Seeing with Your Eyes Closed

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Circumstances for learning this attention exercise

• Stuck imagining worst-case scenarios

• Getting ready to go to sleep

• Waking up in the middle of the night

• Meditating in the morning

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When we think about thinking, we usually describe our internal chatter and the specific types of content it generates, but mental activity also has a visual component. Observing it helps us untangle it from verbal thoughts and the related emotional components. 

As with any empowering attentional skill, detecting mental images requires a lot of practice. The payoffs are nearly impossible to imagine. We're used to focusing on the content of the mind rather than the mechanisms from which the content emerges. 

Untangling the strands of subjectivity involves realizing it's a viable project—like learning to play a musical instrument—and devoting a few minutes a day to doing what initially seems impossible. 

We can detect subjective visual activity (imagery generated by the mind) in three distinct places. 

The mental screen is usually perceived as being in front of or behind the eyes. This is where we mentally picture people, places, and objects. We project images from the past onto the screen and use them to predict the future. 

We project images onto physical sensations. The images can be sharp when we detect pain and more amorphous when noticing comfortable sensations. 

There can also be a visual component related to our surroundings. It's as if we're generating an internal, three-dimensional map of the room we're in. We might sense where the walls are in relation to our bodies. We can approximate the location of windows and furniture. The presence of sounds can impact the mental map of our surroundings. 

Are you familiar with Daniel Kish's story? He's the guy who taught himself how to ride a bike—despite being blind since childhood—using a form of echolocation, he developed himself and now teaches to others with severe vision impairments. 

He says, "I definitely [see] three-dimensional [mental] images with depth and character and richness. And I can process and interact with them." 

Teaching himself to see the world in this way enables him to ride a bicycle without running into cars or other objects, revealing the brain's astounding capacity for adapting to constraints. 

Most of the visual mental activity we explore in mindful awareness practice will be flimsy and fleeting. You're not looking for cinematic levels of clarity. A vague sense of visual activity is the norm. Detecting it can feel like guessing. 

This type of visual activity remains mostly subconscious in our daily lives. When you incorporate it into your meditation practice, you'll likely begin to spot it soon after it appears. Don't discount hindsight detection. With practice, we develop the ability to observe it in real time. 

Exercise

This exercise works best with your eyes closed, but it can also be interesting to try it with them open. Experiment with both options.