Thread: Advanced Vision Control Tutorial

dimitri:

you may want to see my semi-recent and detail post on this topic here:

lucid vision crafting part I... - Dreamcatcher ( Life is a dream. )

any feedback/suggestions/ideas encouraged.

sweet lucidity,
j

Mylynes was one of the most weird and terrifying dreamers I ever met/battled on the Dream Plane. I heard he's now working as a government psychic.

This is really, really intriguing. I'm going to try it out. And I never really noticed the static that's there when there's no light! I always saw colors, but it seemed like they were just floating in plain blackness. Now I can see that it's like a constantly moving mass of "pixels," like you said.

EDIT: Right after posting this, I tried manipulating the static into a yellow circle. I got the yellow part, but can't seem to confine the pixels to one space. This is challenging!

practice and meditation help wonderzZz...

There is a meditation exercise where you are supposed to look at an flame, object on the computer screen etc. and focus on the after image. The goal is to keep the after image in your mind longer and longer, until you eventually can do it indefinitely. Here is a website describing the meditation and some figures you can use to do the actual meditation www dot navaching dot com/hawkeen/micro.html

I'm thinking that maybe tweaking this meditation method to could be an alternative way, or a supplement, to learn the techniques in this tutorial. Instead of only keeping the image in your mind, try to change its color, size and rotate it, but perhaps only after getting good at keeping the image in your mind.

What do you think?

One thing that seems to work for me is to first practice the meditation exercise in my previous post for maybe 10-20 minutes, then put on my mindfold goggles and switch to Mylyn's tutorial. I find it easier to see many bright "pixels" when doing it this way.

I can now make some basic shapes like a square, but it's still a bit fuzzy, for example I find it hard to make completely straight edges, and I can't keep it for very long until it changes into something else.

This is a very good article , I actually do this as part of my meditation . Not only does it help with mental focus but implementing this technique when your lucid will can also stabilize the dream when it starts to blur/fade out .

Let me see if I've got this right:

Whenever you want, you can imagine a warm beach completely vividly and real just as you would be there. You can feel the warmth, hear seagulls, touch the sand etc.

Right?

I have been practicing something called "Image Concentration" from a book called Liber Null by Peter J. Carrol. A couple days ago, I had a shape burned on to my eyes from the sun. I stared at a blank wall with my eyes open, and was able to change the color of the shape to bright red!

Now when I'm doing the afterimage meditation I'm able to keep the image in sight until I reach level 2 on the closed-eye hallucination scale described in Wikipedia. It takes me 3-5 minutes of focusing on the afterimage, and focusing on my breath as needed to still any internal dialogue, to reach this stage.

Closed-eye hallucination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I find that reaching level 2 here with the afterimage still in sight is helpful, because the afterimage works as a template where for me to fill in with the colors that are flashing by my closed eyes. The colors tend to move around a lot and the afterimage helps me have somewhere to move them to hold them still.

Since I read this thread, while I was going back in time (when the post was made) in the posts, and it was pretty far back - I didn't post my modest achievement.
But since this thread is now here - I'll post what I wrote to Mylynes in a private message in 12,2011. Gotta say that since then there was no progress; but maybe it'll be a help to others in the research.

"Sometimes I have, sort-of a spot in the field of vision that becomes brighter and brighter; until it's bright white; and than fades away. It takes a few seconds, and it's pretty rare.
So the first time when I tried to make something happen in the noise (what you called "the canvas"); while trying to WILD that thing started.
As it was becoming brighter, I tried to turn it into a square; and when it became bright, it turned into a perfect square; when it's naturally shapeless!
I think it's a progress. What do you think about it? Nothing like that have ever happened to me."

(End of quote)
Worth to mention that I was trying to see the square (and other shapes) for a few hours before it happened. It also didn't happen after that instance; even in that day; even if maybe I had the spots again.
I haven't been working on that for hours since then; maybe that's why it didn't happen again.
The spot thing is pulsing, and so did the square; I think it's pretty much like the same "material" as the regular noise, but some "hitch in the system" makes one spot brighter. Don't know if it happens to others.

Interesting, MrAccident

I usually have a bright spot, or field, of light, which starts of as diffuse, then after a while it gets sharp edges. The spot is pulsating and the color mostly changes between blue, red and whiteish. Sometimes the spot is round, then it usually becomes smaller and until it disappears, after it disappears it comes back big again going smaller and smaller and so on. Sometimes it changes from a round spot to move of a field, so it has one sharp edge which is either vertical and horizontal, this edge generally move in a single direction for a while, for example it can move to the left until it disappears from the left side of my field of vision, only to appear again on the right side and then continue moving left. When I see the "spot" as a field with an edge, it's kinda like if I was watching the light of a lighthouse with my eyes closed.

Sometimes when the light is a round spot I can make it stop changing size so much and make it a bit more stable. I've been able to make the shape change somewhat like a square, but the edges are jaggy, it's not a perfect square.

Is that spot something similar to your spot, MrAccident?

WOW, mine is much simpler. It just starts in one spot. It emerges from the darkness by becoming brighter and brighter until it becomes the brightest white; then it starts to fade away; probably even quicker then it came to be. The whole process takes a few seconds; maybe 10; some faster, some less fast.
Those things happen by themselves and they are extremely rare now; and also less intense\bright.
The spot suddenly turned into the square. The square seemed perfect in it's dimensions, and totally defined, with totally sharp edges. It was from a 0 success to 100% success; and then to 0 again. Like the story of the Lucid Dreams.

I think that it's essentially the same thing you described; especially because of the fact that it pulses.

This thing is essentially visible imagination; just like what we are trying to achieve. I mean it doesn't come from an outside source.
So I think that it's a good idea for you to try and work with that thing, whenever you have an opportunity.

How often does it happen; and does it interfere with your vision?

By your avatar, it was probably you who gave the site with those shapes.
It seems like a great idea. I actually thought of doing something like that; but for some reason didn't get around to that. Now I'm definitely going to practice.

But I don't know about those shapes in particular; I think I should change them.
I don't know if it's a good idea that those shapes are so complex. And also the background is white; so eventually I see the square of where the background ends, and the shapes.
I think that I should make a simple white shape in Photoshop, and the background will be black. First the black shape becomes white; but eventually they switch back and forth (or something like that); so it doesn't really matter. So when my eyes are closed - I will only see the simple shape. I think it's better to begin with the simplest shape.
What do you think?

And also, how long do you look at the image until closing your eyes for a while.

I can get the bright spot to appear after maybe a minute or so. At first when I close my eyes I see a lot of tiny dots of visual noise, but I don't pay any attention to them, I focus on feeling my breath on the tip of my nose to clear my mind. After maybe a minute or less I look around in the darkness/noise and try to see some brighter areas. Usually I will find, around the center of my vision, either some area which look like diffuse fog, or some spot which is brighter, I then just focus on this. I try to focus on my breath simultaneously, as a way to kind my mind from drifting to other thoughts about what I'll have for dinner or whatever. Whatever I'm focusing on, either a bright small spot or a larger diffuse light, tend to become lighter and brighter as I keep focusing, if I loose focus it often disappear. Sometimes the brightness will just disappear even if I feel like I focus, but most of the time it takes me 3-5 minutes to get a quite bright spot, or even multiple bright spots. Sometimes it seems to help me to try to imagine that I'm looking at an afterimage.

I also find that sometimes it's a bit bright, even with the light off, so I bought some opaque meditation goggles that I sometimes use.
Amazon.com: Mindfold Sleep and Relaxation Eye Mask: Home & Kitchen

I haven't yet seen a perfect square like I can see from an after image, but I've managed to see a diffuse outline of a square, it kinda looks like something is covering it, like there is a layer of darkness on top, but often when I start seeing that I get too excited and loose my focus.

It does not interfere with my vision, but I think that if you focus too much on the really tiny visual noise, you might start noticing it more when your eyes are open. I can see it whenever I want, if I try to, but I never actually notice it. What I'm focusing on to get the bright spot though is not really the smallest noisy stuff but either spots which are a bit bigger and brighter, or bigger diffuse areas of light.

When I look at the afterimages I've found it to be easier not to use the mindfold goggles, because the afterimages seem to disappear faster. The main result I've achieved by using afterimages is that after about 2-3 weeks where I do the exercise a bit every day, I'm able to keep the afterimage long enough to make bright spots appear, and then I kinda move them into the afterimage, they still wobble around but it seems easier to keep them still by using the afterimage as a kinda template to keep the focus on.

I've made a few shapes myself also. I have a triangle and circle that I use sometimes.

I agree it's probably good to start with a simple shape, actually it often happens that the hollow square becomes a full square after keeping it in my mind for a while, same with the circle.

It think it doesn't matter too much how long you look at the image, I've seen several websites describing afterimage meditation that says different stuff, one says you should look while taking one breath, while another says you should look at it until you start seeing it changes color a bit, or the edges flicker. From my experience it seem I just have to look long enough for the shapes of the afterimage to get sharp. If at it for a too short time, the edges just look diffuse and it goes away really fast, but it seems looking just long enough to make the edges sharp should be fine. Also I read somewhere that if you want to train your visualization ability with this, instead of only your concentration, you shouldn't use only a single shape, but cycle through different shapes, like a square, circle and triangle.

Here is my experience with the afterimage meditation so far:

Stage 1:
The image is strongly bright. The whole image looks like beeing made of vibrating light, the edges are especially vibrating and can be a tiny bit diffuse. The first few seconds there might be additional outline of the image around the image itself. This stage lasts for about one minute.

Stage 2:
The afterimage in stage 1 disintegrates completely and disappears for a short while, when it reappears the edges are sharper, in fact the whole image is sharper. What look like ripples on a wave move across the image from time to time and erase bits where it passes through, but focusing on the image can keep it in place. This stage lasts for about 2-3 minutes.

Stage 3:
The afterimage itself is darker than it is in stage 2, changes color and is floating in a sea of internally generated diffuse light and bright spots which moves across the visual field. Usually I see like a large bright blue spot in which the afterimage is centered. The afterimage in this stage is pulsating, changing from blue/whiteish color to almost black and back every second or so.

Reaching stage 2 for the first time took me a couple days, while reaching stage 3 took me about two weeks. Now I can reach stage 3 most times that I try and it comes faster and faster. If I do the exercise several times after each other, stage 3 is reached much faster after the first few times and my gets has become more focused.

Stage 3 is where the "pixels" appear, that can be controlled. My current hypothesis that I'm testing is that training myself to keep the image in this stage for a long time, will also make it easier to create new images from my mind in this stage. Evidence to support this is that I've seen several say that if you learn to keep the afterimage in your mind for a long time, you should be able to make it appear at will, without looking at an image first.

I just discovered something really cool. When I focus on the afterimage of a hollow square or circle I can actually fill the center, so it becomes a whole square or circle. I have to focus really hard to keep it filled though, or the color disappears from the middle. I think this might be a good exercise, so I'm gonna keep at it and see if it helps in creating the circle or square without looking at the image first.

For me, the after image doesn't change colours; but disappears and reappears; and I can see one image or another; I think it depends on my focus.
I don't think I'll know how to differentiate between the 3 stages you mentioned.
You said that after a minute, you see spots around the corners of your vision. For me, the noise move with my eyes; so I might see spots around the edges of vision, only in the opposite side; if you understand what I mean.
The bigger shape that encompasses the smaller shape, gets filled in by itself sometimes; but I will try to make that happen by will.
I'll make a simple circle, square and triangle; and get read of the plus; I don't like it. :-p
You didn't say what you think about making the shape white, and the background black.

Thanks for all the explanation.

You didn't say what you think about making the shape white, and the background black.

I tried making the shape white and the background black, it seemed pretty much the same to me actually, so I don't think it matters that much what you use, just use what seems to work best for you.

The bigger shape that encompasses the smaller shape, gets filled in by itself sometimes; but I will try to make that happen by will.

I found that the hollow square is the easier for filling completely, I too noticed that it sometimes get filled, so I tried to fill and empty it consciously, and found that I could if I focus really hard.

For me, the after image doesn't change colours; but disappears and reappears; and I can see one image or another; I think it depends on my focus.

That's what happens for me too initally.

I don't think I'll know how to differentiate between the 3 stages you mentioned.
You said that after a minute, you see spots around the corners of your vision. For me, the noise move with my eyes; so I might see spots around the edges of vision, only in the opposite side; if you understand what I mean.

The transition between what I call stage 1 and 2 is the first time the afterimage disappear and then reappears. In both stage 1 and 2 the background/canvas is black with some static noise. The background looks something like this image:


The afterimage in stage 1 and 2 look similar, but in stage 1 it looks a bit brighter and a bit noisy, after it has disappeared once it comes and and this time the edges are a bit clearer, but it's a bit less bright. The color is something like bright yellow/greenish.

The transition to stage 3, is when the background changes. Instead of just static noise like in the first picture, a spot appear and it becomes something like this:

The blue spot here is what I was referring to as a bright spot earlier. The spot is sometimes exactly like in that picture, but sometimes it can be more like a wave coming from the sides, than a spot. In stage 3, the afterimage also changes. The afterimage goes from fading in and out with irregular intervals, to pulsate and change color in a rhythm corresponding to the movement of the blue spot. It changes from being almost black, to yellow and then blue, that is, it tends to become the color of whatever is moving across it, like the spot.

Stage 1 and 2 is quite similar, and it is possible that they're actually the same. Stage 3, however, is definitely something different. I try to control the blue spot that you see in the image above, and place it inside the afterimage and paint the afterimage with it, seems to work somehow, but I'm not very good at controlling it yet.

Try to create those particle things I talked about and then color and shape them to match the image. If you are getting better at this then by holding the blueprint in your mind you should be able to fill it in easily by just allowing the pixels to kind of get sucked into the image making it solid.

When I see the blue moving spot like in the image above, I let it get sucked into the afterimage. I think that's what Mylynes is talking about in the above quote.

I can make the blue spot somehow hold still for a while, but it's still moving quite a bit. The blue spot seems behave kinda like a gas, and it's like I'm blowing it into the afterimage. If I focus hard on making it stay still, it moves slower, or even stops for a while, but it starts moving again quite soon and doesn't yet completely stay still inside the afterimage. I think though, that with a bit more practice, I should be able to stably fill the afterimage with the blue spot. Then I guess comes the challenge of making it change color

I just found a thread on another forum which describes what looks like might be the next steps, because some of it corresponds to what I've just seen after the blue spot stage.
Closed Eye Visualizations, page 1

Basically I were at the stage the blue spot is floating around the afterimage. After a while I was unable to hold the afterimage in my mind anymore and it completely disappeared, this took about 8 minutes from I closed my eyes (I know this because I was listening to a eight minute song long just which finished about the time the afterimage disappeared). What happened after I focused still on the spot for a minute for or so was quite interesting though. At the stage where I see the blue spot, I sometimes also see rainbow patterns floating by, but this time when I focused more it became something that looks like this, and the patterns were moving like waves



After I looked at that for a minute or two, it changed into something that looks kinda like this, everything still waving



After this it doesn't take long until the grid starts looking more 3-dimensional, a bit like in the image below, but not exactly. For me it looked a bit more like a landscape



From the descriptions on the other forum it looks like I should be quite close to the stage where the grid can turn into objects. I haven't been able to do that yet though. According to the other forum it should look something like this



According to the post on the other forum, the stages after this is where it should get really interesting, and the objects start looking like real life objects

For now, what seems to have worked best for me for getting more colors and stuff, is to switch regularly switch between passive watching and actively trying to change what I see. I'll have to experiment a bit more with this though.

WOW that's great.
OK so I also have stage 1 and 2. And I also can't influence the image much in stage 1; more in stage 2. I don't have stage 3.
From this thread and the other one - it seems a lot of people have all kinds of CEV abilities and skills. I'm having a hard time with it.
I hope I'll also be able to progress with this. Not like the lucid dreaming, that didn't turn into a skill; more a matter of luck.
This thing is more important to me than LD, because I think I'll be able to achieve more with it than LD with all it's limitation.
Anything that you learn, helps; so keep on posting. (ツ)b

I think one thing to remember though is that the stages will be a bit different for most people, and people naturally start at different levels. Some people it seems start out seeing fractal-like patterns, or even start with seeing realistic object, just maybe without having any control of what they see, while others just see darkness.

For example in this thread you can see that a lot of people see different stuff when they close their eyes:
http://www.dreamviews.com/f11/when-y...you-see-17028/

Personally, when I started out, I only saw the stage 1 static noise, this is a couple months ago. Since that I have watched whatever I see in the darkness behind my eyes from time to time, but only the past month or so have I really practiced regularly, minimum 20-30 min every day. The first few weeks what happened is mainly that I could keep the afterimage longer and longer in my mind, first a few minutes, then five, now I'm at about eight minutes. After the afterimage disappear, it can also be interesting to continue doing Mylynes' exercises, it seems to me that they work better when you're in the state of mind you get in from focusing on a single thing, like that afterimage, for some minutes. My most interesting experiences until now was yesterday, what happened then is I kept the afterimage in my mind for maybe five mins, then I get the blue colored area moving around, after about eight minutes, the blue colored area turns rainbow colored and I've lost sight of the afterimage. I keep focusing on the rainbowcolored wavy area and suddenly it goes from being 2D to becoming 3D. I did the same thing today and tried to create a square when the background is 3D. I still only managed to get a diffuse outline of a square, I can see it, but it's not very bright. What happened to the square is quite interesting though, it seem like it moved with the 3D background and became kinda like a rectangular tunnel for a few seconds. While my control is still limited, I notice it improving all the time and the patterns and colors that appear become more and more interesting.

"The Inner Reality Technique" from the tutorial in the link below also seems consistent with what I'm observing, it talks about the background becoming three dimensional and stuff. This tutorial says you should do this before bed though, but I generally do it during the afternoon instead and it seems to work for me. Actually I find that doing in before bed makes it difficult to sleep and I also find it more difficult to concentrate properly then. I think what is happening is that focusing on something like an afterimage for a while, will put your mind in a state where you can see hypnagogic imagery
http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/induci...art-2-a-29491/
From this tutorial, it looks like what should happen next is that I should be able to see rotating static images, but I'm not there yet.
I also do the "Day Time Practice of Vivid Imagery" from this tutorial when I'm waiting for the bus and stuff like that.

Just read in a meditation book that the blue spot might be sleep spindles caused by the relaxation of the brain by focusing on a single thing for a while, or some other similar activity in the brain. In any case, today I haven't seen it. I think that stage 3 is probably not really a stage, just something you can observe depending on where the visual attention is focused. When I focus on what I see in the darkness, it seems like there are many layers actually.

One curious thing is that if I wear my mindfold goggles and wave my hands in front of my face, I can see some lights moving in the direction of the hand movement, which comes clearer if I focus on it, like one of the layers is receiving proprioceptive data. I think that this is probably what synesthesia is, so maybe you could also learn to "see" sound or other senses by focusing on the light your are seeing and then trying to see if some of it matches the other sense your are trying to match with, and afterwards focus on that light.

Seeing sounds is not what we are after here though, but rather seeing memory and imagination. I think that you can see a whole lot of weird stuff going on in your brain by focusing your visual attention on different things. For example fractal patterns that some people are observing, is probably various electrical activity going on in different parts of the brain that they somehow manage to route into the visual cortex. Because of this, I guess many of the things you could potentially see is not really useful for visualization the imagination and it should probably be most effective to remember to focus on seeing shapes rather than getting too fascinated with whatever visual stuff pops up.