artwork for visualisation

has anyone tried this, and if so was it any more effective than just using your mind?

basically, i've been reading about WILD and V-WILD etc, imagining where you want to be in a dream. i've got a place picked out, an imaginary place, and i'm wondering - since i'm an artist - if it would be worth drawing the place and printing it out, and looking at it to enhance my concentration/focus?
a side thought of this would be to use some program like Vue or Terragen or whatever for each person to create their own personal dream area - they're photoreal programs, which might help w/ visualisation etc.

Sounds interesting. I'm quite a fan of the whole using visualisation to help WILD. How do these programs work though?

I have always used a technique where i would google image 'fantasy X' with X being a landscape like forest of space. Then i would close my eyes and visualize being in that picture exploring the expanse.

Most of the landscape modellers i've tried have the same format - you pick a terrain type and basically just drag/drop the stuff you want. there's generally some way of terrain altering, like painting a greyscale height map etc, and stuff to tweak water levels etc.
given the scope of some of them, they might be useful for any amount of variety, say a forest, beach, mountain range etc etc.
think i'll google and see what freebies are out there. i know old versions of Vue turn up on cover discs every now and then.

edit :
cool, terragen's still out there, still free in a cut-down version
don't think i can link, being a newbie, but go to planetside dot co dot uk
if you put terragen into youtube there's a bunch of vids showing what it's capable of.

Any technique that utilizes visualization is on the right path. I have said this before but here I go again: The human brain utilizes the same area (the secondary visual cortices) to imagine as it does to dream. This is a scientific fact and also is knowledge we can use.

Interesting that you talk about it.

I scratched a picture with a pen of the scenario I was trying to visualize. The details were coming in a highly fast pace, and it was really easy and enjoyable to put them into paper. I'm no artist but I think it was pretty good in the sense of grabbing a particular thing from my mind and putting into a paper.

After that, I wrote what the dream would be like. I closed my eyes, described the scenario and eventually the place, outputing as many details and sensations as possible, as well associating specific things with other experiences (I felt my muscles anxious just like I feel them before a good soccer game;). And then I've readed bit by bit, trying to incorporate everything in my mind again. It's like you spit it all to a table, get a hold of the ingredients and the mixture, then get it into you again. It's so much easier in my opinion that simply visualizing because you're making the image way more vivid than choosing one. Because if you make your own your pushing from your brain, most likely finding pieces and bits that are easier to familiarize with than a picture you get in the net.

Oh yeah and I became lucid that (this last) night. The scenario wasn't the same, but I blame it because I actually spent more time feeling myself becoming lucid (and that moment happened exactly like I had imagined) then focusing on the picture.

Yes, I think it would be a good idea. You would create more details, and know exactly what it looks like after you draw it. Go for it! :D

Visualization is a great technique, I love it.
Doing this could definitely boost up the chances so do it :D