CORRECT AND INCORRECT VISUALISATION

I once asked a near-sighted little girl who was, palming to remember a picnic she had enjoyed attending at some time in the past. The mother spoke up. Alice, you are giving a picnic next Saturday. Plan every bit of it, dear." I had to explain that remembering a happy experience would be easy and fun, therefore relaxing, but planning something which had not yet taken place would be like writing an essay or other composition real on real work and tiring, therefore not relaxing.

Mental pictures, memory and imagination, can be used to bring; about relaxation under extreme conditions. A woman, sorrowing over the sudden death of her husband, was despondent. Her friends were helpless to comfort her. She could not eat or sleep. She could find no respite of her grief but paced the day. I floor night and d cued to see if I could help. I asked her to sit by me in an easy chair, took her hand and asked if she could remember the trip she and her husband took together years before. Having heard a few of the incidents, I helped her reconstruct that pleasurable experience. As she indulged in memory of the happy days before the blight of tragedy, she rested her head against the, chair, the swollen face relaxed and finally, when she failed to answer one of my questions, I saw that she was peacefully asleep.

Another dramatic result of the relaxation brought by mental pictures was the case of a young man who suddenly lost the sight in one eye. Doctors told him he was suffering from a detached retina, that an operation would be necessary but that they could, not guarantee the results. He was frantic with apprehension and fear of blindness in his better eye which had never been too good. For a week he had not been able to eat or sleep but smoked and stormed about, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His wife brought him to me as a last resort. I made him lie flat on his back and cover his closed eyes with his palms, and told him to listen. For twenty minutes I gave him a series of vivid but quieting mental pictures. Gradually, his tension eased, his teeth unclamped and his breathing became smooth and regular though he was not asleep. Finally, I said, "Sit up slowly, easily, and with a sigh." Immediately, he covered his better eye and cried out, "Venetian blinds! I see Venetian blinds! I must be peeking! No! I have sight! I can see!" During his visualisation this man's eyes had relaxed; the retina had fallen back into position and re-attached itself. "Spontaneous reattachment," the doctors would call it.

If memory and imagination through mental pictures can aid extreme cases such as these, think how much they can do for mild cases of strain and refractive error. Read over the following experiments. Select the one that appeals to you, then sit down comfortably, cover your closed eyes with your palms, and try it. Do not work with or think of your eyes. Remember, mental pictures are memory pictures deep back in the mind, not forward in the physical, eye.