"Lucid Visualization"

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Hi All, This is my first post, so I hope I'm putting this in the right spot. I have been lucid dreaming for a number of years now and have only recently begun to learn more. Something that I have been slowly training myself to do is access the visualization powers of the mind exhibited in lucid dreaming, but during waking life. For lack of a better term, I call it "lucid visualization." The basic idea comes from this simple exercise. Go to a quiet room with low light. You should be able to see things easily but when you close your eyes you should see black rather than red (i.e. light isn't illuminating your eyelids). Hold out one hand and stare at it for a few moments. Move it around slowly. Take some time to observe how your hand looks as it takes different positions and how it feels as you do it. Keep moving your hand and close your eyes. This is where things get a little complicated. Don't try to visualize your hand in the classic sense - instead, try to "see through" your eyelids to observe your hand moving. At first it will probably not work - keep trying. Eventually you should start to see the outline of your hand moving - as if you are seeing right through your eyelids. It will probably be a faint outline, but you will see that it moves remarkably similarly to your actual hand. With practice and concentration, you should be able to enter a fuller state of visualization. After a few weeks I was able to look at the objects in my living room, look at my hand, start to visualize the room and my hand, then get up and walk around with a pretty good approximation of where things were. I will warn you that this can be a bit dangerous - things don't always correspond exactly and you are bound to run into things initially. Once you get really good at this, you may even start to bring in some completely fictional elements a la lucid dreaming. The visualization, for me, is much more stable than a dream, but it is also much harder to call things out of my unconscious. I am able to visualize with a fair degree of accuracy static shapes and designs, but people are still out of the question. I am currently working on using this visualization to "extract" things from my mind via drawing them. I sit at a table with a piece of paper and visualize it in my head. Once it's vivid, I envision a complex design of some sort on the piece of paper and "trace" it with my hand. At first the drawings turned out very distorted, but recently they have been getting better and better - to the point where I'm much better at drawing with my eyes closed than with them open. Has anyone here ever heard of this technique? If so, I would love to hear more. I enjoy visualization quite a bit more than lucid dreaming now, as I am a terrible visual artist and it shows the promise of being able to unlock some hidden potential. If you have questions regarding how to start doing this, please let me know!

[Beef Jerky]

This is cool. I've heard about this. I should start trying. It sounds heaps fun. So, can you also implement things in your room that weren't there before? Also, does it have a cartoony look? Or does it look like real life?

[Beef Jerky]

WHOAH! Maybe it's just from the anticipation but I think i may have just got my first 2D outline of my hand!

[Wayward Oneironaut]

Hmm.. That is a really cool technique. I wonder if you could listen to some music while visualizing and condition your mind to get into that state even more quickly? Although, maybe no distractions is better. Maybe you could even push this further to being able to enter a lucid dream directly from this waking state...

[Explode]

I'm bringing back this old post because I think it's REALLY cool, and more people should reply to it no harm done

[icuurd12b42]

I used to do this all the time. Very cool. Eventually, I tested to see if my mind's eye was placing my hand at the right place (I had a lamp on a remote control then). Sometimes it was righ on, sometimes way off. Fun thing to do though.

[Chaos Psyche]

Strengthening the minds eye is fundamental!

[blade5x]

I'm going to have to try this. How long until I can start to see my hand?

[icuurd12b42]

I'm going to have to try this. How long until I can start to see my hand? [/b] You'll know when you try. It's instantaneous to me. Though at what level you will see your hand is up to your imagination. I only see a darker shadow where my hand and arm are with a faint lighter outline. The background seems less dark.

[HotPastrami]

I do this sometimes too, I also started by practicing with my hand. I have learned to incorporate people into the the visualization on occasion, but it only happens near the brink of sleep for the most part.