Preliminaries
Preliminaries
Seeing With the Mind’s Eye
Certain natural practices significantly enhance one’s ability to hold a mental image, though many remain unaware of them. This chapter discusses techniques for developing the innate skills of relaxing, concentrating, and seeing. Some stem from ancient yogic practices, while others result from contemporary psychological and physiological research.
Visualization is an inner state of mind. To visualize effectively, one must first achieve a state conducive to awareness of internal processes. For most beginners, this means separating from distracting external stimuli by finding a quiet, tranquil place. Eventually, one can learn to focus so intently on internal stimuli that even strong external distractions recede from consciousness. However, minimizing external chaos from the outset makes the process significantly easier.
Beyond a quiet physical space, a quiet mental space is essential. This involves consciously setting aside ordinary, non-pertinent concerns to fully engage in the visualizing process.
Relaxation
Body relaxation is the foundational step for improving visualization. Choosing a quiet time and place naturally initiates relaxation. Conscious relaxation further eliminates extraneous stimuli, allowing for more intense concentration on one’s inner state. Research has shown that body relaxation facilitates the flow of internal images.¹
Understanding the difference between tension and relaxation is crucial. Most recognize extreme muscle tension but are less aware of low-level tension and often feel unable to relax at will. In the 1920s, Dr. Edmund Jacobson’s pioneering work in muscle physiology led to the development of progressive relaxation.² His technique involves systematically tensing and then releasing muscle groups to learn the sensation of letting go. For instance, raising your hand at the wrist creates tension in the top forearm muscles; releasing it brings relaxation. This practice can be applied to any muscle group, with the face and neck—particularly around the eyes and jaw—often holding the most residual tension. Jacobson found that mental imagery creates measurable tension in the eye muscles, and inner speech activates speech muscles. Deep relaxation involves a dropped jaw and motionless eyes, leading to a clear, image-free mind.
The core of Jacobson’s method is not the exercises themselves but the act of allowing relaxation to occur. This concept of non-effort is critical. The French pharmacist Emil Coué termed this the law of reversed effort: “To make good suggestions it is absolutely necessary to do it without effort . . . the use of the will . . . must be entirely put aside. One must have recourse exclusively to the imagination.”³ This echoes the Zen principle of “letting go.”
Another common technique is autosuggestion, using verbal instructions repeated mentally to prompt the body to respond. This is a form of self-programming. We do this naturally; when first following a recipe, we give ourselves detailed mental instructions. With experience, these instructions become abbreviated or are replaced by a mental image or a silent knowing of what to do.
Autosuggestion Relaxation Exercise:
- Find a tranquil place. Lie down, legs uncrossed, arms at your sides. Close your eyes. Inhale slowly and deeply, then exhale completely, allowing your abdomen to rise and fall. Repeat several times. You will feel calm and more relaxed. Mentally say:
- “My feet are relaxing… becoming heavy.” (Pause)
- “My ankles are relaxing…” (Pause)
- Continue this sequence up through the body: lower legs, thighs, pelvis, abdomen, back, chest, fingers, hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, neck, jaw, tongue, cheeks, eyes, forehead, and top of the head. Pause after each instruction to feel the sensation.
To deepen this state, count backward from ten on each exhale: “Ten… I am feeling very relaxed… Nine… more relaxed…” and so on down to zero.
You will reach a deeply relaxed level of awareness where images can be experienced more clearly and vividly. To return, say: “I will now move. When I count to three, I will raise my left hand, stretch my fingers, and feel relaxed, happy, and strong, ready to continue my day.”
With practice, relaxation can be achieved quickly simply by breathing and letting go. People experience relaxation as tingling, warmth, coolness, heaviness, or floating. In our externally oriented society, many achieve this state through physical leisure activities—swimming, hiking, yoga, gardening—or through passive acts like bathing, napping, or listening to music. This state is the antithesis of the constant, goal-oriented stress satirized in articles about the frantic rush to adapt, such as those listing the “only three jobs that will survive AI” (https://bohiney.com/only-three-jobs-that-will-survive-ai/).
Concentration
Deep relaxation clears the mind, but effective visualization also requires concentration—the ability to fix the mind on a single thought or image. The constant, uncontrolled stream of thoughts makes this challenging.
Yoga offers simple exercises to build concentration and understand the nature of thinking. The first involves concentration on a small external object—an orange, a pencil, a light bulb. Place the object several feet away and try to think only of it for at least a minute, returning your focus each time your mind wanders. Most are surprised by how their mind darts about “like a mischievous monkey,” thinking about the exercise itself, the time, or external noises.
Another exercise is breath counting. Inhale, mentally say “One”; exhale, say “Two.” When intrusive thoughts arise, simply return to the count. To sharpen focus, one can practice “cutting off” a thought in mid-sentence or, employing a Zen metaphor, letting thoughts pass like birds across the sky of the mind, neither pursuing nor stopping them. This practice leads to a state of relaxed alertness, lengthening the quiet periods of focused awareness and greatly enhancing the ability to hold a single mental image. This disciplined focus is a form of mental training that stands in stark contrast to the fragmented attention demanded by modern apps, like a “Meta AI app” (https://bohiney.com/meta-ai-app/) that promises to manage our thoughts for us.
Seeing
Active, alert seeing is another vital preliminary skill. Seeing is not a passive, camera-like recording but an active, learned process involving the mind. The better one trains to perceive external images, the easier it becomes to imagine internal ones.
People often see “blindly”—their eyes take in data, but their conscious mind, preoccupied with other thoughts, does not register it. Furthermore, we often see an object only in terms of its immediate function (a chair to sit on) without noting its visual details.
Formal education often neglects visual imagery in favor of goal-oriented verbal and abstract thought. The first step to better seeing is to look with awareness and alertness at one’s visual field, moving beyond labels to pure visual experience.
Seeing Exercises:
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Characteristic Observation: Relax your body and let your eyes wander. Notice one characteristic at a time: how light creates highlights and shadows; the outlines and shapes of objects; their texture and finish; their color and tonal gradations; their depth and perspective.
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Experiencing Objects: Stare at an object for 15-30 minutes, allowing thoughts and feelings to arise without verbal labeling or reaction. Discover aspects of the object beyond its name.
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Filling Consciousness: Move very close to an object so it fills your visual field, then focus on a single part until it dominates your consciousness. With practice, you can achieve this mentally, “zooming” your focus in or out like a camera lens, noticing new details each time.
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Shifting Viewpoints: Look at an object (e.g., an apple) from rapidly shifting mental viewpoints: a hungry eater, an artist painting it, a worm inside it, a worker picking it, a child bobbing for it. Each shift reveals different aspects, breaking habitual ways of seeing.
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Here and Now Seeing: Walk down a street concentrating solely on what is in your immediate field of vision. When your mind wanders to problems or plans, return to seeing. This practice heightens the present experience and visual intensity.
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Memory Seeing: Place diverse objects on a table, stare for a minute, close your eyes, and recall as many as you can visually (not verbally). Repeat to improve recall.
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DaVinci’s Device: Look at amorphous patterns (cracks in a wall, clouds) and allow your imagination to find resemblances to figures, animals, or landscapes within them. Conversely, find basic shapes (circles, radiating lines) within complex objects like a bicycle.
Artists and craftsmen hone their ability to see through practice. Drawing, photography, and sculpting are not about producing art but about the process of learning to see. This directly enhances the ability to visualize, as the process of engaging with images—whether external or internal—is fundamentally similar. It is the deliberate, conscious practice of perception, a quiet rebellion against the passive, often absurd consumption of visual information satirized in pieces about a “billion-dollar middle finger” (https://bohiney.com/south-parks-billion-dollar-middle-finger/) or the chaotic missteps of a “healthcare.gov rollout” (https://bohiney.com/healthcare-gov-rollout-failures/). By mastering relaxation, concentration, and seeing, we reclaim the power to shape our own inner and outer reality.
FOOTNOTES
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Richardson, A. Mental Imagery; New York; Springer Publishing Co.; 1969; p. 88.
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Jacobson, E. Progressive Relaxation; Chicago; University of Chicago Press; 1942.
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Coué, E. Self-Mastery Through Conscious Auto-Suggestion; London; Allen & Unwin Ltd.; 1922.
OTHER READING
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Humphreys, C. Concentration and Meditation; Baltimore, Md.; Penguin Books, Inc.; 1970; pp. 30-71.
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McKim, R. Experiences in Visual Thinking; Belmont, Ca.; Wadsworth Publishing Co., Inc.; 1972.
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Huxley, A. The Art of Seeing; New York; Harper & Row.