How Visualization & NLP Works

• 3 examples of how everyone does visualize – and you do too!
• How well do you control your imagined pictures?
• In what contexts of life is visualization essential?

Everyone does visualize / imagine / see pictures  in their head. When you were 6 weeks young,  you started smiling at your mother. You did this by matching a picture in your head with that of the person looking at you. You might also recognise her voice or smell, but if she put on a wig, you would cry!  That is visual recognition.

If your friend walked into the room now, would you recognize them?  Now imagine the same person with pink hair.  Did you change your picture?  Now imagine you are watching a car driving up to the red traffic light. Imagine it stopping.  Imagine the movie going in reverse.

This is how you do  control the pictures that you imagine. You are born with this skill.  But in some cases a person gets under stress and the brain gets confused and loses this skill or starts applying it wrongly.  And that’s how learning difficulties start to happen.

Now make sure that you see images

• easily, sharply, and clearly
• far enough to be comfortable…
• …yet near enough to be easy to see
• as movies or as still pictures, whichever you need in any given moment.

In what contexts of life is visualization essential?

• Imagine being a hairdresser who didn’t know what a haircut would look like before you started on it.
• Imagine being a taxi driver who could not picture where he was going.
• Imagine being a double glazer, builder / construction worker, carpenter who didn’t know what the finished item would look like.
• Imagine being an architect having no idea of what the finished building would look like. Architects have the inspiration and then draw up the plans.
• Imagine being an artist who couldn’t imagine what s/he was painting or sculpting.
• Imagine being a surveyor who had no idea of whether the building matched the plans.
• Imagine being a student: visualizing mind maps, the path / sequence / formula / equation / result  is invaluable for revisions and exams.