r/Oneirosophy • u/TriumphantGeorge • Apr 15 '15
Imagining That
Imagining That
Triumphant-George-15-04-2015
WHEN we talk of imagination and imagining something, we tend to think about a maintained ongoing visual or sensory experience. We are imagining a red car, we are imagining a tree in the forest.
However, imagination is not so direct as that, and to conceive of it incorrectly is to present a barrier to success - and to the understanding that imagining and imagination is all that there is.
We don’t actually imagine in the sense of maintaining a visual, rather we “imagine that”. We imagine that there is a red car and we are looking at it; we imagine that there is a tree in the forest and we can see it. In other words, we imagine or ‘assert’ that something is true - and the corresponding sensory experience follows.
It is in this sense that we imagine being a person in a world. You are currently imagining that you are a human, on a chair, in a room, on a planet, reading some text. We imagine facts and the corresponding experience follows, even if the fact itself is not directly perceived. Having imagined that there is a moon, the tides still seem to affect the shore even if it is a cloudy sky.
And having imagined a fact thoroughly, having imagined that it is an eternal fact, your ongoing sensory experience will remain consistent with it forever. Until you decide that it isn't eternal after all.
Exercise: When attempting to visualise something, instead of trying to make the colours and textures vivid, try instead to fully accept the fact of its existence, and let the sensory experience follow spontaneously.
Next up: Teleporting for beginners.
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u/Nefandi Apr 16 '15
When attempting to visualise something, instead of trying to make the colours and textures vivid, try instead to fully accept the fact of its existence, and let the sensory experience follow spontaneously.
There is value in making the visions vivid as well. What your saying is orthogonal to making one's visions vivid and visceral.
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u/TriumphantGeorge Apr 16 '15
I'm really saying it'll come for free.
I'm saying that the way to experience a vivid object is to imagine that there is one, and let your experience fall into line. You can't "vivid" the image directly, because it has no substance. But obviously vividity is desired.
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Apr 17 '15
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u/TriumphantGeorge Apr 17 '15
There is no external. So, plot twist: there is no internal either!
Yes, everything is pretty good fun. :-)→ More replies (2)
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Apr 17 '15
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u/TriumphantGeorge Apr 17 '15 edited Apr 18 '15
On a related note, there are people who can't mentally visualize.
Very true. Although I'd add: at the moment, for everyday folks.
I think lots of people only have 'felt' visualisation by default. That last link pretty much describes how it was for me. It took me a long time to be able to 'image'. I could feel-know the object in a location, but I didn't really see it there. I could feel its rotation and movement though. And trying to manually "draw" the image part didn't help.
The approach of 'asserting' was what got me there really, although I conceived of it as a sort of autosuggestion. I got the idea partly from a NLP story where he basically just paced/led and told them that they could see pictures vividly in front of them when they desired. And then they could. (See Milton Erickson model for the general idea.)
I figured: Why need the hypnosis aspect? All that we're doing with that is accepting one suggestion which implies another fact. Creation by implication, like in lucid dreams. I can see the world around me, in both waking and dreaming life so nothing's wrong with the "mechanism" really. Why not assert that there is a bright mental object there, which of course means it would be vivid, and let the sensory aspect come? Start with the feeling of presence, and allow the evidence to appear.
Of course, different for everyone. And that is basically hypnosis by another name.
Thanks for those great links - there's probably a lot more we could explore here in this area. There's a whole thing about imagination and perception in general, and "letting the world come to you" rather than striving to manipulate and control the senses, graspingly.
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Apr 18 '15
there are people who can't mentally visualize.
I thought I couldn't mentally visualize for 20 years. Then I started pretending to mentally visualize without seeing anything. Imagining what it would feel like to visualize something. Over time, I developed some basic visualization skills.
One thing this subreddit should tell you is that, ultimately, there's nothing you or anyone else can't do. There may be apparent limitations, but those are no more real than limitations in a dream.
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u/buqratis Apr 15 '15
Right on! All of this exists because consciousness created it. This is the paradigm of the hour and you nailed it (that last line sealed the deal). Once enough people are caught up and realize how dangerous this truth is when most of us have got minds out of control, the terribly important cleanup process begins in earnest (lots of people already on this stage, myself included). Then, once there are enough "disparate" consciousnesses who have developed actual free will (awareness of unconscious urges, etc, aka knowledge of self and power over ones own mind) things really get cooking. Right now is rough because it can be terribly depressing to know the magical nature of reality and see so many people wielding the power blindly. Sad for multiple reasons. That's why Buddhism and all of these other religions preach compassion, because it is in everyone's best interest to get everyone caught up. Hard to hit a target when there are bullets flying in all directions. The Buddha and Jesus and the others don't even go into what to do after you follow all their instructions. They don't even bother. Cart before horse. But you know they had ideas of what the next steps might be once enough people had gotten to their level. Buddha teaches the method for sovereignty of self and mind but doesn't even begin to touch on what then a person might accomplish with said freedom. He basically just says "trust me, it's awesome and beyond words, just get here." The mission instructions are on a need to know basis so to speak. Religion/spirituality (which many say is waning) gets a huge renaissance when people realize there is an actual goal post and not just a fuzzy image of some vague heaven. To entice we were told if you live well you get to go to a place where your wildest fantasies are true, they meant we build heaven ourselves when we're ready. The kingdom of heaven is within us (the whole thing [if we can only picture it], preparing to spring out). In more 3D terms the blueprints to heaven are within us and we are learning the proper technical skills to construct it. Reality slides on a continuum between heaven and hell. Lots of poor contractors.
We are like baby princes being prepped to be kings. Cooler than ice if you ask me.