Joshua Foer Quotes

What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity.

To attain the rank of grand master of memory, you must be able to perform three seemingly superhuman feats. You have to memorize 1,000 digits in under an hour, the precise order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards in the same amount of time, and one shuffled deck in less than two minutes. There are 36 grand masters of memory in the world.

To my mind this is what shamanic training must really be, is mnemonic training. If you want to bring the stuff back you have to train yourself to bring it back.

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.

The law of attraction says there are no limits and anything is possible. Your imagination has no limits, and anything is possible for you to imagine! Isn't it interesting that the law of attraction and your imagination say the same thing? Think about it. What's it telling you?

You must remember how to dream what you already know.

Visualization. It may be the most important part of your mental package.

Trouble shots are surprisingly easy if you activate your imagination. You simply must be able to imagine exactly what flight the ball will take before you can play any shot well.

I have visualised my imagination so clearly and so consistently that it has manifested itself into my reality.

Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.

I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where you're the actor in the song.

If you think of a school drawing while you work, your drawing will look like one.

I can imagine anything except having no imagination.

Everyone has the power to visualize.

I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.

Much of what we see in the universe ... starts out as imaginary. Often you must imagine something before you can come to terms with it.

If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.

Imagination is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Creative visualization may be described as an extended meditation session that reaches beyond passive contemplation and achieves transformative action. The uses to which it may be applied are limited only by an individual's imagination.

I visualize myself winning the Olympic Pentathlon, inventing a phone that can be controlled by brain waves, or doing the laundry. I do not actually DO these things, but I see myself doing them, and that is almost MORE satisfying, because I am also lying down.

Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

PAINT THE WALLS OF your mind With many beautiful pictures.

I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.