I’ve recently added some of the visualizations from Andrew’s Dream Yoga book to my practice and I have some questions:
Is there a significant difference between recalling an image and visualizing one? It’s much easier to remember the red lotus I drew on a whiteboard than to generate the image anew, but I don’t know whether this has the same effects.
I’m a little unclear on what it means to “trace” the lotus. In practice what I’m doing is moving my eyes in a path that describes the shape of the lotus, and trying to visualize a line being inscribed by the motion (and mostly only visualizing that part of the lotus that I just “drew”). But maybe I’m meant to visualize the full lotus and move my attention around the perimeter?
Bones: I probably shouldn’t be asking this, and I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but I wonder how long I should expect it to be before I notice any change in my capacity to visualize things. I’ve been doing mindfulness meditations for years, and I was an avid daydreamer as a child, but it seems my faculty for visualization is rather weak, to the point that I can’t entirely tell if I’m even “doing it”. I’m going to keep it up regardless, but I can’t help but wonder.
I will note that doing the lotus visualization seems to have increased the vividness of my dreams! I welcome anyone to share their experience with doing visualization meditations, regardless of whether you have anything to say about my particular questions!
@AndyK - When doing the red lotus visualisation, I often feel that my visual perspective is too high above the visualisation and I have to make an effort to visually descend into the lotus. I kind of feel that I need to be very close or even in the lotus. Perhaps the experts have some helpful thoughts?
And, is it correct to drop the image of the lotus in the last instance and only feel the energy of the dissolved lotus image?
Thank you for your questions and description of your experiences with visualization. Would love to hear about various experiences of increased ability to visualize, ie has that happened for you does it take years?
I can grasp the principle and potentiality of using imagery and have practiced in various retreat settings including Vajrasattva multi day chanting with visualizations; group and solo retreat but have not quite experienced an ability to ‘visualize.’ I notice a ‘story’ about it as a certain lack on my part … just not the way my cognitive/imaginative processes work. But I want it to work.
