Imagination is a powerful tool that cuts both ways. It may be able to capture and reorient the soul-shattering experience of hearing distressing voices, yet we must be careful that the memories it leaves behind do not do damage of their own.
T. M. Luhrmann, Living with Voices, 2012
Nightmares are normal after trauma. Having nightmares can be the brain’s way of attempting to make sense of a horrific situation. The situation is not hopeless. Some people believe you can influence your dreams by planning your behavior in them and changing how you act in them.
Use your imagination to have better dreams. Seek help in your dream, maybe find shelter or ask other dream characters for help, offer help to those characters in trouble. As you take action in your nightmares you will be helping yourself gather resources for coping in the waking world.
Patricia Garfield, Guidelines for Coping with Nightmares After Trauma, Unknown Date
Small Worlds Contained Inside
Exercise One: Creating a Cube
So you want to visualize, and you don’t know where to start. Hopefully this guide will change that for you a little! If these first exercises are too easy, you can just skim them and go forward. We’re going to start with a square, but by the end you’ll hopefully have a whole world! This is not a sure guide, and may not work for you. This is just one way to do it.
So, visualize your square. It can be on paper, it can be on nothing at all, just a flat square. It can be any color, any color at all. If you can’t seem to do it at all, go down a paragraph. Hold that square there, as long as you can, then look away, and let it go. Do something else for a few minutes, then try to summon that square back.
Can you do it? If not, try this. If so, skip this next section.
If you can’t bring your square back, or can’t visualize it at all, take a look at the picture below.
Now stare at this square for a moment, see how its lines… line up. See its details.
Okay, so there aren’t many details here, it’s just a square, and it’s just… there. But! But!- This square is about to be your friend. You want to look at the square, and you want to memorize it, and then you want to put it in your mind. You want to stare at it, you want to zoom in on it, get closer to it, and you want to imagine its… blueness.
Now, try to dissolve it, lose it, and bring it back. If you can’t do it… it’s right here. Practice until you can. Then move on.
Okay, if you’re onto this step, then you have successfully visualized your square. Now we’re going to make it into a cube! So take your square, and imagine that you’re pulling out one side to it, perpendicular. Is it moving?
Good! If not, try this. Imagine another square, then move it so it is facing the first square. Fill in the gap, but make sure they’re the same distance from each other. If that doesn’t work, try building the square face by face.
Now, do the same thing as above, dissolve it, and remake it, dissolve it, and remake it.
((Note, if you find it hard to do the above, try with a dot. You can take a marker and draw one on a piece of paper, or look up a picture. Then stare at that until you can see it in your mind. On paper turn the dot into a line. Stare at that until you can see it in your mind. Then, make another line, coming off of the dot, so you have half of a square, or a slightly off L. Continue this process until you have a square in front of you. When this is done, see if you can get another marker and color it in.))
Realism
If realism is the problem, than this exercise may be for you!
Imagine a cartoon or CGI pine tree, maybe it’s even a stick figure pinetree. Now, imagine that there’s a film over your vision, a nasty, yucky, orange film that you have to clean.
Imagine wiping it away, and with every wipe your image gets more realistic.
Once you have a mostly realistic image there, focus on it, imagine it’s every detail. How do it’s needles look? It’s bark?
Zoom in and out of it, trying to keep that clarity and realism. Do this until you can keep it that way consistently.
Keep trying and practicing this exercise with different objects and different things, and you will find that your ability to create realistic things improves!
Realistically, there is no limit.
Another way is a version I like to call the ripple effect. To start the ripple effect, make a fist in your mindspace. Then, flick your fingers outwards, so that you have a hand that looks like you’re about to cast a spell, or use telekinesis to move something with your hand.
Take the cartoon image in your head, in my case, a cat, and move your hand forward, flicking your hand like taught above. Pretend that there’s a barrier between you and that object, in your mindspace, and that object is cartoonism. Strike the barrier and imagine a wave rippling from that spot that your hand hit outward. Where the wave travels, your scene changes to realistic.
Then your cartoon/CGI scene will hopefully turn realistic.
If these don’t work, don’t get frustrated! They are simply symbolic, ways I found that work for me. Try to come up with your own way to fix the cartoon/CGIness of your imagination.
Hidden Stories of the Metallic System, Small Worlds, Contained Inside, unknown date