[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Along those lines: actually the best imaging I’ve ever done in the conscious state was my one experiment with remote viewing.
I was actually able to visualize the target (all I knew about it was an alphanumeric code assigned to it) better than I can picture anything volitionally.
Well, I have never seen the actual target, but while it wasn’t a sharp visual image it was closer to really seeing something than I can ordinarily ever do. Although of course it is a generated image from impressions of qualities gained by the subconscious rather than being based on actual imagery, as of course the eyeballs aren’t there to see anything.
However, it was sort of a self-hypnotic state, though not exactly.
I also cannot paint, draw, or sculpt, which seems naturally enough to go along with that.
Are your dreams reasonably lifelike images?
It’s interesting to me that the subconscious can generate such excellent images and in such speed and quantity, but for some persons such as yourself and myself, there’s no carryover to the conscious mind.[/quote]
Interesting discussion. As an artist, I always thought everyone had the power of visualization, but their process of manifesting that image became burdensome or impossible to actualize in graphic or plastic form.
Perhaps what you describe, Bill, is what sets apart non-artists from artists. In my own experience, I see a clear picture in my mind of what I set out to do on paper. Then I execute it. Sometimes I admit my ideas aren’t so clear-focused, yet I still take pencil to paper because there’s a “learned” response that fills in the blanks at that time. Often the results are pleasingly surprising if not successful. We artists describe this event as a “happy accident”.
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I’d like to add another perspective to this discussion (very interesting). I’m an extremely visual person. My whole career in mapping and software (and geology) has been based around visualizing structures, shapes, geometries, colors, and patterns. When I talk I catch myself using my hands and ‘seeing’ the things I’m talking about (aside from being Italian). I’m not an artist per se, but I’m an OK sketcher and I do a lot of computer graphics (+ dig. photography and manipulation).
Where I’m going with this is, I am a musician (audio art, if you will). I don’t read music (well), and taught myself guitar by ear-- I only need to hear something once or twice. When I hear, play, or compose music I “see” it.
The best thing I can describe is that I see colors and shapes-- not colors and geometry as you think of ‘red’ or ‘square’, but more like a fabric of patterns. I can’t explain it any better than that. I’ve had this conversations with lots of musicians and some get it and some don’t, but I know (and from others) that when I (or anyone) find that pocket or zone in a jam it’s like a visual dream state and the notes are creating landscapes (for lack of a better term).
Incredibly cathartic.[/quote]
Steely
Sounds like you have a degree of synesthesia… although labeling that"ability" seems lame when you become aware that many artists have some degree of it. I’d prefer to all those who do not have it “deficient”. lol
What you described as that zone is very similar to what I described above. You don’t initiate a solo in a jam with every note in mind beforehand. This is where your “learned” response kicks in and it seems like some internal power takes over. I like to use the word “flow” because there’s a seamless connection to everything at that moment. It’s the same for musicians and artists alike. In fact, I’ll bet when you try to recall in your mind what you had played yesterday, you can’t! I’ve done great paintings where the next day I’ll review my work and I can’t remember completing particular passages of the picture. Man, I love that! That’s the zone I want to be in at all times.
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You hit the nail on the head. I’ve heard recordings of a gig the next day and a lot of it, I have no idea that I was playing it, but there it is recorded! It’s like trying to remember a vacation you took as a kid, where you know you were there and you can recall the emotion and some abstract visions of place, but don’t really remember being there consciously!
That’s why we keep going back. It’s a drug. Now that I think about it, there are analogs to this with sports and in the weight room. No doubt that athletes in the moment of greatness are artists in their ‘medium’-- they find that zone/dreamstate. You don’t get under big weight without at least trying to put yourself in a different mental place.[/quote]
I was thinking about athletes while reading Steely’s post. I don’t think what you guys experience is any different than professional athletes experience. They have physical attributes that the average amateur doesn’t possess, much like artists have a visual aptitude that non-artists don’t have. You can overcome some of the “deficiencies” from practice and effort, but you can’t overcome genetics and the higher threshold for performance that comes with it.
DB
