| Very interesting! For a long time I have a fascination for improving memory. It seems that visualization and memory are closely related, or even one and the same. Tony Buzan and Joshua Foer are authors that have written about this. They write about techniques to learn a deck (or decks) of playing cards, names of people, long numbers, etc. The 'roman room' is one of these techniques, that is used for long speeches; and was also used by people like Seneca. See here a clip of how it works to learn a deck of cards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xl7_hdWZo The essence of these techniques is that you must create the most vibrant or bizarre imagery in your head about the subject. Not only visually, but by using all the senses: smell, taste, etc. Da Vinci is also known for training his visualization skills by looking at an object for a moment and then trying to draw it from memory. I believe that is from Michael J. Gelb's book 'How to think like Leonardo'. (Which might not be the best source.) For how consciousness and how we see things works this video by Susan Blackmore might be interesting, because it discusses with how much (or less) detail we can see with our eyes open in the first place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdMA8RVu1sk (from 40:00 or so) |