How to See Bright, Vivid Images in Your Mind's Eye (Image Streaming)

I have always been unable to see anything at all with my mind's eye until late this year; over a year of dedicated afterimaging has given me the ability to form the vague outline of a square sometimes and for just a few seconds before it vanishes if it ever appears at all. I tried this methodology you outlined for 30 minutes but honestly I never got any remotely worthwhile imaging out of it, not even a square. The closest I got was a black line that was vaguely like a pen for less than a single second and the feeling of wasting time I could be spending doing literally anything else except talking to a recording and getting 0% improvement. Will update at the end of this week on whether or not this method remains completely worthless ime.

I did something like this few days back, i was lying in bed, closed my eyes. saw black/red grain. I tried visualising, saw perhaps faint impressions, but i knew i have seen stronger visuals before. I pinched my eyelids more to see stuff, but after a while I decided to relax my eyelids and not try at all, just keep them closed and wait. Perhaps after some minutes, maybe 5 minutes, i saw these lightened parts appearing. they started moving, and i saw a twirly light, half light, half dark. It kept twirling. More moving lights appeared. I kept looking at these moving enlightened parts. Eventually they filled my whole inner vision. The once dark inside was now an illuminated version. This eventually led to images appearing that i did not make up.
I saw a man opening a door, and his movements were extremely realistic as a real person. he looked a bit beside the door and went back and closed the door. After that I saw other video's of people, etcetera.

So: not forcing anything, just keeping my eyes closed, but knowing I wanted to see images did the trick for me, but it took a while, and when the lights came up, i followed on them...
I think focusing on something with your mind invites light to that point in spacetime. Maybe.

Hey there, it's been a year since I found out about this at the age of 40. I read an article about a "seemingly" well-known person and was really surprised. I also thought that when someone says they can see it in their mind, it's just a figure of speech. I also thought that counting sheep to fall asleep was just a figure of speech. I was really perplexed when I found out about aphantasia and couldn't believe that people could really see images in their mind. All I ever saw were flickers and flashes of light, but never a clear image (except when I looked at a candle and closed my eyes, for example). Interestingly enough, I dream a lot and can remember them. I have also learned how to lucid dream and can use it sometimes. So when I'm not "awake", I can see and perceive everything. I will also try this method and hope that I will be able to see pictures in my mind at some point :) Good luck to all u mindblind people

Fun fact: narrator learned this technique 7 years ago when this video was published. This video is now 7 years old 🤯

TL;DW: Psilocybin/DMT/LSD.

Why can I only see the images in one direction? It's way too hard for me to do a full 360° view of of my imaginary house.

I can see well with my mind's eye, the trouble is I have poor concentration and my mind is not disciplined, therefore I struggle to tap into this ability at will. I have been trying to improve my diet and lifestyle, and am experimenting with amino acids and other supplements, to improve cognitive function👍👍

Hi! Non-native English speaker here. I came across this article ( and video ) a while ago on hackernews and I'm very interested in this technique. I have a question:
Do you think the image-streaming method will also work with languages other than English? My primary language is Japanese by the way.

No problem, i can do it with my eyes open.

I want to try it to see if it works but Idk if i want to see images, my mind is already full.

With meditation you can focus on the functions of your brain and control and understand them well.

Perfect.

I did this all the time and last night I randomly forgot how to do it

If it weren’t for the information I would know that I could shape my own mind but I would never know of this

I found out about aphantasia about two years ago. I can't remember me not having it, yet I'm most certainly seeing dreams when I'm asleep.

I will commit to the thing and, hopefully, return back in a month or so to report my results
(I have even made a calendar note)

Hi! I'm an Afantast. I used to think I had a good mind's eye and didn't pay attention. But I recently found out that it turns out to be weak, on a scale of 0 to 10 I'm somewhere around 1-2-3. But I do illustrate for a living. So I'm like a one-armed cab driver. :( I was in a deep depression for about a week. But even after losing an arm, cab drivers get back to life. Further below I will describe my experience:

Very cool concept. But I don’t understand the purpose of the second person or the voice recorder. It seemed like you didn’t use them in your example.

Amazing video. Thank you.

I seen the pig snout as you was saying it and frontal view before you said it so now I have an idea of what you are talking about I'm going to try it out thank you

I'm excited to try this. I can visualize things only vaguely right now and would very much like to make my imagination more vivid.

I've always been able to use my minds eye to visualize but it lacks clarity and detail, I used to draw but I gave up partly because of this. I'm gonna try this technique out to see if I can develop more detail when trying to picture what I want to draw.

Just wait until you discover lucid dreaming!

Is there something for hearing such as Mind'sEar, cuz I can recall and imagine voices of someone talking, Sound of mic drop and so on

I never doubted the ability to imagine images in my mind but now that I focus on it, I realized it's just dark. But weirdly somehow I still imagine what a stuff look like.

I don't get it. Is it like, just an impression of the image on dark?

Itt: lots of people being confused by the terms. No, none of you have a permanent condition called aphantasia. You simply havent had a lot of time practicing your imagination without distraction.

You are just untrained. Its okay. You arent broken. You are simply a aide effect of society shifting to forcing on your consciousness more external stimulus than your imagination can contend with.

Its okay. You are fine. Just in embryo.

I've had this for as long as I can remember, and I've always been able to see very, very faint imagery in my head. I'm going to start trying this on a routine, finally, and update if I see any change!

Wow! This really helped but I have a problem. When I close my eyes I see white not black except if it’s completely dark in the room but mostly just white. But I tried drawing a snake (not with my finger but imagining it lining out a little cartoon snake) and then I tried to visualize it being green with a red tounge and black eyes and that there was a white background and it worked!! And then I tried to get it to move around snd that surprisingly worked too!!

Hey James, just want to thank you for this info! Also want to send a big heartfelt shoutout 🎉 your way for making it freely available, as all good knowledge should be! 😊

Were you able to percieve memories in color / as an image before this? And if so, what were they like? I can see my memories in color, but its like I only have a single snapshot of them, primarily focusing in the place I was looking.

as an artist and avid reader, it sucks not being able to visualize the things i want to produce / am reading about. ive dealt with total darkness in my mind's eye my whole life, but i'm ready for that to end ! i'm starting art school in september too so i have a couple months to practice this. i hope we all overcome this obstacle and become great visualizers ! ♡♡♡

Big thanks for video,today I'm understanded about I'm have aphantasia and I'm try to improve this. I'm not see anything when close eyes,hope this technique can help me.

Very helpful and not just for photographers you should re-release it 100% it is necessary skill for everyone. THANK YOU!!

i really hope this works, my aphantasia is so bad ive tried for years to do anything help it. yesterday i tried to kill myself over the fact i can't visualize

This is Pasuedo science my friend

I remember doing an IQ test once. On the spatial visualization portion, they asked me to visualize certain shapes, but I couldn't. It made me think that I was, well frankly, retarded. It's kind of silly but, everytime I try to imagine something, literally, an imaginary anvil would fall on the shape I was trying to envision in my head. Please tell me I'm not the only one with this quirk. It's like an uncontrolable intrusive thought.

I have done something similar for quite a few years now, but I roll my hands into fists and press the side of my rolled up index fingers against my eyes, and I see very bright, realistic images in my minds eye, I can move around, fly over fields and meadows, I have no control over what I see tho, so I just go with it,
sometimes I see very bright colored blotches, surrounded by dark. I picture myself moving forward, and into the colored blotch, and sometimes at first the scene inside of this blotch is all in the color the blotch was,
but as you said, don't press too hard, you don't want to damage your eyesight.
putting a wet washcloth over your eyes keeps you from damaging them also. if you feel like you are starting to get a headache STOP! wait a minute, relax and try again, but put softer pressure on your eyes this time.

the only problem I have is everything moves so quickly, if I try to describe what I am seeing to someone, it has already changed. and I have gaps in my descriptions. other wise I see some very cool things sometimes. it is like wakeful dreaming,,,

The only thing that I can't see in my mind's eye is human faces. The more I try, the more disfigured they become.

Thank you for this video, appreciate it a lot, just recently discovered I had aphantasia and was sad about it.

I have a question:
Do you continue to rub your eyes when you are talking to the recorder?

You’re the first person that I’ve found to actually explain how to image stream. You even gave an example! Thank you thank you!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Bu video denk gelen bi türk olursa bana anlatabilir mi? Yapmak istiyorum ama tam anlamadım.🇹🇷

Thanks mate that was great, hope at last

I have aphantasia. I'm going to try this and i'll try and keep you updated

I have aphantasia and I can't even see phosphenes when I rub my eyes 😔

I can image things from memory with my eyes open ,but i cant make images up with my eyes closed.
This is so weird because i am able to see myself in dreams with my eyes closed. I would like to know if the brain uses the minds eye to dream or something else.

Do you constantly rub your eyes or just at the start of each attempt?

I see river windows train One day I was at school when I close my eyes I see the sky

Just found this video and there has actually been a couple times in the past I have perfectly imagined a 4k video with texture and shit. I’ve also had a couple of times it has sounded like someone was screaming at me outside of my head perfectly clearly. Most of the time I can just imagine people talking very quietly but I can tell it’s in my head.

can you tell me how i can do it for me? My English is not very good so I can't practice