Teacher: Amaya
Date: 3/29/2009
<amaya> Tonight’s class is going to be on visualization, but before we begin, I wanted to start with questions on previous evenings. Have you guys been practicing what you’ve been learning? Do you have any questions about previous lessons?
* Solem has been practicing the shields, with good results
<thais> here and practicing
<amaya> ok. in that case we’ll move on to visualization.
<amaya> Visualization is basically the ability to call to mind the sensory data of “something” It is primarily visual, because for MOST humans, vision is the primary sense. AKA: this is making a mental picture of something.
<amaya> Can anyone tell me WHY you would need visualization skills and what you would use them for (in psionics, and in the rest of your life)
* Solem raises hand
<amaya> Solem?
<Solem> In real life, seeing your goals can help you towards them, and in psionics a good visualization is key to mastering any skill. It helps your subconscious know exactly what you are aiming for.
<amaya> It’s used in almost all psionics use.. making constructs, forming shields, healing. You use it so you KNOW what you’re about to do rather than “randomly throw psionic energy together” It’s also used in the rest of your life too, athletes use it to see their goal, when your mom drew something on your birthday cake as a kid, she used it .. knowing what she was going to decorate with before she started
<amaya> Architects have a mental image before they start, almost everyone uses it in some aspect of their lives
<amaya> For the record, PURE VISUALIZATION is NOT psionics. Visualizing something does NOT make it so. You have to add psionic energy to it to make it do something psionic. just picturing shields doesn’t make shields, you have to charge, get the energy, THEN direct it according to your visualization.
<amaya> So how about a bit of practice. We’re going to use flowers. and we’ll start with vision: picture a flower, start with what kind, what color, whatever details you find pertinent. When it looks like a flower, give it scent, ETC.
<amaya> take a few moments to put your image together, then I have a few questions about it.
* DemonIncubus raises hand
<amaya> DemonIncubus?
<DemonIncubus> Scent is really difficult to do; how should I go about that; maybe think of scents of known flowers and adjust?
<amaya> Vision might be as far as you get. We are primarily visual creatures, so other senses are harder for us to work with. One idea is to visualize yourself smelling the flower, what does it smell like?
* sindan flower smells good
<amaya> (our practice in centering will help here. If you’ve been practicing, you should be getting better at maintained focus)
<amaya> Ok.. now for the questions. Did you picture it IN your head, in front of your head or in front of you in your field of vision?
* Krazr raises hand
* DemonIncubus raises hand.
* thais raises hand
* sindan raises hand
<amaya> krazr
<Krazr> I saw it.. I guess the best description would be in a void, almost not sure whether it was in my head or just as a stand alone area.
<amaya> DemonIncubus?
<DemonIncubus> I visualized it in my head: starting with a generic shape of a flower and then shaping it to my taste (like clay or something) After I got the basic outline I starting shaping the insides (especially the petals) and after I was done I added coloring (blue w/ interlaced white)
<amaya> Thais?
<thais> in front of me in field of vision
<amaya> Sindan?
<sindan> I went to a field of tall grass and saw a flower.. I picked it up and smelled it. It kept changing colors from purple to white. I guess I couldn’t decide which color I wanted (field of vision)
<amaya> That actually brings me to the next question. Was it alone, just the flower, the flower on a stem, on a whole plant? In a garden that you could see, in a garden all around you? Were there others with it, ETC
* DemonIncubus raises hand.
<amaya> DemonIncubus
* sindan raises hand
<DemonIncubus> I had mine on a stem: green w/ a few leaves, it just faded out at the bottom (like outside field of “vision”) and the background was just “nothing” not white, black, or any color. I focused just on the “flower” :D
* Krazr raises hand
<amaya> Sindan?
<sindan> there were other plants but only one flower
* Solem raises hand
<amaya> Krazr?
<Krazr> Mine was a stem, with thorns running the length and two petals, one higher than the other. it also had sepals near the petals. the other end was cut at a sharp angle, and it was in a clear, glass vase. narrow at the top, wide at the bottom, with a square being the overall shape
<amaya> Solem?
<Solem> Mine had traditional blue, wide, round petals. It had a sweet smell, leaves that were funnel shaped and made a whistling sound when wind went through them. It was short and surrounded by slightly shorter grass.
<amaya> Ok. Next question: Why do I care about what your flower looks like or how you visualized/place it? Any ideas?
* Solem raises hand
<amaya> solem?
* DemonIncubus raises hand.
<Solem> To see how well we can visualize specific detail?
* Krazr raises hand
<amaya> demonIncubus?
<DemonIncubus> I supposed it shows “how” each individual goes about the visualization of some object. Specifically the method of development
<amaya> Krazr?
<Krazr> my guess would be to see other thought processes in working this exercise out. I always want to know how others work to compare to myself so, as the teacher, you also want to learn in the lesson and see how we go about it
<amaya> Last week, with centering, we learned a way of watching the nature of your own thoughts, and how knowing your own thoughts now would help you to learn when a thought popped in that WASN’T yours. (this is especially important for empaths and telepaths, but matters to everyone else as well.)
<amaya> Well, with this too. once you know the “flavor” of your own visualizations, how YOU picture things when you focus on them. You can also know whether what’s in your hand is your own image, or the intrusion of someone elses in your MIND. not in your hand
* Krazr raises hand
<amaya> say.. you’re normal visualization of a flower is a full garden, and you walking through it, and when you start to work on a visualization, and all you can conjure is is a black and white rose, heavy emphasis on the thorns and it makes you uneasy.. you can identify that as not your thought, and clear it from your mind instead of allowing it to trouble you.
<amaya> so for a long while, you need to ask yourself those questions, EVERY time you sit down to practice visualization
<amaya> Ok.. now for “visualization practice part two, video games in our heads”
<amaya> This one is a rainturtle technique to make visualization practice more interesting..
<amaya> They work best with first person perspective games, shooters, flight simulators, things like that.
<amaya> I’ll use flight simulator as my example, its my favorite.
<amaya> Basically, you put yourself in the cockpit, you can just have it appear around you, or visualize yourself climbing in to it, whatever is more comfortable for you. Look around, see all the controls, the button, gadgets, gizmos, alarms ETC
<amaya> Then expand your view.. look out the cockpit window.. are you on the ground? did you start out in the sky? Are you in outer space?
<amaya> This is about as far as you’ll get at first.. once you get some practice.. take it for a spin, go somewhere, come back.. Then go on missions of your own design, expand your imagination. imagination and visualization are so closely related.. let it develop, its good for you.
<amaya> This is taking that basic “I see a flower” practice on to an entirely new level, once you can take yourself on an entire video game mission, the visualization half of a simple construct should be cakewalk
<amaya> Ok. That was it for tonight’s class. Scanning next week.