Visualize Lemonade: Using All Your Senses When You Visualize

Visualization is a key skill in life, magick, and meditation. It is the ability to conceive of an image through one or more of your senses. I’ve always felt that visualization is misnamed; it should be called something like Sensilization. Most people visualize with images, like seeing something, but there are some people that lack this ability and get very frustrated during meditation. I’m here to tell you that you can use your other senses to imagine a visualization.

IMAGINE VS VISUALIZE

I was recently reading something online about visualization and someone made the comment that that they were unable to visualize but they could imagine the images used in a meditation. It really made me pause for a second. Are imagine and visualize synonyms? Don’t they basically mean the same thing? Merriam-Webster defines “imagine” as “to form a mental picture. So how do they define “visualize”? The definition for visualize is “to form a mental image of.” I think it all comes down to semantics and attitude towards the words.

Visualization in many meditation circles is taken very seriously and almost like you are calling forth a physical object. Whereas imagining is seen as fanciful and the creative endeavor of children. Little kids imagine a unicorn, but adults visualize a unicorn. Personally, I think imagining is a better term because it allows for the use of your other senses.

VISUALIZING WITH ALL YOUR SENSES

Way back in my early Wicca days, I lead a workshop in my coven on using your different senses to visualize. Our belief, and still my belief now, was that the more of your senses you use to visualize something the more dimensional of an image you get. Most people can see a lemon in their minds eye, now imagine the taste of a lemon. Can you imagine the scent of a lemon and the feel of the rind of that lemon. When you put all those images together, you get a very detailed concept of a lemon.

I was also taught that the stronger the image you can create the easier it becomes to manifest that item. Depending on the spell you are doing, you will want that strong, dimensional image. The more concrete the mental image, the more concrete the reality you can create.

Not everybody is strong at visualizing with all their senses. That’s ok because you can develop those senses with practice. Nobody expects you to be able to conjure us a detailed mental image of a Hersey bar that you can smell, taste, and feel on your first try. This is especially true with items and concepts that you may not be 100% familiar with. Below are a few meditation prompts to practice with. Take your time and try them. Over time, you will be able to imagine or visualize those items with ease. Also, feel free to add more prompts to your practice.

VISUALIZING SOUND

Close your eyes and relax. With your mind’s eye or your imagination hear the following things:

· Leaves rustling in the breeze.

· Windchimes

· The purr of a kitten

· Tea or coffee being poured into a cup.

· Footsteps on pavement

· Someone kissing their hand to blow a kiss.

· A baby’s laughter

VISUALIZING TASTE

Close your eyes and relax. With your mind’s eye or your imagination taste the following things:

· A water

· Vanilla ice cream

· Dirt or clean soil

· Salt

· Sugar

· Soap

· Paper

VISUALIZING SMELL

Close your eyes and relax. With your mind’s eye or your imagination smell the following things:

· Your favorite incense

· A bonfire, campfire, or wood stove

· A cake baking.

· Car exhaust

· A pineapple

· An old book

· Fresh cleaned towels

VISUALIZING TOUCH

Close your eyes and relax. With your mind’s eye or your imagination feel the following things:

· The rind of an orange

· The fabric of your shirt or pants

· Running water

· Paper or cardboard

· Coins

· Tree bark

· Damp soil or mud

VISUALIZING SIGHT

Close your eyes and relax. With you mind’s eye or your imagination see the following things:

· A red apple

· A sunset or sunrise

· A tall tree

· Someone smiling

· A steaming cup of tea

· A deer in a field

· Grass blowing in the wind.