Image streaming

Image streaming is a mental exercise for visualization and accessing subconscious solutions to problems.

Alleged results

 * Obtaining answers
 * Increasing awareness
 * Raising IQ

Procedure
1. The question. Asking oneself a question.

2. The image stream. This involves speaking to a live listener or tape recorder, relaxed with eyes closed, and describing aloud whatever images come “off the top of your head”. This is done in a rapid-flow, with attention to sensory detail. As more free images emerge, further scenes and images are described.

3. Feature-questioning. A feature is picked out, such as a wall, a tree or bush, whatever's there. Further questions are used to trigger further images.

4. Inductive inference. Once a set of images from this purportedly constant flow have run dry, the image streaming faculties are thanked by the image streamer for showing them an answer. The facilities are then asked for help in understanding the messages of the images as they are often symbolic.

5. Examining connections: When there are similarities in any stream of images, these symbols in common will form the core of the answer or “message” from the subconscious.

6. Relate. The original forgotten question is revisited and the core elements are interpreted to fit the answer.

7. Debrief. The whole image streaming experience is reported to another individual (directly or by telephone) or to notebook or computer. The feedback should add further to an understanding of what has just occurred.

Background
Image streaming was developed by Win Wenger, who has written on increasing human intelligence. The original intention was to create a method to improve people's ability to visualise. It is reported by the proponents of Image Streaming that there is an increase in creativity and intelligence however there is no empirical evidence to corroborate this.

Wenger asserts that image streaming daily will lead to a permanent increase in IQ, but evidence for this remains anecdotal.

In image streaming the subject describes outloud, to another person or a tape recorder, his visual imagery. The subject will also ask questions of the images.

Wenger describes the process as a combination of Albert Einstein's method of day dreaming and the Socratic method of repeated questioning. He believes that it causes the subject to become more aware of his mental imagery and creates links between visual and verbal thinking.

A complete description of image streaming can be found on Project Renaissance or at http://www.winwenger.com/imagestr.htm

Theory
Wenger believes that the endless stream of visual images, that everyone experiences to some degree, contain important thoughts and insights. Certainly many discoveries have come through day dreaming, most notably Einstein's discovery of the theory of relativity.

Describing the images aloud, brings them to conscious attention and, according to Wenger, leads to more and clearer imagery. Wenger describes this as a feedback mechanism where the act of observing causes more imagery to be produced.

He also speculates that image streaming links visual and verbal modes of thinking and that this causes intelligence to increase.