As "Good Companions" to Project Sanctuary go, a finer friend is hard to find. An extremely useful technique I would like to introduce is a method of increasing conscious - unconscious communications quickly, to be better able to visualise, and to be able to generate representations quickly and at will. This technique is Image Streaming by Win Wenger.
Image Streaming
Here is a message from the inventor of Image Streaming, Win Wenger, as to
where to go to learn this technique and how and when it originated:
"I was playing with forms of image streaming without realizing it in
1973 and first identified it as such in about March of 1974, and have been
learning about it ever since. My first publication of it was in a booklet called
Voyages of Discovery, in 1975, later subsumed into the 1979 book Beyond O.K.--Psychegenic
Tools Relating to Health of Body & Mind (both publications--Gaithersburg, MD:
Psychegenics Press)."
The procedure of Image Streaming is deceptively simple. You sit back in a
comfortable chair, close your eyes, and describe aloud the flow of mental images
through your mind. Three factors are absolutely crucial. I call them the
Three Commandments of Image Streaming:
1. You must describe the images *aloud*, either to another person or to a
tape recorder. Describing them silently will defeat the purpose of the exercise.
2. You must use *all five senses* in your descriptions. If you see a
snow-covered mountain, for example, don't just describe how it looks. Describe
its taste, its texture, its smell, and the sound of the wind howling across the
peak.
3. Phrase all your descriptions in the *present tense*.
Tips on image streaming for beginners:
Close your eyes and describe out loud anything you can *see*. To begin with,
this may just be sparkly bits now and then, swirls, a colour going by, that kind
of thing. If you have sincere trouble with getting the process going at all, use
an after image from a bright light to start you off on this first step.
Keep describing out loud what you see, this aspect is vitally important to
engage certain parts of your neurology. Do this for about five minutes at a
time, then stop. Do not censor what you *see* to begin with, and do not try to
control it. Do not be disappointed if at first all you get are vague
impressions; this process improves immeasurably with very little practise.
Later on in the process, you can use it for problem solving and a great many
other things besides; and it has been said that doing this on a regular basis
makes you smarter and opens up whole new channels of communication within your
own neurology.
