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The more you visualize, the more intelligent you can get

4/16/2009 | 2059 views

Can you increase your personal IQ by as much as 20 points by the use of image streaming? This seems to be a proven claim by now. We all know that there are thousands of web-sites and books peddling all kinds of methods for self-improvement and personal growth. We know because we\'ve read perhaps not most of them but at least one typical specimen of each category, a (re)search quest that started over fourty years ago. But let\'s get back to the basics: what does (physiologically) constitute intelligence? There\'s but one thing that sets a more intelligent brain apart from one a little less so, its internal "wiring": 1. the amount of connections (synapses) that relate brain cells with each other and equally important 2. the strength of these pathways 3. and how they relate with each other. The way brain cells can interact with each other is virtually unlimited, that is to say, trying to calculate all possible combinations leaves us with a figure that\'s many times higher than even the amount of atoms in the whole universe. Then there\'s also the speed with which new connections are formed, but research seems to suggest, that both human "subspecies", those who are forming new connections rather quickly and the "neurologically slow" both have their mutually exclusive advantages in survival which is why both sets of genes are still transmitted down through the generations. We\'ll discuss this topic in a forthcoming article. Now, if the three points shown above by and large constitute the physiological basis for intelligence as it seems to be measured by standard tests, then we must ask ourselves how are these connections between cells (neurons) increased? Well, as everyone knows, this process is simply called learning. The interesting thing is though, that learning can as much happen by interacting physically (including smelling, listening and seeing!) with your environment as well as interacting with a virtual world, like in thinking, meditation, contemplation etc. This virtual world is for your brain cells every bit as real as the outside world, and the reason is easy to understand: that "outside" world does not exist for your brain - it is transmitted to your nerve cells via electrical impulses and it makes no real difference where these impulses are generated. So when you vividly remember something you are training those pathways as much as if you experienced the scene physically that is now a memory! You can only exercise a limited amount physically per day without completely exhausting yourself but you can relive as many memories as you wish per day and you can create new experiences in your brain by ... well, being creative! Since your subconscious mind does handle about ten million times more data over time than your conscious mind does, the most powerful method of creating an extra load of traffic on your neural pathways is to let your subconscious take over. That pretty much describes what image streaming is all about: freely associate and let flow and come forth freely what your subconscious produces. Since most of your memories are visual images, even if you are not consciously aware of it, this requires to let images flow freely, or, in other words, image streaming. And if you practice steadily and repeatedly you will eventually increase your IQ considerably as you beat new paths and create new paths (associations) between hitherto less or unconnected areas of your knowledge. And that, in essence, is intelligence.