Difficulty Working With Eyes-Closed Vs. Eyes-Open
© 2004
>> While I can visualize confidently and successfully with my eyes open - I have quite a bit of difficulty visualizing with my eyes closed. When I visualize something with my eyes closed, such as a banana - it tends to appear quite vague and only part of it is in view, after a little while it fades altogether. It appears correctly and accurately when I have my eyes open. When performing closed eye visualizing, I have tried duplicating the mental process that I perform with my eyes open - but without much success. The images are simply not 'summoned up' easily. <<
I don't know if this is the "answer" per se, but I'd like to offer this as something for you to ponder. :) One difference between working with eyes-open and eyes-closed is that with eyes-open you have some sort of defining background upon which to project your visualization. In other words, there's a surface which has depth, etc. With eyes-closed on the other hand, there is no surface but only a depthless blackness. Your brain therefore isn't able to say, for example, "okay, I will create this visualization three feet in front of my face". It has no automatic judgment of *where* to place the visualization.
Furthermore, in the eyes-closed visualization one doesn't *use* the eyes in the same way that one does when eyes are open. It forces one to work with the mental creativity alone, separate from normal sight.
Over all, I recommend that you keep working at it. :)
My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
11 April 2004