Visualization

[zpr]

I seem to have trouble visualizing.  When I close my eyes, and try to imagine something, I see nothing but eternal darkness.  I would concentrate very hard on trying to make something as simple as a guitar appear in my mind (for i am an avid musician, and have been playing guitar my whole life) and I see nothing.  Some suggestions would be appreciated.

[wow_nonamesleft]

Try to add more than just the looks of a guitar.  Try adding the hardness of the body, a smell, ect... Its not really about seeing it from your eyes.  You basically see it from your 3rd eye.  When you add all these other things to it your more focused on it, in such a way that its almost real.  I'm not sure if my advice is actually valid, but give it a shot  .

[Alan McDougall]

Wow,

I seem to have trouble visualizing.  When I close my eyes, and try to imagine something, I see nothing but eternal darkness.  I would concentrate very hard on trying to make something as simple as a guitar appear in my mind (for i am an avid musician, and have been playing guitar my whole life) and I see nothing.  Some suggestions would be appreciated

Why are you "trying to visualize?". Just relax look at your eyelids before you go to sleep each night, give it say 15 minutes no picture ? go to sleep .

Do the same the next night and so on and one night visions of mysterious nature and hopefully great beauty will flood you mind TV screen , which are your eyelids. A sort of reverse transmission from your mind onto your eyelids, instead of your eyes being the normal receiver of images into your brain


Alan

[Blazewind]

If you really want to use music and guitar playing as a visualization, perhaps you could try visualizing the actually music instead of the intrument.  Try to picure musical notes and things like that.  Picture the notes to a song you know well.  You might be able to work something around that.  Sorry, I have never learned to play a guitar, and I'm not sure how the sheet music would look for it.  I'm not sure guitar music even uses musical notes in the same way as most other interments.
One other thing you could try is the way I first started learning to visualize.  Picture a ball, and make it bounce.  When you can hold the image of the little bounncing ball, try to change it's color, make it spin, go in differant directions, all without losing focus on the ball.

[Stookie]

I posted a reply yesterday, but it's gone now.

Anyways it had to do with using other senses like wow_nonamesleft mentioned. Instead of seeing things, feel them, smell them, hear them, heck... try licking stuff. The visual may appear on its own, and if it doesn't, no big deal. The point is to immerse yourself in it.

Since your a musician, your sense of hearing may be the place. Imagine yourself plucking a string on your guitar, really feel the strings on your fingers, and "hear" the individual notes.

Some people are better at visualizing than others - it's a skill.