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Breakthrough to Creativity – Dr Shafica Karagulla

Vicky has another type of experience about which she makes no claims, considering it simply a pleasant amusement. Very often when she relaxes to go to sleep at night and while she is still awake but has her eyes closed she involuntarily sees moving pictures. These are not things she is thinking about or that she imagines. She never knows what the pictures will be. They may simply be movies of people, moving through the courtyard of a temple in the Orient, or street scenes or springtime in the country with the flowers in bloom. They may or may not resemble places she has seen. She always finds them pleasant and refreshing. The colours are brilliant and she often sees very minute details, the veining of a leaf, or dewdrops on the grass in the early morning or the irises of an individual's eyes as she takes a closer look at some detail of the movie.

During all this she is awake and aware of the sounds in the house or of anyone who speaks to her. If she is asked a question quietly she can respond without disturbing the movie. She can even quietly describe what she has seen. Too much disturbance will shatter the movie.

On some occasions Vicky is in the movie, seemingly a part of it. People turn and look at her as if they recognize her. Sometimes she finds herself moving above a landscape as if she were in a slow motion helicopter. On such occasions she can move higher or lower at will.

She insists that she has no control over what the movie will be, but once she is "in the movie" she can pause to look at something or move along at any pace she chooses. As she says, "It could all be imagination, only I don't consciously set it in motion. When I do make the effort to imagine something it is hard work and I can't see as clearly."

As I talked with Vicky about this she felt that she definitely had no control over when or whether she saw these movies. When they stopped they stopped and that was it. I kept insisting she try to observe what happened when the movie started with the idea of being able to control it. To her surprise she discovered there was a technique of which she had never been aware. She relaxed when she went to bed and allowed herself to float in consciousness to the top of her head, so that she was aware only of the top of her head and no other part of her body the pictures immediately began. She found that she held them in progress until she went to sleep or until she became aware of the rest of her body again.