Thread: A Visualization Experience

I see nobody is talking about a visualization on this forum, so I will take mine turn.

I started with my usual routine, trying to stay still I imagined a rectangle, when fully stable I turn him into 3D cube, after a little more I start to rotate him on his axis, when rotation become fluid I enter "the Zone" and can begin to make more complex visualization.

I visualize a long corridor with a bright light at end of it, like a tunnel, when I came out of the tunnel into the bright light, I suddenly appeared on a rooftop. I was dressed into a Jedi robe uniform and had a light saber on my belt, a guy of the other side of the rooftop was calling me, a jedi woman was about to fall from roof into a lava pit, "save her" he said. I used force jump and land just above her, suddenly two options appeared in front of my view, "kill her" on the left and "save her" on the right, I said to myself "third option then, Fear will not control me", I used force push and push her in the lava pit, the I draw my blue light saber (it was exactly as in the movie) and run him through my chest, I felt him going through me, but there was no pain. I lose balance and fell in the lava pit myself, I was sinking into the red lava and like my body was getting hot(the whole time I was feeling my body in the bed). I saw her sinking several meters of me, but I couldn't move my arms or legs anymore so I use the force pull instead and we bump into each other, I said to myself "I won't leave you here" and imagine a blue light surrounding us like a force shield, my body started emitting blue energy making a bubble around us, the hot feeling stop and like my body become super light, we started to sink very quickly, then I felt my body on bed starting to distort and bend 90 degree and sink into the bed, it started from my legs, then my knees, my torso next, but when my spine bend and sink I couldn't control it, the sensation was too strong, So I open my eyes, of course I was still in my bed and my body was still in the position I start.

Lol it was really some experience, I said to myself and took a deep breath.

I hope people understand that I'm not talking about Daydreaming, but an actual Visualization.

Originally Posted by michael79

I hope people understand that I'm not talking about Daydreaming, but an actual Visualization.

Could you clarify what your understanding is of the differences between the two concepts?

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Could you clarify what your understanding is of the differences between the two concepts?

I think I know what he means:

Daydream: Takes a lot of concentration to see anything, phantom like / no solidity / mostly conceptual and doesn't give a sense of presence

Actual Visualization: Little or no effort in concentration is necessary (though usually not nearly as controllable and takes a life of its own) and seems to actually make an actual physical impression on your senses and seems to really be there e.g. a light shining in your eyes can actually cause the sensation of your pupils contracting or whatever that feeling is. There is a real sense of presence and depth. It's basically like wearing a VR headset except not nearly as crappy and can potentially be all senses.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Could you clarify what your understanding is of the differences between the two concepts?

Originally Posted by Trevorm7

Actual Visualization: Little or no effort in concentration is necessary (though usually not nearly as controllable and takes a life of its own) and seems to actually make an actual physical impression on your senses and seems to really be there e.g. a light shining in your eyes can actually cause the sensation of your pupils contracting or whatever that feeling is. There is a real sense of presence and depth. It's basically like wearing a VR headset except not nearly as crappy and can potentially be all senses.

You are 3/4 correct, an actual *Visualization* can take a lot of practice and focus, it is used mainly for science and art. Another use is for VILD(Visually induced WILD) or in my case for a trance like state. I'm using a little trick to make the visualisation process simpler, I make a very simple Visualization of an object(can be a cube, a car or your favourite item), make him solid and then 3D like, rotate him around his axis, just enough to enter into the "the Zone". From there my subconscious take over because it's much stronger in terms of visualisation. Now if I go deeper and relax, it will turn into a WILD or I will glide between the thin line of sleep and wakefulness, I call it an Alpha Trance, because I'm using deep Alpha waves not Theta. And yes all my senses are working like in a lucid dream, I can create dream objects or teleport, but everything is much easier to collapse, if not maintain a stable relaxed focus, emotions free.

I'm really interested in your routine, since as you mentioned not a lot of people talk about vizualization here. How long do you spend in your "warmup" phase where you visualize simple and gradually more complex objects? Do you ever visualize at this level in day-to-day life, i.e. while sitting down at your desk or standing in line at the supermarket? How vivid is the visualization and how much do you have to cut off external stimulation (i.e. are you in a dark room)?

The obvious goal to me is to have as close to an LD-like experience as possible, with as little initialization as possible. I think everyone wants to be able to jump straight into a vivid dreamlike environment. But for me, as someone who can only really visualize semi-vividly when it's incidental (i.e. mind wandering while doing a menial task) or if it has a purpose (visualizing scenery while writing something down), or during hypnagogic imagery while going to bed, that's a tall order.

Would love to hear your feedback!

Thank you both for your replies, this lets me go ahead and share this:

Spoiler for Dream-like but fully awake experience:

(...) As I was listening to second half of the OST, I had thoughts come and go of "darkness". Not vivid but dream-like imagery of being pulled down by my "dream" arm into pits - swarms of spiders and insects would appear and I wondered why it was that I could never have visualised a scene like this without feeling fear or horror in the past. Though the imagery wasn't strong, I still felt some disgust at some of the insects, particularly big ones.

This repeated itself in different ways a few times mixed with other passing thoughts I can't remember, related to the imagery. I remember thinking that this probably wasn't what I was "looking for" and thinking that it was interesting that a dream-like setting had formed.

Then as the soundtrack got into the last quarter the thoughts went sort of into the actual in-game area that the track would play in, though the imagery was still relatively weak vs an actual dream, I could sort of feel a dream-body and started remembering the black lizard from another of my DJ entries.
I started wanting to spot him but instead I realised that I was that lizard this time, seeing from first-person, but wearing a labcoat (which is one of my artificial dream-signs) and though I couldn't visualise clearly, I tried to do hand/finger reality checks; counting wasn't possible due to the low duration of physical memory and lack of "vision" - but passing my clawed fingers through my other hand's palm worked.

Though I was fully aware of the music being outside this and the fact that I was sitting on a chair, I felt it was important to try and do a RC to see if my mind would agree with what I was wanting to do. The place the "dream" body was in, was indeed dream-like, despite being awake.

As the music progressed I remember running through the halls of Athena (the in-game area) as if it were in the actual game, getting "deeper" into the area, "looking" down at my "dream" legs, noticing that they were scaly and black and that the feet were dinosaur-like, with 3 front claws and 1 rear claw or something like that; the in-game enemies were appearing and I attacked them with the claws I had and my large reptilian mouth, eating some of the smaller enemies and making particular note of all the blood that was showering from the enemies, just like it would in the game. I wondered, was this the darkness I was looking for? I concluded it wasn't. I tried to taste the blood but the sense wasn't strong enough since I could still feel my actual mouth too. I tried using the channeling effect from Warframe with my attacks but while this did disintegrate the enemies into energy, more seemed to appear from the dispersed energy.

As the music got to the last track I had on the list, which is the music for the final room in Athena, I realised I was standing where the boss would be. There was the player character down below in the chamber; he was autonomous and attacked the boss control room tower and shot towards me too, not penetrating the glass with the bullets. For some reason I taunted him by licking the glass, noticing the tongue to not be reptilian-like but being long, with somewhat better visuals than before. Then I remember breaking the glass and crawling down the wall as a lizard would and going for the player character and killing him; the hordes of enemies that were attacking him turned to me instead and I remember fighting them and soon after the music ended and the imagery ended, as if I'd" woken" up, despite having been "awake" the whole time.

This is from an entry in my DJ (be sure to read the comments) from a while back now and I thought I remembered ZAD commenting on it.

Even though it was almost two full years ago now, I still remember that to me this experience felt like what you two are describing here and it was certainly very interesting, but because it feels a bit specific in what I require to recreate the experience, I often can't find the time to dedicate myself to doing it or when I've had the time, I've unfortunately had interruptions and such like. I'm likely to try again at some point soon anyway because a few things have changed for me recently, and so it may feel easier (or not) now.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Thank you both for your replies, this lets me go ahead and share this:

Spoiler for Dream-like but fully awake experience:

(...) As I was listening to second half of the OST, I had thoughts come and go of "darkness". Not vivid but dream-like imagery of being pulled down by my "dream" arm into pits - swarms of spiders and insects would appear and I wondered why it was that I could never have visualised a scene like this without feeling fear or horror in the past. Though the imagery wasn't strong, I still felt some disgust at some of the insects, particularly big ones.

This repeated itself in different ways a few times mixed with other passing thoughts I can't remember, related to the imagery. I remember thinking that this probably wasn't what I was "looking for" and thinking that it was interesting that a dream-like setting had formed.

Then as the soundtrack got into the last quarter the thoughts went sort of into the actual in-game area that the track would play in, though the imagery was still relatively weak vs an actual dream, I could sort of feel a dream-body and started remembering the black lizard from another of my DJ entries.
I started wanting to spot him but instead I realised that I was that lizard this time, seeing from first-person, but wearing a labcoat (which is one of my artificial dream-signs) and though I couldn't visualise clearly, I tried to do hand/finger reality checks; counting wasn't possible due to the low duration of physical memory and lack of "vision" - but passing my clawed fingers through my other hand's palm worked.

Though I was fully aware of the music being outside this and the fact that I was sitting on a chair, I felt it was important to try and do a RC to see if my mind would agree with what I was wanting to do. The place the "dream" body was in, was indeed dream-like, despite being awake.

As the music progressed I remember running through the halls of Athena (the in-game area) as if it were in the actual game, getting "deeper" into the area, "looking" down at my "dream" legs, noticing that they were scaly and black and that the feet were dinosaur-like, with 3 front claws and 1 rear claw or something like that; the in-game enemies were appearing and I attacked them with the claws I had and my large reptilian mouth, eating some of the smaller enemies and making particular note of all the blood that was showering from the enemies, just like it would in the game. I wondered, was this the darkness I was looking for? I concluded it wasn't. I tried to taste the blood but the sense wasn't strong enough since I could still feel my actual mouth too. I tried using the channeling effect from Warframe with my attacks but while this did disintegrate the enemies into energy, more seemed to appear from the dispersed energy.

As the music got to the last track I had on the list, which is the music for the final room in Athena, I realised I was standing where the boss would be. There was the player character down below in the chamber; he was autonomous and attacked the boss control room tower and shot towards me too, not penetrating the glass with the bullets. For some reason I taunted him by licking the glass, noticing the tongue to not be reptilian-like but being long, with somewhat better visuals than before. Then I remember breaking the glass and crawling down the wall as a lizard would and going for the player character and killing him; the hordes of enemies that were attacking him turned to me instead and I remember fighting them and soon after the music ended and the imagery ended, as if I'd" woken" up, despite having been "awake" the whole time.

This is from an entry in my DJ (be sure to read the comments)

LoL, The same way I described my first experience of this kind seven years ago, when experimenting with Visualization and VILD, it happen totally by accident.

I posted this somewhere else, I will put it here too:

I also found that not only the visual approach work, but also the audio one, "Audiolization" or recreating the outside sound with your mind, so if you say a mantra or count to wild, you can imagine how someone else is counting or saying the mantra for you, while you still focus on them and will turn in AILD. It is a little tricky so it need to be trained, during the day. If you ever heard voices or music before fall asleep, this is the same concept. It's like the wind is whispering in your ears.

You can try the same approach as the Visualization Lucid Non-Dream and expect someone to answer you(even if don't believe about talking with the dead). This way you can form a real conscious conversation with your subconscious or unconscious mind, or just channel some dead fellow around you, can be very creepy sometimes Last time I had a five minutes chatting with some girl.

Interesting that you mentioned that, as I did have a go at this again today, and this time, I did get some visualisation again, but by the middle of the soundtrack and not by the end.

---

The most notable thing for me this time was that I wasn't able to take the form I wanted and the visuals/sensations were a bit weak (but it was daytime and bright today when I tried, even with curtains closed etc.) but I did become verbally engaged with a creature that had the form I wanted. In fact, I was concerned I was being too vocal in my mind, even before the creature appeared.

Using association, I started to visualise some chains moving or whipping (during a part of the music that has some chains sound effects) and I tried to feel myself holding them as they did this; I found this creature chained and struggling against the chains. I helped him and despite acknowledging that he had the form I wanted, I decided I'd try to just go along with him or whatever. When I first saw the creature I had hoped I would just become him, transferring my will into his but because of the weak visuals and sensations this just wasn't working.

We ended up sort of going several places together and I willingly steered the visualisation's context a bit, and a lot of the creature's actions were partly of my direct will. As all of this happened, he was talking to me, as me, but not me, in a way sort of as you describe, not directly part of my conscious process, so I just allowed him to speak freely. It was interesting because he spoke in a role of authority about willpower and telling me to not allow myself to create doubts and so on about what we were doing "together".

I sort of made him attack some of the other creatures that would appear as part of the visualisation in some tunnels and at one point I decided we should leave the known area we were in. We got on a platform and it went up as a lift and went from being somewhere dark to a bright sunny desert (reminded me of a part of Hunger Games a bit). Because of the pace of the music, changes happened quite quickly to the landscape but overall I maintained its integrity as a desert and tried adding detail such as distant pyramids and other more modern structures. But pretty quickly I myself found that I was being too ambitious for how weak the visuals were feeling. I wasn't feeling the sand or the scene in an authentic way and felt that because of the weak visuals I couldn't create detail close to me and the creature.

So after that, I decided we should go back down into the tunnels, eventually we reached a point where other creatures were starting to be more common (especially shadow creatures that he would crush around their necks) and at this point I was having some doubts about something and he insisted that I stop having these doubts, or he would crush my neck, also, starting to do so lightly as a brief example of what he was going to do; because of his size it only took two fingers around my neck, and this I did feel more clearly. At one point, I had doubted yet again, and he threatened once more; but I told him to devour me instead then. I decided it would make more sense in terms of joining directly with him. For most of the visualisation I walked either alongside him or on his back/neck.

I don't remember anymore now where the visualisation ended exactly but after a while I wasn't able to maintain the visualisation and after that point I just returned to listening to the music only, without further visualisations.

---

I think something important for me this time was that before trying all of this again today, I decided I wouldn't allow myself to think about success or failure, and that I would allow myself to be carried wherever this took me, so that I didn't create expectations about what would happen. There were a few interruptions/annoyances at the start and before the end, but even so, I'd say it went well, since I did have some degree of visualisation without feeling like I'd forced it or anything like that.

Edit: I've expanded some details about the visualisation and tried to tidy up my post a bit more.

I see, you are pretty good at this, keep training and on some point you will be able to use all your five senses. Maybe if you deepen it a little and let more of the visual to be created from your subconscious, things can become more interesting. (But maybe you must do it on the bed instead of chair, because of lethal reasons)As for "Audiolization", you can think of it as a dream in which you can't see anything and only can hear, so the voices will belong to the DCs. Once a voice wanted to show me something and told me to catch his invisible hand, the moment I did that, I was transported to absolutely amazing and solid dreamscape, it is like somebody teleported me