

Training like Tesla: An Experiment of the Mind - ztratar
http://zachtratar.com/tesla.html

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wilder
I have never been able to consciously visualize (meaning: think in visual
mental images). All of my conscious thought is in the auditory mode, though I
know what it would be like to visualize as it happens occasionally in a dream.
I have always wished more than anything to have such experiences while fully
conscious (to see my mother's face and so on).

There has been a fairly longstanding debate in philosophy and psychology about
whether visual mental images even exist, yet when I discuss the issue with
friends none of them can believe or understand that I lack imagery.

I've read a fair amount without encountering real evidence that the capacity
can be developed. I've certainly spent time trying, but possibly in the wrong
way.

A good place to start on the "mental imagery as simulation" literature is
Kosslyn, e.g.
[http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic561942.files/2009...](http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic561942.files/2009Moulton_PhilosTransRoyalSocB364_MentalImageryMentalEmulation.pdf)

For an accessible window on the debate: [http://www.edge.org/video/what-shape-
are-a-german-shepherds-...](http://www.edge.org/video/what-shape-are-a-german-
shepherds-ears) and <http://www.edge.org/discourse/shepardears.html>

Curious to lean whether HN harbors any non-visualizers.

~~~
ztratar
Wow. My experience is drastically different than yours.

I've almost always thought of things through mental imagery. It comes
naturally to me (which really helped in calculus 3, haha). I can say that with
confidence.

Thanks for the link. I wonder how many non-visualizers are out there, too.

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jimmaswell
Reminds me how there's apparently a decently-sized part of the population that
doesn't intuitively know left and right. I wouldn't have believed it much if I
didn't meet someone with the issue and someone else who claims their wife has
it.

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hackinthebochs
I've always had problems immediately referring to left or right. As a kid I
had to recall which hand I used for the pledge of allegiance to remember which
side was right vs left. To this day it takes me a couple of seconds of thought
to pull it out when my mind is not already primed for it.

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gpcz
Based on the friends and family that likes to bounce engineering ideas off me,
it seems that a lot of people's imaginations are too optimistic -- we end up
going in circles with what inevitably becomes the trade-offs or limitations in
the design because they envision a "perfect" solution and contradict
themselves as they try to get around it. It's frustrating for them when I
start committing things to paper in front of them, because then they have to
deal with the problems/contradictions their optimistic brain was avoiding. Do
you know if there's a way to hone realism in imagination?

~~~
luketych
That's where you need to implement your ideas and see what works and what
doesn't. If you are the type of person that needs to know the truth and can't
cover it up and hide from it then your imagination will eventually adjust to
reality (as long as you are getting good feedback).

For me, I like the example of creating music, or even coming up with jokes. If
you only imagine music or jokes you will never know if they are good or bad
and you will just keep getting more imaginative but in an unrealistic way. As
soon as you actually write that song, and tell that joke then you get actual
feedback. It's the feedback that you need to calibrate your imagination.

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Radim
A random thought:

Is one opening himself to diseases of the mind, when practicing improving
their "imagination" and "visualization"? Does making your mind a superior
receptacle come with an increased risk of absorbing and processing rubbish?

I am reminded here of a book I read long ago:

An emotionally idiotic child, unable to feel compassion nor human empathy, was
one of a few to survive a memetic "plague". This was a virulent disease of the
mind that swept away most of humanity -- particularly the imaginative people,
destroying them using the very facility of imagination and "openness" of mind.

~~~
eadlam
I have a barely-related anecdote.

I once tried to read two pages at a time (one with each eye) because I heard
that the rain man was able to do that. So a grabbed a small paperback and
focused one eye on either page (as one would do with a magic-eye picture).

I was able to essentially line up two words at a time in my vision and
alternate my focus between the two, but after about 20 minutes I started to
get a headache, so I put the book down and went to the couch in the other
room. I sat down and looked out my window which has vertical bars on it. My
vision suddenly latched on to the vertical bars and began flickering between
normal focus and the magic-eye focus. I started feeling dizzy, my heart rate
sped up and I started sweating a little. I closed my eyes for some time and
was able to relax but still had a strange headache for the rest of the
evening.

I felt fine the next day, but then a couple days later I was in a hotel with
black and white tiled floors (diner style) and I had a sudden recurrence of my
focus uncontrollably reacting to the pattern of the floor. It wasn't as
intense as the first time, and it hasn't happened since, but it freaked me
out.

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jmtame
Makes me want to read the Tesla autobiography. Is there something specific you
can do to improve your own mental creativity and ability to model things
visually? I have always felt some type of barrier when thinking of ideas and I
usually resort to paper to draw out wireframes.

Also might help if you can dig up some research on this, to back up your
thesis that its done by simply visualizing older memories in vivid detail. How
long do you do it? How many times per day? Do you do it every day? All things
I'm uncertain of if I'm going to participate in the experiment (which I plan
on doing).

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ztratar
I think the exact process is going to evolve, so I don't necessarily want to
bound myself artificially.

I think I'll attempt 10-20 minutes per day to start and slowly ramp it up.
Maybe I'll update the post as I go along.

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Alexandervn
Very interesting!

For a long time I have a fascination for improving memory. It seems that
visualization and memory are closely related, or even one and the same. Tony
Buzan and Joshua Foer are authors that have written about this.

They write about techniques to learn a deck (or decks) of playing cards, names
of people, long numbers, etc. The 'roman room' is one of these techniques,
that is used for long speeches; and was also used by people like Seneca. See
here a clip of how it works to learn a deck of cards:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xl7_hdWZo>

The essence of these techniques is that you must create the most vibrant or
bizarre imagery in your head about the subject. Not only visually, but by
using all the senses: smell, taste, etc.

Da Vinci is also known for training his visualization skills by looking at an
object for a moment and then trying to draw it from memory. I believe that is
from Michael J. Gelb's book 'How to think like Leonardo'. (Which might not be
the best source.)

For how consciousness and how we see things works this video by Susan
Blackmore might be interesting, because it discusses with how much (or less)
detail we can see with our eyes open in the first place:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdMA8RVu1sk> (from 40:00 or so)

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zwegner
Pretty cool--I've been interested in finding new ways to exercise my mind
recently. I have pretty bad ADHD/laziness, so it's hard to commit to doing
such things regularly, but I'm hoping that meditation as well as these sorts
of exercises will help with that.

Another fascinating set of exercises (that I became aware of reading an
article on Ithkuil, an invented language, that was on here a little while ago)
is "deconcentration of attention". There's a simple website at
<http://deconcentration-of-attention.com/>, which happens to talk about its
applications to software engineering. It's somewhat similar to meditation, and
focuses on harnessing the parallelism of the subconscious mind to think more
non-linearly.

It seems pretty out-there, and I'm not sure if anybody has really had any
success with it, but just reading the exercises is quite intriguing to me
(e.g. try to hear "red" in your head, visualize "red" without the word, and
then try to feel "red" without visualizing it). Another exercise I thought of
after reading the page (and which is quite hard for me, it turns out), is to
count in your head without subconsciously speaking/hearing the numbers.

~~~
ztratar
This "deconcentration of attention" website is fascinating. Have you attempted
any of the exercises?

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zwegner
A few times, not nearly enough to experience any benefits of it. I'll try more
from now on, promise! :)

~~~
BerislavLopac
Hmm, this is very interesting inde... Squirrel! ;-)

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waterlesscloud
There's a long passage in the Patrick Suskind's novel _Perfume_ that is an
extraordinarily evocative description of the main character building an
imaginary palace of smells. He also imagines "constructing" new smells,
similar to what's described here.

The books does an amazing job of evoking smells using only text. Highly
recommended.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume_(novel)>

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jostmey
It is important to have a wild imagination to generate wild ideas. But this
will lead to insanity unless you takes these wild ideas and refine them. You
have to continually iterate, going over your imaginative ideas and asking why
they will not work. You have to apply rigor and reason over and over again
until the wild idea starts to take shape into something new and useful.

~~~
ztratar
I completely agree and intend to do just that. The imagination Tesla describes
in his autobiography is one that translates very well into the real world.
Maintaining that quality and cohesion with the real world is on of the primary
metrics I'll be measuring against.

Thanks for the input!

~~~
jostmey
Make sure that you goal is worthy of your time and energy. Seek to create
something that will help you, other people, or will increase humanities
knowledge of the world. Otherwise, you are wasting your life.

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luketych
This is actually very interesting, I am glad this has been posted. As a kid, I
would cover my eyes with my hands to create darkness, or sometimes put my face
into a pillow or even do what Tesla did in putting a slight pressure onto my
eyes with my fingers.

I would start to see shapes and just be thinking I could change the color and
contort these shapes. Strangely, I never knew how I did it. If I tried too
hard it would not work, I would have to let my mind run on its own, and give
it a slight nudge every now and then consciously.

In college, when I was trying really hard to visualize a project I was working
on I would do the same, I would put pressure on my eyes and try to make it as
dark as possible so that I could see what I was trying to imagine, and it
helped!

I had no idea others do this as well, this is very cool. Some forms of
meditation will be very useful for this I think.

~~~
ztratar
Thanks!

Wow -- didn't realize so many people tried the eye pressure thing. If I did it
and you did it just because we thought it was cool, I bet there are a lot more
people out there.

~~~
luketych
I'm curious, after looking at a computer screen for a little while and then
closing your eyes do you ever see a rectangle that is the same proportions as
the computer screen?

It doesn't have to be a screen even, it can be anything. I have noticed that I
will have an almost exact replica "burned into" my vision when I close my
eyes. I can then (somewhat) manipulate this image in my mind. I've kinda
thought that these changes in light (from whatever we are looking at) creates
the initial image and then this image can be manipulated in the mind. I think
that the retina or the parts of the brain that are involved in visual imagery
must somehow be involved in these visualizations we are seeing (not the after
image). It would be inefficient to develop a new skill from scratch, a big
part of our brain is already dedicated to sight and imagery, so I wonder if we
can somehow make use of the visual cortex to enhance our ability to visualize
things?

Need to find a way to hack into the subconscious..

~~~
wilder
FYI, the phenomenon you describe is an afterimage and happens to everybody
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage>). You are correct that the visual
cortex is involved in both phenomena but they are quite different. An after-
image is still an "upstream" image on your retina, whereas a mental image is
not. Whether the former can be used to increase facility with the latter I do
not know. I haven't seen scientific evidence that imagery can be trained at
all.

Despite all that it doesn't sound like a terrible place to start.

~~~
luketych
Ah, that's what it's called, thanks! I read about that a while back but forgot
whether it was a phenomenon of the retina or of the brain. What I am wondering
is if you can use the after image as almost a skeleton for more advanced
visualizations. For example, imagine the retinal after image laying down the
basic shape, and then you can consciously add detail on top of that after
image. Maybe using the after image as a kind of training wheels..if it's even
possible..

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nullandnull
I'll never understand why people link to Amazon when they can get it off the
publishers or another site for free.

<http://www.teslaplay.com/auto.htm>

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sengstrom
Tesla may have been grandiose not only in this thinking - his underdog genius
certainly has kept that alive.

Visualizing something you are thinking about (a problem you are trying to
solve for instance) goes well beyond an obvious "image" of what is going on.
As a coder you probably know what it feels to be in the zone when you are
working on something that truly engages and challenges you - you have
immediate access to all aspects of your project and your knowledge and
experiences come effortlessly into play in figuring out the way forward.

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ztratar
OP here. Strange with upvotes but no discussion.

I'm curious if anyone has tried anything like this before? I'd love some
guidance or thoughts.

~~~
kepano
I spent about two years dedicating my free time to experiments of this type.
The most profoundly affecting exercise was training the left side of my body
(I'm right-handed). I learned to write in left-handed mirrored script (Da
Vinci style) and performed all sorts of everyday actions with my left hand.
Amazingly, the more I trained my left hand the more my right-handed writing
and drawing skills improved. Within a few months I found that I was able to
switch back and forth between two very different modes of thought. My brain
seemed wired differently. For a few months I could hardly put sentences
together in speech, it was an odd sensation. Eventually though, I developed
the ability to intentionally control which half of my brain was switched on.
Science is all over the place when it comes to the left/right brain theory,
but there is undoubtedly a level of truth to it. If you can learn to control
it, it becomes a powerful problem-solving technique.

~~~
ztratar
That is extremely interesting. I'm also wondering if it was maybe some type of
placebo effect. Maybe the modes were a mental manifestation...

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james1071
You might want to check out image streaming.

Summary:a brief daily exercise (10 minutes), which develops visual and verbal
thinking.

<http://www.winwenger.com/>

<http://www.winwenger.com/welcomeim.htm>

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luketych
I came across this article, don't know how legit it is but here it is anyway:
[http://speedendurance.com/2010/11/21/how-to-learn-and-
apply-...](http://speedendurance.com/2010/11/21/how-to-learn-and-apply-mental-
imagery-visualization-techniques/#comments)

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lbk
Have you looked into image streaming ?

(It something like brainstorming with your eyes closed and describing all of
it into a tape-recorder . Feels really akward .)

<http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm>

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vijayr
The book mentioned in the article - it is incredible !! It is very short - I'd
highly recommend it (just finished it). Thank you OP.

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madaxe
This is pretty much precisely how I think. If I'm considering a complex issue,
be it engineering or otherwise, I effectively stop seeing through my eyes and
instead maintain a visual image, either literal or abstract, of that which I'm
considering. It's very "intuitive", and can be applied to anything from
relativity to simple mechanics to mathematics. Anything which can be boiled
down to logical symbology, which is to say, practically anything.

I can happily spend hours on end staring into the middle distance entirely
engrossed in a labyrinth of thought - although this can get me odd looks on
trains, as a frequent side effect is wild gesticulation, as though
manipulating invisible objects.

I've always thought in this fashion - it's not something "learned", rather
more a byproduct of a hyperactive imagination, and probably has something to
do with the fact that television, magazines, and anything visual were outright
verboten in my childhood, the only entertainment available being books. You
learn to visualise stories or described situations, and when reading, I don't
see words on a page, rather an immersive cinematic view of the text at hand.

All of that said, it landed me in hot water throughout my studies, as when you
look at a physics or maths problem and write down the answer without any
intermediate computation, one tends to be accused of cheating.

On the note of memory - I have a poor episodic memory (struggle to recall what
I did three days ago) but can recall abstract facts with facility, as its just
a question of looking at the right mental image.

~~~
solistice
That sounds exactly like my process of thought. Except for wild gesticulation,
I rather trace the outlines of the object, which is less weird, but still gets
me weird looks.

