Instructor: Rainsong
Date: July 6, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: Rudiments – Visualization – Saturday, 6 July, 2019 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong — Search LECTURE83
Rainsong: https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.00386.2014 https://lecerveau.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/articles_pdf/Gaining_strength.pdf
https://www.jonathanfields.com/brain-buff-research-thoughts-on-strength-fitness-weight-loss/
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellness/try-this-sleep-hack-to-fall-asleep-within-seconds/ar-AAAXkxl?ocid=spartanntp
https://www.businessinsider.com/military-pilots-sleep-trick-2-minutes-2019-5
Rainsong: Tucking these here where they will be easy to find…
Rainsong: Anybody up for a seminar this evening?
Rainsong: I’ll go feed the trash pandas and see if anyone’s shown up when I get back
meltdown-enby: what’s the sleep thing ooh?
Rare peypey: hello, present
meltdown-enby: i mean i’m reading it now but
Rainsong: Hi there. Interested in tonight’s seminar? If so, we’ll be discussing those articles as part of it. No need to read them first (but you can if you want to)
Rare peypey: yeah this seems cool. shall we go through them one by one or did you have something else in mind?
Rainsong: I have something else in mind.
Rainsong: Welcome to this evening’s psionics seminar here at the social club. 🙂
Rainsong: You two are both familiar with the concept of real-world psionics, so I don’t need the usual disclaimers.
Rainsong: Our topic for the evening is Visualization. How to do it, and some of the reasons why you’d want to.
Rainsong: Some of those reasons are useful even to folks who don’t do any kind of energy work at all, and I’ve attached some links above, because I’m always asked for them, every time these topics are discussed.
Rainsong: We’ll start with a friendly definition: Visualization is the act of actively imagining something
Rainsong: In the sense we’re using it here, it may involve more than just visual imaginings, and can include sounds, feelings, tactiles sensations, and so on
Rainsong: Questions so far?
Rare peypey: is there a degree of realness to the visualisation for it to count? i know many people that think of concepts but don’t really perceive them in their heads
Rainsong: Excellent question. 🙂
Rainsong: For some purposes, it doesn’t matter much. However, for many of our purposes here, the clarity of the visualization is important enough to warrant steady practice for its own sake
Rainsong: How “real” it looks is slightly less important. If you can imagine something clearly, but it’s in cartoon form instead of photorealism, it’s usually going to be as good
Rainsong: Just thinking of the concepts is often insufficient (but it can work for some things)
Rare peypey: that answers my question, thanks
Rainsong: Excellent. Any other questions at this time?
Rare peypey: not from me
Rainsong: Alrighty.
Rainsong: There are two basic ways to imagine things: objective and subjective.
Rainsong: In this context, these two words have really easy meanings, unlike most of their usages
Rainsong: Subjective visualizations are those that seem to be inside your head
Rainsong: Objective visualizations are those that appear to be outside your head
Rainsong: Pretty straight forward, yea?
Rainsong: And for most of our purposes, either one will work, so just go with whichever one comes more easily to you
Rainsong: The main problem I’ve come across in instructional materials for visualization for the purposes of psionics or any other kind of similar “magic” is that the students are often advised to start with simple static images. Those are the hardest to keep in mind. It’s far easier to start with a complex, and preferably moving, “picture”. And work toward getting good at “simple” static pictures.
Rainsong: Questions on this bit? Commentary?
Rare peypey: yeah i’ve noticed this exact problem in my own visualisation training. it’s really hard to keep a static shape, it keeps warping and even if you force it, the warped shape is taking some of your attention
Rare peypey: less of an issue with open eyed stuff, i think because there’s less processing to go round
Rainsong: Exactly.
Rainsong: Why would you want to bother with visualization? For one thing, it’s one of the more efficient ways to program constructs, focus on details of complex telekinetic tasks and so on.
Rainsong: It’s also handy for things that aren’t technically psionic at all.
Rainsong: You’ll have noticed the links I mentioned?
meltdown-enby: I’ve actually heard of the second one with the sleep techniques. 🙂
Rare peypey: i’m more familiar with the psionic side, but yes
Rainsong: Well, visualization is used for rehabilitation after sports injury, preventing muscular atrophy when medical issues preclude movement, and for improving skills
Rainsong: And yep, military pilots have used it for getting to sleep quickly. That’s a handy skill in itself
Rainsong: And the bonus here? The kinds of visualizations used for these things are exactly the complex visualizations that are excellent practice for the more obscure psionic purposes
Rainsong: Win win, right?
Rare peypey: sounds great, even if whatever given psi task doesn’t pan out, it’s directly applicable to many things
Rainsong: As an example of the “improving skills” thing, after reading an article about a study concerning this topic – years ago – I decided on a lark to leave my bow in its case for a year and not take it out until the day of a tournament. For that year I only practiced mentally.
Rainsong: Won the tournament
Rare peypey: wow, i thought that the skills were complementary
Rare peypey: not replacement level
meltdown-enby: That’s incredible.
Rainsong: It’s even better to do both, of course.
meltdown-enby: So you could use that for nearly anything?
Rare peypey: it’s used in early telekinetic training so probably
Rainsong: In theory, yes. Sports, surgery, physical rehabilitation, public speaking. I haven’t heard of anything for which it’s been tried and didn’t help, but my knowledge is incomplete on that score
Rare peypey: wait, there are many types of tasks. i don’t think this would work for say, doing quadratic equations better. but more physical tasks should be fine?
Rainsong: Works for doing them more smoothly and faster, with less stress. But I don’t know that it actually improves mathematical ability as such. Maybe? Maybe not? Insufficient data
Rare peypey: one set of skills we can definitely say it doesn’t work for (excluding psionic influence) is knowledge skills. this isn’t gonna but more info into your head
Rainsong: Good point
Rainsong: Can improve recall, but it doesn’t produce the data to be recalled.
Rare peypey: might help with making leaps though
Rare peypey: regardless, this is a useful skill with applications in nearly everything
Rainsong: And using it for these random skills improves your visualization skill itself, which will help your psionics
ceahhettan: Good evening folks
Rainsong: Hi, Ceah
Rare peypey: hello
Rare peypey: stronger visualisation helps psionics? i was under the impression that once the information is conveyed, it stops there
Rare peypey: as in : i want to move this cup
Rare peypey: once the subconscious understands, that’s that, no?
Rainsong: Not so much “stronger” as “clearer with less distortion”
Rainsong: “Fling this cup across the room toward the door” is a simple concept.
ceahhettan: Visualisation is one of the things that I’ve found can make or break certain RL skills, too.
ceahhettan: Folks who can’t manage the visualisation rarely manage to back up a semi, for example.
Rainsong: “Produce a construct in the shape of this gargoyle and the size of my cat, sit it on its haunches on the northeast corner of the house until a human approaches the front door from the road and reaches a point ten metres from the door, at which poitn the gargoyle is to swoop down over the human, narrowly missing the head, and fly back to the original perch, resuming the sitting position until the arrival of the next human” is less so
Rare peypey: then would you agree with the statement “clearer visualisations allow for more complexity”?
Rainsong: Yes
Rare peypey: like the extra visualisation clarity isn’t gonna help with throwing the cup so much then, but if you want to do loop the loops on the way, it will
Rainsong: Precisely so
Rainsong: For the athletic and exercise purposes, here’s how to do it:
Rainsong: 1) Arrange yourself so you can relax your body without falling and injuring yourself
Rainsong: Lying in bed or sprawled in an easy chair is good. The fictional “Crane” position from Karate Kid on a pole sticking out of the water is not good.
Rainsong: 2) Proceed to relax your body.
Rainsong: It helps to consciously tense up muscle groups and releasing the tension systematically – such as starting at the toes and working upward (tense the toes and then let them relax, tense up the feet and ankles and let them relax, tense up the calves, and let them relax, and so on)
Rainsong: 3) If you haven’t already decided what you’re going to practice, decide that now.
Rainsong: Slalom skiing? Chin-ups? Archery? Flying side-kicks? Viennese waltz?
Rainsong: 4) Close your eyes and imagine the surroundings for that activity, as clearly as you can, starting with either a vague layout and then adding in detail, or a small detail and working outward from there
Rainsong: For the skiing, for example, imagine the starting gate of the slalom track on a mountain at a ski resort, and add in the snow, and the trees and flag-things, and the audience…
Rainsong: You can imagine it as though you are there, or as though you are watching a movie. Either is fine. And subjective vs objective doesn’t matter here, either
Rainsong: 5) Imagine yourself in that scene, as clearly as you can. Either picture yourself, in the movie, or kind of like a first-person-shooter view if you’re going for the “you are there” mode.
Rainsong: Again, build up as much detail as possible.
Rainsong: 6) Imagine yourself performing the activity perfectly.
Rainsong: Even if you have never performed it perfectly. This, of course, requires you to know what “perfect” would look/feel like
Rainsong: 7) Repeat #6 a few times, for ten to thirty minutes
Rainsong: Open your eyes, and go on with your day
Rainsong: It is very, very important to remain physically relaxed through the process.
Rainsong: Do not tense your muscles while imagining the motiions of the activity
Rainsong: For serious work, repeat several times a day, every day
Rainsong: For less serious stuff, play with ad libitum
Rainsong: Questions? Comments?
Rare peypey: What makes it so important? Also isn’t a little of this inevitable? Like the classic example given to beginner pk people about visualising running down the track and feeling their legs tense a little
Rare peypey: I’m referring to the “it’s very important to stay physically relaxed” thing
Rainsong: Yes, it’ll happen a little anyway. Keep as relaxed as possible
Rainsong: Why? Don’t know at this point. The people who research this stuff are still trying to determine that
Rare peypey: But it has been shown that being tense reduces effectiveness then?
Rainsong: Admittedly, the articles I linked above aren’t the most recent, but I haven’t seen any further idea of “why” in the newer stuff
Rainsong: Rare peypey: yea
Rainsong: I have not read all the research, though, so may have missed something about that recently
Rare peypey: okay thank you
Rainsong: Mentally practicing things such as push-ups three times a day for a month can improve your muscle strength almost as much as doing the same exercise, the same amount, for the same time.
Rainsong: For example, in some of the research, the folks doing mental practice improved muscle strength by 13%, and those doing physical exercise improved by 15%
Rare peypey: i wonder how it would be for an exercise that you can’t do? like a lot of people can’t do pull ups in the beginning of a muscle training program, but they could of course visualise it
Rainsong: A single bout of chin-ups or the like, just before heading out for the evening, can improve the appearance of the upper arms somewhat, for a while, too. Just sayin’
Rainsong: If they can visualize it accurately, it improves the strength in the muscles involved. It may take them a while to improve to the point where they can actually physically perform the exercise, though, if it is very far outside their ability to start with
Rare peypey: yeah that would make sense. so apparently the best beginner exercises involve laying down in your bed and thinking
Rainsong: Yep
Rainsong: As you can imagine, this is really useful when bed-ridden
Rare peypey: so how would this translate into psionic applications? (if you have a structure in your head planned out, feel free to leave this one for now)
Rainsong: Mostly, because it works on precision and clarity of the visualization.
Rare peypey: (i mean more visualising psionic tasks helping you get better at them)
Rainsong: However, you can also practice imagining yourself going through all the steps for complicated workings (RV springs to mind) or lifting rocks or spinning pinwheels or whatever
Rainsong: The things that don’t have much non-mental activity are harder to visualize, but it can be done with some ingenuity… much as cancer is sometimes attempted to be treated by imagining the rogue cells as weak enemies and the helper-T cells as strong “heros”
Rare peypey: in my pk visualisations, i visualise and feel the force/fluid/stuff/whatever it is that surrounds an object or moves towards an object, maybe doing that without being in a pk session would be helpful
Rainsong: Probably
Rainsong: My usual warnings apply here: have a snack ready, in a spot you don’t need to get up to reach.
Rare peypey: not really relevant side note, but do you find that you can perceive that stuff even in videos of pk? like the one posted a while ago of someone pushing a bug off a psi wheel cork was pretty prevalent. i think it wasn’t very targeted is why
Rainsong: Those chin-ups I half-joked about (it is true about the temporary toning thing, though)? You’ll feel it. And you’ll probably feel the effects of the imaginary practice in PK, too
Rainsong: Sometimes it shows up in videos, and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know why the camera only catches it sometimes
Rare peypey: i don’t mean a visual distortion, but that can also be present sometimes
Rare peypey: anyway sorry for derailing
Rainsong: Not to worry
Rare peypey: hmm, i just made a connection. if visualisation of an exercise someone can’t do (like a pull up) is the best way of starting a given exercise, wouldn’t the same be true for pk? like i’m currently trying to move a cupboard door, but haven’t had any success. would it not follow that i should train mainly by visualising it?
Rainsong: Hmm. Interesting question. I think it might be worth trying. I don’t know if that has been attempted in quite that way before, but it seems plausible, given what is known about using visualization for other skills training
Rare peypey: well i’ll be the n=1 sample size trial for say a month then and report back
Rainsong: Excellent.
Rainsong: Shall we discuss the sleep thing, or are you three out of time?
Rare peypey: i’m fine to discuss it, but don’t feel forced to teach this part just for me. i think the others aren’t here
Rainsong: It’s all good. 😀
Rainsong: There was a spate of articles about this a few months back. You know how websites these days feed off each other.
Rainsong: Well, being able to get to sleep quickly has always been a useful skill for any soldier, and during WWII, the pilots needed to be able to sleep in, shall we say, suboptimal conditions.
Rainsong: Dude by the name of Bud Winter is credited with establishing this protocol, and you’ll see it’s similar in some ways to what we were just discussing.
Rainsong: And you never know when you might need to get to sleep, even when worried about an exam in the morning, or knowing you only have four hours before you need to be awake again, or the like.
Rare peypey: or when it’s too hot for a country that’s supposed to be rainy all the time and so has no air conditioning that would let you sleep :angry:
Rare peypey: this technique sounds like it would be useful about now
Rainsong: Yep, that too
Rainsong: (Also, hint: dampening a light “scarf” or piece of fabric and draping it around your shoulders will help cool you off, too. Source: Southern Canada gets surprisingly hot in early summer)
Rare peypey: i’ll probably give that a try tonight, thanks!
Rainsong: So, we start again in a physically comfy position. Or as comfy and safe as possible: Lying in bed is good, but reclining in a chair or curled up on a couple of airport departures lounge “chairs” might be the closest available option…
Rainsong: And here again, we relax the muscles. If you can’t relax your whole body, though, at least relax the muscles of your face (and preferably neck and shoulders). Ensign Winter’s method leans heavily on the idea that if your face muscles are relaxed, your body gets the message that it’s safe to relax and sleep.
Rainsong: If that means tensing your face up and making silly faces a kindergartener would be proud of, in order to then relax the muscles, do it. 😀
Rainsong: If you haven’t relaxed your shoulders (and can do so) now is the time.
Rare peypey: i can, but i wouldn’t want to fall asleep in the lecture (not sure how effective the technique is, but it must be pretty good if the military uses it)
Rainsong: Work your way down your body, relaxing as much of it as you can. If you’re doing it one side at a time, for muscle sets (such as one arm then the other instead of both at once), start with your dominant side
Rainsong: (Yep, fair enough. With practice, 96% were able to fall asleep in less than two minutes, in an active war zone)
Rainsong: Take a few nice deep breaths – don’t force them – just comfortably deep, letting breath each release easily. No need for force the exhale, either
Rainsong: Muscles relaxed as can be?
Rainsong: Clear your mind for ten seconds. If all else fails, imagine a blank whiteboard or artist’s canvas
Rainsong: Ensign Winter suggested some visualizations to push the thoughts out (because worrying about stuff or thinking about worrying things tends to make the muscles tense up again or move a bit or otherwise be a nuisance)
Rainsong: One was to imagine lying in a canoe looking up at the sky, with the water gently rocking the boat
Rainsong: Another was to pretend to be lying in a black velvet hammock, with everything inky black around you
Rainsong: And the third was just to repeat “Don’t think don’t think don’t think….”
Rainsong: …that last isn’t a visualisation as such, of course
Rare peypey: all of them are releasing tension from the body and then thinking of one thing to the exclusion of everything else though
Rainsong: The relaxation of the muscles plus ten or more seconds of a relaxed mind results in sleep
Rainsong: Yep, that’s right
Rare peypey: that sounds kinda scary, even if sleep is inconsequential
Rare peypey: like being drugged i suppose, except you’re doing it to yourself. maybe one of my personal hang ups
Rare peypey: but it’s a technique worth a try
Rainsong: And you can stop the process any time you want to. It normally takes some practice to do, anyway.
Rainsong: That said, being a psionicist, it’s possible to do this to someone else. And depending on what they are doing at the time, sleep might not be inconsequential at all
Rainsong: All that said, a useful adjunct to this method is to preface it by focusing on the intention to wake up at a certain time, or just before a certain cue (I prefer waking up just before the alarm, for example)
Rare peypey: could i put in a lecture request on using suggestion like that/in similar ways? flux and i have made a lot of progress but we’re mainly scanning, sending and receiving
Rainsong: Sure. More specific about what you’re looking for?
Rainsong: (will be back in just a moment)
Rare peypey: basics to intermediates of suggestion, with a focus on practical techniques. is suggestion something that requires being able to access deeper level thoughts? because we mainly get surface level and sensory data
Rainsong: It’s terrifyingly simple, actually
Rare peypey: huh, so it’s something we could potentially attempt. it’s hard to isolate in a training setting though i suppose (the partner being acted on wants it to work, is known to be telepathically receptive etc)
Rainsong: It’ll be easier in those conditions than “in the wild”, of course, but it’s still a solid way to practice.
Rainsong: When the Soviet scientists were working on it, because they were “highly motivated” to bring some kind of materialistic results from their studies, so as not to end up in a gulag, they primed their research subjects with post-hypnotic suggestions
Rainsong: That also makes it easier, but isn’t entirely necessary
Rainsong: It fits tonight’s topic, and it’s short, so why not just tuck it in here? Unless you are needing to be off?
Rare peypey: no i’m fine for time, thanks for doing this
Rainsong: No problem.
Rainsong: It’ll come as no surprise that there is more than one viable way to acocmplish this.
Rainsong: The Soviets used something very like the sports practice we were talking about earlier.
Rainsong: The person Sending, focused on imagining the Receiver doing whatever the suggestion was.
Rainsong: For example, if he wanted the other person to fall asleep, he pictured that person becoming drowsy and falling asleep, while holding the intention to cause that result.
Rainsong: If he wanted the person to bring him a flashlight, he’d imagine them doing so.
Rare peypey: so it’s really just sending with an intent for them to respond to the thoughts in a certain way layered in
Rainsong: It’d often take a few minutes, and they accomplished this at large distances (arranging to have other people there to witness the time was sometimes inconvenient)
Rainsong: Yes.
Rainsong: And as usual, adding oomph, and layering in an emotion, tends to be helpful
Rainsong: If you’re just trying to help someone get to sleep, remotely brushing their field at the same time is helpful
Rare peypey: i seem to remember a story of a soviet russian psionicist getting past some guards by suggesting to them that he was stalin? that’s pretty heavy stuff
Rainsong: In games of chess, you can focus on the piece you want them to move, while mentally obscuring other pieces you’d prefer they ignore.
Rainsong: No, Messing claimed to be Beria, the head of the secret police, in that instance. He used it to walk into Stalin’s dacha, past all the armed guards
Wayfarer: Wolf Messing, getting into Stalin’s office by projecting that he was Lavrenti Beria.
Wayfarer: Yeah.
Rainsong: Stalin was impressed
Rainsong: And his claim was entirely mental. He didn’t say anything. Of course, no guard would have questioned Beria
Rare peypey: it could also be easier in the pre internet era when people didn’t know what important people looked like. although that’s still true but to a lesser degree
Rare peypey: i’m reading his story, there’s a ticket collector who accepted a piece of newspaper as a boat ticket, so scratch that
Rainsong: They’d have known what Beria looked like because he was there regularly.
Rainsong: Messing was just that good
Rainsong: A buddy and I used to play chess online, with the express purpose of mucking with telepathic suggestion to alter the game. She’d push verbal commands so loudly I could make out the individual words. “Move the knight. Yea, that one. You know you want to”
Rare peypey: that sounds like a good method for training this. i’ll do that in my next session
Rainsong: It’s fun. Any of the old-style strategy board games in which the players have some discretion about the moves to make (checkers is too regimented) will work, and there are many online gamesparks.
Rainsong: If you both know and like chess or any of its variants, it’s ideal
Rare peypey: it’s not so much about the overall outcome of the game, but the individual moves and how they’re influenced then?
Rare peypey: so a skill discrepancy shouldn’t matter so much
Rainsong: That’s right
Rainsong: One move at a time, influenced directly. Move this piece, ignore that piece, and so on.
Rare peypey: is the person who’s being suggested at trying to not be influenced?
Rainsong: Of course, it’s understood that both parties have agreed to the alternate rules, and are freely consenting
Rainsong: Can go either way, with or without defending.
Wayfarer: Both players should ideally be trying to win the game as the primary goal. Resisting being suggested is a sort of meta-play, because I might well suggest you make good moves if I’m trying to win and I know you’re not doing what I am suggesting you to do.
Rainsong: For first learning how to push the suggestions, you probably want to go without defence against the other player, to allow each other to learn how to do stuff. Adjust Shielding accordingly
Rainsong: But yea, once you have some idea what you’re doing, it’s like as Wayfarer says
Rare peypey: okay thank you, we’ll try this on monday
Rainsong: Have fun 🙂
Rainsong: Thanks for participating in tonight’s seminar
Rare peypey: thanks for the lecture, i learned a lot
Kate Embers: Thanks for the lecture! Was really informative and will certainly try that 😀 One question, though. That part about influencing people, isn’t it kind of controversial regarding ethics about free will? :thinking:
Simica: May I ask @Kate Embers, isn’t most aspects of magic or energy work often skimming on what the masses would view as morally subjective
Kate Embers: Certainly, but isn’t directly influencing other people’s minds quite far out there :thinking:
Nevyn: You influence other people’s minds every time you talk
Kate Embers: Fair point :thinking: thx
Rainsong: As for ethics, yes, that is an issue. What you do with the skills will be determined by your ethics and morals. Playing chess, where both players freely consent to the varient rules, oughtn’t be too morally troubling. Any number of other obvious uses? Well…
Rainsong: The fact is that the information is out there, in any case. I’d prefer that it is not only in the hands of, for example, various governments. If you don’t know what’s out there, what chance do you have to defend yourself?
Desolus: Speech is actually often a far more powerful mind altering tool than psionics.
Desolus: The efficient practitioner cares not to the commonality of the knowledge he uses, only to it’s effectiveness.