." points. It
also appears to improve the deeper and more numinous qualities of
experience and ability to an even greater extent.
Image-Streaming is also the most fundamental
version of the modernized Einsteinian Discovery Method or "deep
thought experiment". Image-Streaming can powerfully help you to:
solve problems; discover answers; profoundly accelerate learning;
inform you about all sorts of aspects of your world and those around
you and about yourself; and even accelerate and improve your
reading.
You were born already thinking in images. For
years that was how you thought, perceived and understood the world.
When well-meaning parents and teachers and adults told you to stop
daydreaming, stop looking out the window, to sit straight and pay
attention, this most powerful of all your modes of learning,
understanding and thinking did not go away. It merely went
underground, so to speak. You still have within you a reflex
response which draws upon all your resources including the deeper,
subconscious powers of your mind for solving problems, increasing
creativity, and crystallizing understanding. 99.999999% of your
mental and intellectual resource, perception, awareness, and
data-base is unconscious, and works much faster than does your
conscious mind which has been trained by the language you speak to
work at the speed of your talking.
Nearly all this data-base and awareness reside
in portions of your brain which work in images rather than words and
it is usually in images that the most reliable answers and
understandings are expressed. --If an answer comes in words, did it
come from these richer resources or from the limited left verbal
focussed part of our brain with which we've been getting the same
old answers? If it comes in images - especially if the imagery
content is a surprise to us - this is an excellent indicator that
we're getting in data from elsewhere in our brains besides the same
old word-processor.
At every instant, part of ourselves is
reflexively sorting through all our awarenesses and giving us a
picture which best relates whatever is the present context. The
context can be that of your reading this article, or you can shape
context by asking your higher resources a question or pointing them
to a problem and letting them answer you in images. Here is one of
the many basic, step-by-step ways to sensitize to, use and
understand your Image Stream:
1. THE QUESTION - ask yourself
a question.
2. START TO IMAGE-STREAM, as
follows. Have a live listener or tape recorder with you. Sit back,
relax, close your eyes, and describe aloud whatever images suggest
themselves. Go with your first or most immediate impressions and
describe these images or impressions aloud, as rapidly as possible
in as sustained a flow as possible, in richly textured sensory
detail. Make it a kind of brainstorm of description, not of ideas
but of adjectives, things you can say about the image(s) which
somehow describe it or them. AS you describe, more free images will
emerge: be alert to that or to other changes and describe these when
they happen, instead of making it all into some sort of orderly
story.
It's crucial to describe aloud
to live or potential listener (as represented by
that tape recorder), in order to bring more of your
images into conscious awareness, no matter how unrelated the images
may at first appear. They may seem to your focussed
verbal left brain, at first, to be unrelated to the question or
context but once you've let all of the data flow freely onto the
table, so to speak, you'll find what you've been describing was
amazingly and ingeniously straight on target: the right answer or a
key insight.
Let yourself be surprised by what the images
reveal to you. The more surprising, the more likely that you're
getting fresh input from your subtler, more comprehensive and more
accurate faculties.
(A few paragraphs below, we provide here some
back-up procedures for those who, at first attempt, didn't seem to
be able to get up images. If you were one of those, then you can
work through one or another of these back-up procedures and then
come back to this point to decipher the meaning of your images. The
remaining five of the 7-step process for image streaming given here,
are for purpose of getting at the meaning of your images. Whether or
not you get at the meaning of your images, simply observing and
describing them aloud WHILE observing them will still build your
intelligence for that meanigful "I.Q." gain and more.)
3. FEATURE-QUESTIONING: while
in the imagery, pick out some one feature of it - a wall, a tree or
bush, whatever's there. Imagine laying a hand on that feature and
studying its feel (and describe that feel), to strengthen your
contact with that experience. Ask that rock or bush or wall, "Why
are you (meaning that object) here as part of my
answer?" (--Or as part of this message for me...) See if the imagery
changes when you ask that question. Describe the changes.
4. INDUCTIVE INFERENCE: once
you've gotten 5-15 minutes' worth of images described, thank your
image-streaming faculties for showing you this answer. --And ask
their help in understanding this answer or message. The help is by
their giving you 2-3 minutes of entirely DIFFERENT images which
nonetheless somehow are still giving you the SAME answer to the SAME
problem. --Then a third set of images for just a minute or so, still
the SAME answer or message but shown to you in yet an entirely
DIFFERENT WAY!
5. WHAT'S THE SAME? When all
else is different among these several sets of image, what IS the
same? Maybe it's the color green, maybe it's triangular-shaped
objects; maybe it's even just a feeling - whatever IS the same, it's
the core of the message after all the ornamentation of these
often-rich experiences is swept aside. These themes or
elements-in-common are your core answer or message.
Herein is an additional powerful reason for
wanting to describe as much detail as possible from your respective
sets of images. --Not only because this helps to better integrate
your brain and make you more intelligent, but because the more
detail you have there from those several sets of image, the easier
it is to find matches, themes, elements-in-common which then will
let you make sense out of what you've seen.
6. RELATE: Go back to your
original question or context and determine in what way or ways these
core elements ARE the answer to your question.
7. DEBRIEF: When you go back
through an experience, this often elicits for you secondary
associations, thoughts and awarenesses not immediately apparent to
you the first time. Summarize this whole experience either to
another person (directly or by telephone), or to notebook or
computer. This change of medium, and change of feedbacks, brings in
fresh secondaries and should add further to your
understanding.
Verification - you might want to test and check
your responses with questions such as these:
1. "How can I make sure that I'm on the right
track with this understanding?" (You should get back, through your
imagery and assorted awarenesses, either a way to test and verify,
or a reminder of real-time data or experiences which demonstrate
that this is the right answer to be working with.)
2. "What more do I need to know in this
context?"
3. What's a a good, practical, concrete first
step to acting upon this understanding?"
One unique advantage of Image-Streaming: nearly
all other creative problem solving methods invest most of their
effort into redefining the question or problem, before they ever get
started on finding answers. Your deeper faculties already
know what the real issue, problem or question IS,
and immediately get on with giving you answer to it.
Another is the speed-up of answer-getting, with
practice. Though the intelligence-building effects of Image
Streaming are an accumulation of the time invested in the activity,
with practice you CAN get to your verified answer in a mere minute
or so, when in that particular instance the answer sought is of more
value to you than is the increment of intelligence-building
experience.
Everyone can get these images
and start gleaning their benefits. If you are one of those who
couldn't immediately start getting images in the sections above, and
need some help getting started, here's some help.
These "prompting techniques" work best if you
have a helper, or listener, who can watch your "attention cues"
(changes in your breathing-patterns, or eye-movements beneath your
closed eyelids) and in such instance immediately ask you, "What was
in your awareness just then?" to help you notice
when these images happen, and start the flow of description going.
This "Helper Technique" is in fact the form in which we first
discovered Image-Streaming in 1973. Some other "prompting
techniques:"
1. AFTER-IMAGING: Stare at a bright (but not
blinding) light for half a minute, then close your eyes. Describe
that after-image and continue describing it as it begins to
change.
2. WORTH DESCRIBING: Even if at first you don't
get clear images, you may get blobs of color, lines or patterns
which you didn't report because you didn't think they were worth
mentioning. IT'S ANY WAY YOU CAN GET UP THE FLOW OF DESCRIBING WHILE
LOOKING, so describe even those trivial or meaningless-seeming blobs
or lines, rapidly and in detail, alert to their changing. If this
does not lead to more coherent or interesting images within 5-10
minutes, then deliberately look BEYOND the colors, patterns, etc.,
as if they were a screen, and describe your first impression of
what's beyond that screen.
3. PHOSPHENES: Again on the principle of getting
started that flow of describing-while-looking. Gently rub your
closed eyes like a sleepy child. Leave them closed, and describe the
light-and-c0olor blips which result. Keep on describing as these
change....
4. DOOR: Imagine you are before a closed door.
Tell how this door looks, then how it feels to your hand when you
touch it. Then suddenly fling open the door to catch by surprise
whatever is behind it. Describe immediately your first impression of
what it is or might have been behind the door. (This method is
excellent for finding answer to a question. While standing before
the closed door, pose your question. The more unexpected the content
of the imagery, the better your chances of getting sensitive, fresh
new perspectives and insights.) WINDOW-SHADE - the release/roll-up
kind: some people prefer using this old-fashioned window-shade
instead of a door. Pose your question, look at and feel the bottom
of the shade, tug and release: UP it goes! flap!flap!flap! and what
are you looking at as your answer?
5. CLOSET LIGHT (or bathroom light) - with eyes
closed, rapidly flip the light on-off-on-off a few times and
describe the rich colors, patterns or other kinds if images which
result, see what the flow of that description can lead
into....
That's all we have space for here, but more than
a dozen additional "prompting procedures" are published in my book,
A METHOD FOR PERSONAL GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT which teaches, step
by step, the whole range of modern Einsteinian technique from basic
visual thinking to the most advanced forms of advanced high
think-tank method. Chances are you won't need more such techniques;
you've got enough here to get rolling on and to build your mind and
intelligence without apparent limit. --But you should know that not
one person has yet been found out of thousands trained (either in
our own training sessions around the world or in the independently
conducted state university studies in Minnesota which measured the
intelligence gains) who has gotten through all those procedures
withOUT "getting pix" and starting to reap the rich benefits. That
means that intelligence - indeed, most of the qualities which make
you most human - is not doled out by ration, leaving you stuck with
the short straw. Intelligence and your most human qualities can be
earned, they can be built, without apparent limits.
everyone has unlimited access. If
this address of "intelligence" be "elitism," then
make the most of it! Or come fly with some of your fellow
eagles!
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Getting At Your Own Einstein
Factor:
Some Ways to Get At Your Own Real
Genius:
Albert says: to practice some form of my Deep
Thought Method: Let your imagery play, examine it as closely as
possible to see what you can learn from it. We say, practice
Socratic forms of Einstein's Deep Thought Method. While observing
these free images, describe them in detail to a listener; be
surprised at what comes up for you.
Here are a few of the many additional ways to bring
up your own very real genius to enrich your life:
1) Find ways to "get on a roll," stay on a roll, get
back to being on that roll, until more falls into it.
2) Find ways to verbally describe "the
indescribable:" where you have to "reach" to convey an effect, is
your growth zone.
3) Pick up on and describe subtleties and nuance.
These arise in parts of your brain usually offline from where you
are verbally focussed, conscious. Describing subtler impressions
reinforces more and more onto line with your immediate consciousness
those subtler regions of your brain, together with their
intelligence.
4) Improve the physical health and condition of your
physical brain:
a) Improve circulation to your brain; b) Improve
nutrition to your brain; c) Improve your brain's
sub-routines.
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