As listed on the home page, there are different types of sight. Let’s explore these in more detail.
Synesthesia
Our brains are incredible tools. A biologic mass of electric signal sensing microscopic fibers, elegantly honed into various survival and life giving regions. Memories, emotions, inspiration, self repair, new growth… How incredibly amazing! This mass of neurons can sometimes get wires crossed. For instance, colors mixed with numbers, tasting words, seeing colors when hearing music, etc. When we eliminate a primary tool for visual detection, our eyes, our brain may start getting mixed up as we pick up different signals from our target. During one practice session, I was blindfolded and trying to detect colors. Blue felt like a buzzing / sinking feeling in my legs. Yellow felt like a diagonal pulling in my neck. Red activated my nose. After calibrating a bit with the colors (knowing the colors and detecting what happens in my body,) I was able to reliably respond to the colors based on what I felt in my body. Here’s the fun part. It’s different for everybody. It’s possible that you may not feel anything. It’s also possible, and highly likely, that these feelings will change over time, particularly when learning these skills. You may be able to start detecting different sensations in your hand as you “feel” the color. You may be able to taste or smell something. Or a memory is triggered. Or you sense being bathed in the color. There are so many ways synesthesia can be activated as we’re building new neural pathways. Calibrate, experiment, and see how, if at all, you are affected.
Intuition
Trusting our intuition can be tricky as it’s a subconscious activity, a sudden “knowing” that we just know is right without any other distinguishable evidence. I have witnessed many students when they first put on a blindfold, and they are highly intuitive, immediately reach out and grab objects placed in front of them. No explanation, no guessing, just a knowing that it’s there and trusting enough to move their hands to grab the object. And they get it right over, and over, and over again, diminishing the element of chance. In these cases, we have immediate feedback: either the object is there or it isn’t. One time I was blindfolded and finding colored poles scattered throughout the room. I stopped at one pole that I detected at a distance, took a guess at the color of the pole, was wrong, then intuition kicked in and I just knew the pole was green. I didn’t wait for confirmation from my partner, I knew it was green and I was ready to move on. It was just as if I used my eyes, looking at the pole, calling out the color, then going to the next task. Note that some people call this mindsight, the subconscious brain activating, providing responses, but we need a label for the next type of sight.
Mindsight
This is where things get interesting. As we continue to refine our detection skills, the target we are looking for may show up in our mental screen. Before we go further, we need to describe different levels of mental imaging.
Phantasia is the ability to generate an image in your mind at will. This is like daydreaming, escaping into your own mind. Virtual Reality. Some people cannot generate images in their minds, which condition is called aphantasia. Prophantasia is the ability to generate an image in the real world. Virtual Reality. Hallucinations.
Mindsight is a form of phantasia, generating an image in our minds based upon feedback from the real world. This image is often gray with a fuzzy outline. Sometimes it’s hard to keep a mental hold onto the image. This image passes through obstacles, meaning we can see it even if something else is in the way. We can point to the object, grab it, just as if we were looking at it with our eyes. To get a sample of what that looks like, stare at the circle in following image (enlarge the page if necessary) for 30 seconds then close your eyes. Typically, a negative image of what was viewed appears in your mind’s eye. The fuzzy gray outline of the after image is like seeing objects using mindsight. If you want to have some fun, after the image below starts to fade from your mindsight, completely cover your eyes so it’s pitch black for a few seconds, then, keeping your eyes, closed, remove your hands. It’s possible that the image may repaint itself.
But wait, there’s more! Mindsight can also be used to overlay what your eyes normally see. As you become more refined in mindsight practice, it is possible to activate mindsight at will, overlaying mindsight with normal eye vision. This becomes really useful when trying to see what’s going on inside of someone’s body, for example. One night after practice, I was looking at another member in our group and noticed a red glow coming from her right elbow. She admitted having used her arm extensively that day and her elbow was sore. On another day I friend confessed some of her past trauma, and I was able to detect black in her heart. We performed some qigong exercises, and the black started breaking up, giving way to white spots.
Real-Time Mindsight
Now, this is the real trippy one. Real-time mindsight is seeing just like using your eyes. This is typically started by stimulating the pineal gland, which can be done by various methods, and white spots may appear. This happened to me spontaneously on my third day of initial training. I didn’t understand what it was, but it was piercing bright white. I thought there may be a hole in my mask, but that was proved false very easily. The white light was coming from inside my head. I was able to use it to detect a pole I was searching for as it would grow brighter when I neared the pole, dimmer when I went away. Pretty cool tool, but nobody explained what it was for me, and I found it annoyingly bright, so I let it go away. Wrong! When these lights start to appear, let them get bigger, and bigger. Multiple white dots may appear, coalesce, and open into a window. These windows are what we’re trying to form, as we can see through them in real time, just like using our eyes. Windows can vary in size, but generally they start off small, like looking through a pinhole. When my first window opened, it was the size of a medium potato and it was overwhelming. Try not to freak out when it happens as being overly emotional can cause the window to close. The transition from a pinhole light to a window is often described as the light turns into a translucent mesh, then it opens up. The animation below helps to explain what the experience may be like.
Real-time mindsight windows can appear all around your body, but primarily your head as your mind is already used to seeing from this perspective. Windows can form below your chin, by your ear, above your head, behind your head, etc. Practice with each window that forms. These windows can grow, shrink, move around, and coalesce into larger windows. It is possible to have a window that surrounds your entire head, seeing both in front, behind, and both sides simultaneously. Note that these windows are like looking through a tube, which means tunnel vision.
Oversight?
This type of sight I hesitate to define and name, as I’m still trying to understand it myself. For lack of a better term, I’ll call it oversight, or the ability to see from a different position in space. My “favorite” place to look is above myself a few feet, and slightly behind, looking diagonally down to a point a few feet in front of me. From this vantage point I can get a snapshot image generated of my surroundings as well as my position within the space. With my experience, this is not real-time, and it doesn’t last like mindsight. It’s like a photograph is taken and I’m able to analyze the photograph. When I started learning shapes, I had to use this technique to get a snapshot of the shape card, the person holding the card, the object where the card was resting, and the rest of the room. It wasn’t my intention to have this type of experience, but it happened and I can’t deny it happened. I also used this technique to find my son when playing Hunter (blindfold hide-and-seek) as well as identify where he was projecting his intention to try to throw me off. I’m not going to call this astral projection as I was fully conscious within my body as well as aware outside of my body at the same time. My current understanding is I’m tapping into the energy surrounding all things, like a remote camera that can stream information.
Speaking of the energy surrounding all things, well, that needs to be another blog post as this one goes deep and wide. Stay tuned!