Читать книгу NLP Workbook: A practical guide to achieving the results you want - Joseph O’Connor - Страница 46

When you use the visual representational system, you see pictures in your mind. This is important in clear thinking, design, creativity and success in most academic subjects. Everyone is able to visualize, although some people claim they do not make any mental images at all. However, everyone must make mental images, otherwise how would they recognize their house or their car? Recognition involves matching what you see with a remembered image. If you had no remembered images, you could not recognize familiar sights. You are not aware of these stored images at the time, as it happens so fast, but they have to be there. The only alternative would be tedious: finding a match by going through a verbal description of all the similar things you remember. Verbal descriptions take a long time. A picture gives you the information in the blink of an eye. Look around and imagine how long it would take to describe your surroundings in words to a friend. Give them a picture and it’s easy.

NLP training helps you to become more aware and have more control of your mental images in order to think in a more creative and flexible way. Many NLP patterns are much easier to understand and learn when you are aware of your mental pictures.

The next exercise will help you develop your visual representational system. Note which parts of it are easy and which are more challenging.

DEVELOPING VISUALIZATION

Close your eyes, relax your body and watch your mental screen. Describe what you see to yourself. It will probably be shades of grey with splashes of white at first. You may see a negative image of what you had been looking at before. When this settles down, imagine a small black speck in the centre of your visual field.

Make it as black as you can.

Now imagine that speck growing like ink dropped into a pool of water so that it slowly spreads out from the centre and starts to colour your entire mental screen. The blacker you can get the screen, the better. Put your hand over your eyes if this helps.

Now open your eyes and look at a nearby object. Relax your eyes, don’t stare at it or try to imprint it on your mind.

Gradually close your eyes. As you do, keep a picture of the object in your mental field of vision. It may help to look up to your left, even though your eyes are closed. This eye position helps you to visualize.

Close your eyes and imagine the object in front of you exactly how it was.

What colour was the object?

See the colour as vividly as you can.

Now make your picture even brighter.

Imagine a spotlight on the object making it stand out more clearly.

Imagine making the object smaller so it recedes into the distance.

Now make it zoom up close.

Being able to imagine different perspectives is important. You need to be able to control your picture by looking at it from different angles.

Imagine yourself floating on the ceiling looking down on the object.

Now imagine yourself on the floor looking up at the object.

Now move the object in your mind.

Imagine turning it upside-down so you can see it from the bottom.

Then turn it around so you can see it from the back. If this is difficult, open your eyes and do it to the physical object (if you can), then close your eyes and visualize what you have just seen.

Imagine turning the object inside-out and looking at it from the inside.

Now imagine clambering inside it so you can look at it from the inside.

Some books on visualization give the impression that everyone can see amazing threedimensional pictures that stay imprinted on their mind for minutes at a time and that anything less is not good enough. This is not true. People vary a great deal in how easily and vividly they can visualize, but everyone can improve their clarity and control by practising. Everyone has a photographic memory, but some people have better quality film in their camera.