Tony Buzan - The Photo-Reading Whole Mind System [Speed-Reading Course. Learn It. Do It. Use It. Wow!!], Notas de estudo de Engenharia Química

Baixe Tony Buzan - The Photo-Reading Whole Mind System [Speed-Reading Course. Learn It. Do It. Use It. Wow!!] e outras Notas de estudo em PDF para Engenharia Química, somente na Docsity! [unationteen] E ” Pr Enigma of Esoteric Nothingness UTI ob ioRos Paul R. Scheele, N Exciting New 3rd Edition * Double your reading speed immediately + Remember more of what you read * Absorb complete books in minutes * Excellent for technical material * Quickly read email, web pages, and electronic files Over 200,000 in print! : We live in the age of the accountant, not the poet... in the age of the politician, not the singer, in the age of the administrator, not the explorer We thus live in an unbalanced world Any development which redresses this imbalance :s to be welcomed and applauded The PhotoReading Whole Mind System, Initiaily developed by and now presented In written form by Paul R Scheele, represents an excellent advance in redressing this imbalance Paul's contributron has a number of noteworthy aspects to it In particular, his work represents * a practical system for achieving an important class of acceierated learning skills + a significant refinement in the extremely important and ubiquitous actinity of reading — am particular, Paul has decomposed reading into a continuum of choices By so doing he has, in effect, identified and charted a continuum of cooperation benween the two cerebral hemuspheres This places within the grasp of the well intentioned and discipined practrtioner a set of choices which are the natural (and largely unrecognized) heritage of every member of our species «the presentation of a highly learnabte system which both delivers what tt proposes and smultaneously opens a huge door to achieving a new balance between unconscious and conscious processes within the user Well done, Paul Scheetel tohn Grinder Co-Developer, Neuro-Linguistic Programming Ireceived the highest grade on every test! | wanted to get my master's degree | tried taking a course eighteen months ago [was not able to complete tt, because 1t took so much time and my grades were not good (C or D before I dropped the course) Itried the PhotoReading method on some Navy correspondence courses, and it seemed to work wel | needed to test 1t for real, though 1 enrolted in two courses atthe local junior college in business law and marketing | used only the PhotoReading whole mind system The results were astounding With no more effort than just going to class, Ireceived notjust A's, but recetved the highest grade on every testin both classes The best part was that | still had plenty of time with my family People at work and my famuly all say that what | am doing Is impossible t'would have agreed with them one year ago, but Instead | show them the transcnipts to prove my progress And still they do not believe | certainly am impressed Randy Now North Highlands, Califorma Lused PhotoReading to become a specialist in rheumatology and physiotherapy [had thousands of pages to study for a critical exam. | PhotoRead and activated daily over a month, and | mind mapped the rheumatology textbook. When | took the written test, | both knew and felt the correct answers. My score was the second highest. | also did very well in the three-day, practical part of this medical exam, and | was the top student on the oral exam. lidiko Kiss, M.D., Zalaegerszeg, Hungary What used to take me two hours, Ican now do in ten minutes As a tax consultant, | use PhotoReading to slash the time it takes to dig information from the 33-volume IRS code. | find the section | want in the index. Then PhotoRead that section—30-40 pages. Immediately the answers appear to jump off the page. Fred Fredricks, Hong Kong I'm more productive at work 1 PhotoRead my software manuals. Now, when | program, the code seems to come out of my head, and | hardty ever stop to look in the manuals as before. | intuitively know the program will work, and it does. Previously | would have written a bit, tested 1t, tweaked it, referred to the manual... tou Wilson, Middlesex, England igot a 100% salary increase After learning PhotoReading, | lowered my reading backlog by 40 books in the next 28 days. | applied the PhotoReading techniques to a business presentation and got a job offer with a 100% salary increase. Joan Jiménez, General Council of Education, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico My business doubled As a business owner, | am always looking for ways to increase my sales. | PhotoRead marketing books that | hadn't found time to read, and then put together a new sales piece that yielded twice what | had done before. John DuCane, St. Paul, Minnesota Iwrote 20 pages of notes without opening the book again Yesterday | PhotoRead a law book. This morning | activated it. I then decided to make just a few notes... | am astounded! Ray Simons, tas Vegas, Nevada The PhotoReading Whole Mind System by Paul R. Scheele Foreword Welcome to the most innovative reading program available. PhotoReading goes beyond mere speed reading. Itis aneducational experience that taps your mind's vast resources. It explores and expands your own potential. Weliveinanage whentooittletime and too muchinformation compete. If we are to succeed, we require new skills for processing and learning from information. PhotoReading is about working with the greatestinformation processing device knowunto mankind: the human mind. Inthis book you will learn techniques for using the powers of your whole mind. PhotoReading willteach you notjusthow to read faster but learn at speeds many times faster than before. When you learn PhotoReading, you will experience what might sound impossible, You will PhotoRead the written page at rates exceeding a page per second, directing information into the expanded processing capabilities of your brain. There the information connects to your prior knowledge and becomes useful to accomplishing your purposes. You get your reading done in the time you have available, at a level of comprehension you need. Withthe PhotoReading whole mind system, you will develop extraordinary communication with the your brain. PhotoReading bypasses the limited capabilities of the conscious mind and helps you find your personal genius. The book contains three parts. In Part One, you willoverview the PhotoReading whole mind system and the new choices you have available as a reader. Part Two guides you step-by-step to learn the PhotoReading whole mind system. Part Three helps you integrate your new knowledge and skills so you can successfully use them every day. PhotoReading is a triumph over information overload for thousands PhotoReading course participants worldwide. Now, the details of this system are explained in an easy-to-read format, Acknowledgments As this Third Edition of The PhotoReading Whole Mind System goesto press, PhotoReading continues to evolve thanksto thecontinuing work ofover ahundred dedicated people. To them, Idedicate this book. 1 acknowledge the spirit and commitment of the certified PhotoReading instructors. They are today's pioneers, forging a new form ofeducation. They significantly influence PhotoReading by creatively exploring new ways to teach and use PhotoReading. The most important contributor to PhotoReading is the PhotoReading student, whose insights and breakthroughs are invaluable to PhotoReading's continued evolution. Kudosto the people of Learning Strategies Corporationand our worldwide marketing associates for their diligent work in helping spread the word about PhotoReading. Thanks to them, we have tens of thousands of additional PhotoReaders around the world, Tsalute all those who contributed to the early development of PhotoReading. The names of these talented and insightful associates are on permanent record in the First and Second Editions of this book. Talso thank Dr.J. Michael Bennett, Professor Emeritus from the University of Minnesota Department of Rhetoric for his excellent contributions. His insightful additions of rhythmic perusal and skittering to the PhotoReading whole mind system have proven valuable activationtools forthe many PhotoReaders now using them, Finally, Iacknowledge you, the reader, for recognizing you have the power within to accomplish most anything you desire, You make breakthroughs such as PhotoReading a reality. Please write me of your successes. Paul R. Scheele About the Author Paul R. Scheele, M.A., co-founder of Leaming Strategies Corporation, is the principal developer of the PhotoReading whole mind system. His education has focused on adult learning, psychology, biology, neuro-linguistic programming, accelerative learning, preconscious processing, and educational kinesiology. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota and his Masters of Arts degree from St. Thomas University. Paulisthedeveloperof Paraliminaland Personal Celebration tapes. Theseaudio programs use advanced recording technology to access the whole brain and enhance personal performance. Paul also developed Natural Brilliance, a four-step model to help people move from feeling stuck to releasing genius for achieving success, Natural Brilliance is key to Direct Learning, an application of PhotoReading that involves learning behaviors directly from printed pages. Paul authored the highly acclaimed teacher development course titled Accelemenis. And for learners of all ages, his innovative, self-study, personal learning courses include PhotoReading, Natural Brilliance, Ideal Mindset, and Decisive Action. He is an insightful public speaker and consultant to companies and organizations worldwide. Paul lives with his wife Libby and their three sons, Ben, John, and Scott, in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He may be reached by writing Learning Strategies Corporation, 900 East Wayzata Boulevard, Wayzata, Minnesota 55391-1836 or email infoBLearningStrategies.com Paul lovingiy dedicates his work to his family. Their passion for reading and zest for life inspires and motivates him every day. The Origins of PhotoReading 3 my reading effectiveness was total recall and critical analysis of meaning. I did not question my definition of reading. 1 felt stuck at slow speeds. 1 knew that the faster I read, the worse my comprehension became. After seven years of professional life as a human resource development consultant, I had made no improvement in my reading skills. In 1984, the logical solution meant enrolling in a speed reading course, After five weeks of training, my speed reading scores averaged 5,000 words per minute at 70 percent comprehension. During one of the class sessions, a young woman sitting next to me lamented being stuck at 1,300 words per minute through ten weeks of classes. I suggested to her, “Imagine what it would be like if you could break through to higher speeds now.” On her next book, her speed reading reached over 6,000 words per minute with higher comprehension test scores than ever before. As great as that sounds, speed reading did not appealto me. Pushing my eyeballs down the page soon became unrewarding drudgery. Threemonths after leaving the course, Irarely used the techniques but remained intrigued about the mind's potential for processing written words. Ibegan realizing my problem— felt trapped between two opposing belief systems. One belief came from the elementary education model of reading. An opposing belief came from knowing that the human mind can achieve far more magnificent results. The same trapped and confusing feeling grabbed me once during private pilot's training. I remember when my instructor took me up to eight thousand feet and told me to fly at a minimum airspeed just as 1 would when landing. To do so, 1 slowed down the engine and pulled back on the control yoke to maintain my altitude. Soon, the nose of my plane pointed almost straight up. The wind flowing over my wings no longer created enough lift to hold up the airplane. It could not fly so it dropped out of the sky like a rock, diving straight down toward the ground. Terrified, 1 immediately began pulting back on the control yoke, trying desperately to get the nose up and fly the plane. y The PhotoReadintg Whole Mind System 14 í ' This made things much worse, My - instructor seemed to enjoy watching 4 ON my panic. 1 . Why wasn't it working? Why ' wouldn'tthe plane fly? Diving toward 4 the ground at an accelerating rate, my , M instructor calmly said, “Push tnuetta forward.” : 1 knew he did not have a clue about our problem. While Itried to lift the plane up by the control yoke, he was telling me to dive deeper into the ground? Clearly he had lost his mind. é The plane entered a tail spin, and the earth became a spinning blur io rushing toward us. Every part of me a (A resisted his command as he insisted ( No more firmly, “Push into the spin!” Y Finally, my instructor broke my 54) white-knuckled grip and pushed the NY P J control yoke forward. This push * immediately smoothed out the wings and elevator section of the tail, which corrected the air flow over them and generated lift. The plane stabilized and slow!y he pulled back the control yoke to regain altitude, leaving my heart in my throat. Wow. What connection does this have to reading? Throughout my lifeI read only as fast as] could comprehend the words on the page. Every time] wenttoo fastto comprehend, Igrabbed control and pulled back as a fear reaction. 1 was afraid | would fail as a readerifIdidnotunderstand everything. My attempted strategies to read better and faster only made things worse. Iwas caughtin the spin, and reading felt like nose diving my airplane into the ground. Have you ever wished for a mentor to come along and pull you out of a nose dive? 1 did. Unfortunately, 1 did not realize a larger, more powerful capacity of mind could solve my reading problem. Fortunately, miracles happen. Several events in the next few years shaped a new direction for me. In the fall of 1984, I entered graduate school to study adult Es 1 o > The Origins of PhotoReading 5 learning and human development technologies. 1 wanted to know how people lean most effectively. My company, Leaming Strategies Corporation, was over three years old with many clients who could benefit from my studies. 1 was also strongly motivated to improve my own skills as a leamer. While attending different seminars and courses, I heard about an instructor from a speed reading school in Phoenix, Arizona. The instructor had suggested a bizarre experiment to one of his classes. After flipping pages upside down and backwards to leam eye-fixation patterns, he instructed the students totakea comprehension test onthe book, just for the fun ofit. Their scores tumed out to be the highest the class had ever achieved. Wasitafluke? Theinstructors at the school hypothesized that maybe they were turning the page into a stimulus that is processed subliminally. About the same time I heard that hypothesis, 1 attended a workshop with Peter Kline, an expert in accelerative learning. When told him about my interest in researching breakthroughs in reading, he offered me a challenge. A client of his, IDS/ American Express, wanted a speed reading application of accelerative learning. Suddeniy, a consulting job, my master's degree work, and my passion for leaming landed in one nice package on my lap. Inthe fall of 1985, began background research into studies ofsubliminal perception and preconscious processing. Significant research evidence suggested humans possess a preconscious processor of the mind that can absorb visual information without involving the conscious mind. 1 experimented with using the eyes and the preconscious processor in special ways on written materials. 1 dubbed this concept of “mentally photographing” the printed page PhotoReading. Idevoted my fuli time to designing a seminar based upon theaccelerative learning model, expertstrategies of rapid reading, the human development technology of neuro-linguistic programming, and studies on preconscious processing. Soon the PhotoReading seminar was born. One of my experiments involved returning to the speed reading school E had attended. 1 asked the teacher for several books and tests. After PhotoReading one of the books at 68,000 The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 8 * A computer service technician consistently locates key information in reference manuals within seconds. * Anattorney took three minutes to read a three hundred page legal manual from the Department of Transportation. He instantly turned to the one paragraphin the text thatincluded the information he needed to win a case. The state's expert witness, who had been unable to find this paragraph was stunned as he saw the attorney perform this feat. * A waste water specialist for El. Dupont had to read a three-inch stack of federal regulations from OSHA in preparation for a meeting. During a 35-minute flight to the meeting, he PhotoRead the documents. During the meeting, he correctly stated that OSHA would no longer accept water treatment data that was more than three years old—a technical point buried in the regulations he had just PhotoRead. * Abusiness consultantvisited the city library to PhotoRead industry trade journals before the initial meeting with a prospective corporate client. Her knowledge on industry trends, key problems, and innovative practices gave her the edge over other consultants being interviewed. She won the contract. * A college student used PhotoReading to successfully complete his degree, gain employment at a high-tech firm, then rise in the ranks of new hires. He claimed he owed his success to the advantages PhotoReading gave him. * A group of high school students from Puerto Rico used PhotoReading to win medalsin an international Mental Olympics contest. * In his acceptance speech for top honors, a short story writer announced that PhotoReading was the secret ingredient for his excellence in creativity and writing style. These examples only begin to express the benefits, Our clients also say that PhotoReading helps them to write reports, pass critical exams, excel in school courses, finish degrees, sail through meetings, eam promotions, and do more of the reading they really want to do for enjoyment. The only requirements for PhotoReading are a willingness toexperiment, usenew ideas, relax, and play. Then the full genius within you will be released. Become likea child naturally curious, wondering, experiencing, discovering—and a whole new world The Origins of PhotoReading 9 of easy reading will unfold. Reading will become a new source of personal and professional power. You will explore written materials with new levels of effectiveness. The benefits offered by the PhotoReading whole mind system will help you create a quality of life that will delight and surprise you. The next chapter gets you set and ready to go. Astudent improved his high school math grade from a D to a Bin one semester. He said that PhotoReading math books must have given him ways to do problems better. Another student PhotoRead a variety of books before preparing a theme paper. The teacher wrote on her paper, “A+ Your writing style improved overnight. What did you do?!” Several musicians have reported uses of PhotoReading music. They find that PhotoReading musical scores a day before first playing the music makes the first run through much easier—as if they have already practiced the piece. A doctor of psychology from Mexico was asked to present her twenty-page research paper to a conference in California. Because it was written in Spanish, she would have to translate the paper asshespoke. Although she was bilingual, she had always found it difficult to speak English from Spanish writing. She PhotoRead the Spanish-English dictionary several times the day and night before her presentation. During her speech, she spoke fluently without any confusion whatsoever. She reported being relaxed and completely comfortable the entire time A gardener found it easier to recognize plants after PhotoReading a guide. A high school English teacher used the PhotoReading whole mind system to prepare for an American literature unit on Hemingway. She PhotoRead all the commentaries on Hemingway's writing, plus all books he wrote including the two the class unit would cover. In addition, she rapid read the two books. She surprised herself as the material activated spontaneously during her lectures Her knowledge of the subject contained rich examples giving the class depth that surpassed any unit she had ever taught 2 Old Reading Habits or New Reading Choices Take a moment to paint a vivid mental picture of the kind of reading materials you encounter regularly. Among the possibilities are: * Websites and electronic files * Magazines or trade journals * Newspapers * Mail and email * Memos * Owner's manuals or reference guides * Training materials * Reports * Proposals or sales literature * Specification sheets * Nonfiction books * Novels, poetry, and short stories Quickly answer the following questions in your mind: * How well do you comprehend what you read? * How well do you remember what you read? * What are your strong points as a reader? * What is the one thing you would most like to change about the way you read? Old Reading Habits or New Reading Choices 13 As you go beyond the opening of this book, you will discover a set of tools for gaining a new experience of reading. Use the tools, and you will find it within your power to make the ideal reading scenario come true for you. Ifyou do not go beyond this chapter, your experience of reading will stay the same as it is today. Break old reading habits Iknow you want results, and you will probably try many of the techniques I suggest. However, achieving new results means more than trying new reading behaviors, You must adopt an altemative view of what reading can be. Take everything you know about reading and you have just defined the barriers to getting new results. Elementary school reading imprints us all with a model of reading that limits our minds. This model or “paradigm” exerts tremendous power over your actions and your potential results. Elementary reading is a fairly passive affair, often done without a clear sense of purpose. Have you ever spent ten minutes reading a newspaper article to discover it was a waste of time? That happens when you read passively. One-speed fitsallisthe elementary reading maxim; generally we plow through every type of reading material— from comic books to textbooks—at the same rate. It makes more sense to get the facts from a trade journal with a different speed than we would use reading a novel for pleasure. We feel pressureto getitrightthe fitsttime with elementary reading. We expect to comprehend everything in one pass through the material. If we donot, we feel inadequate as readers. Musicians do not pressure themselves to play music from a score perfectly the firsttime. Why must we be perfect as readers? Think about all the tasks we are supposed to accomplish in that single pass through a document: comprehend the structure, grasp the key terms, and follow the main arguments or plot events. On top of that, we must remember it all, critique it, and quote it accurately. Faced with these kinds of demands, the conscious mind often becomes overwhelmed and can literally shut down. This is j é The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 14 compounded when we feel anxiety, which happens when we come to the end of a paragraph and have no idea what we just read. Has this happened to you? Becoming overwhelmed by too much informations easy in this age of information overload. Have you ever found your eyes moving down the page while your mind went off to a far away land? It is as if the lights are on, but nobody is home. This leads to document shock-—a short-circuit in your internal connections. Too much current coming over the lines sends the wiring up in smoke. This breakdown at the conscious level slows the flow of information to a trickle when we read. The more facts, details, and other data we try to cram in, the less we recall. In this age of information overload, it is easy to feel like a starving person with a can of soup but no can opener. With elementary reading skills, we often leave hungry. We plow through books, periodicals, manuals, and mail, only to find that we are craving something we cannot seem to get. Anything useful from these piles of information remains sealed from us. Will elementary reading habits deliver what we need? If your answer is “no,” you know the problem exists—and that is great. You have entered a powerful place, one where you are poised for change. Embrace new reading choices Readers who thrive today take a different approach than the elementary school model of reading. They are flexible in their reading. They adjust their speed to the type of material at hand. They know what they want from the written piece. They consistently find gems of information that deliver real benefit. Active, purposeful, questioning, and fully engaged—that describes the best readers. These effective reading strategies become a part of your repertoire as you learn the PhotoReading whole mind system. In the process, you will discover enhanced retention, recall, and enjoyment. PhotoReading shifts you away from the prevailing elementary reading model into whole mind reading and makes Old Reading Habits or New Reading Choices 15 you a blasphemer of traditional reading theory. As such you will encounter many people who will say PhotoReading cannot possibly work. The next story illustrates what I mean. A colleague at Leaming Strategies Corporation discovered that even college professors resist new aradigms. Faculty members at a college in vehole mind system, you Minnesota tried table usfrom oerin the use the creative-intuitive . . mind as well as the | PhotoReading seminar on the grounds that crrtical-logical mind to | PhotoReading is impossible. accomplish your goals. The PhotoReader agreed to offer a demonstration. A volume of U.S. patent law was projected, page by page, onto a video monitor. My colleague PhotoRead this material as it was displayed at approximately 30 pages a second (over 690,000 words per minute). Afterwards, he scored 75 percent comprehension. In addition, he drew approximations of six patentillustrations and correctly identified their numeric sequence, The paradigm had shifted right before their eyes. Do you suppose they supported the seminar? No. Seeing isnot believing. To shift your paradigm you must believe it before you see it. Think of PhotoReading as a paradigm shift, and you will do the “impossible.” With the PhotoReading You cannot “read” at 25,000 words per minute Before learning PhotoReading, many people hear such stories as above and respond with, “That is nuts! There is no way you can read that fast.” They are right. No one's “conscious mind” can read that = 4 fast, PhotoReading is not “reading” as we know it. This kind of dy information processing is possible only when we temporarily bypass the critical, logical, analytical mind. We do not PhotoRead with the conscious mind. Instead, we draw on vast layers of the mind that remain largely unused during conventional reading. This literally means using the brain in a new way. We still have to face everyday reading challenges, so letus =g- employ an approach to reading that uses both hemispheres 33 of the brain. From the left hemisphere we draw upon the abilities to analyze, sequence information, and reason logically. Read to end of Chapter The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 18 approach was more open to giving up her limitations: “Tam just going to do whatever it takes to master this.” Both people learned to PhotoRead. The first one, while clinging to a negative belief, found it much more difficult to discover the true abilities he possessed. When he made the importantinternal change, the PhotoReading whole mind system helped change his results in life. As profound as PhotoReading can beto your life, thereis an added reassurance: you do not have to give up any pleasure in teading. In fact, you get to keep your regular reading skills. A woman who loved reading novels exclaimed after taking PhotoReading, “I've rediscovered thejoy ofreading!” Her pleasure reading became a richer, fuller experience, Here is the system The demands placed on you as a reader in our age of information are tremendous. The PhotoReading whole mind system can help you meet any challenge. kt works with any subject matter and flexibly adapts to different purposes, print formats, rates of speed, and levels of comprehension. The five steps of the PhotoReading whole mind system use the abilities of your whole mind with power and effectiveness. Let us overview the steps now. In the next five chapters you will develop skills to apply each step effectively. Step 1: Prepare Reading effectively begins with a clear sense of purpose. This means consciously stating a desired outcome for reading. Forexample, we might want a brief overview ofmain points. We might wantto gain certain details such as the solutions to specific problems. Perhaps we want to complete a task and seek only the ideas that will help us do so. Purpose Eve SA acts like a radar signal to the inner mind allowing it to produce the results we seek. 24 Empowered with a clear purpose, we then enter a state of relaxed alertness—the accelerative learning state. While in this state, neither boredom Old Reading Habits or Neto Reading Choices 19 nor anxiety exist. We are exerting effort, but we are not worried about results. Have you ever watched young children as they play? They model the same relaxed yet purposeful state we seek here. Step 2: Preview Previewing is based on an important principle: effective leaming often takes place “from whole to parts.” Thatis, we start with the big picture and proceed to the smaller, more detailed parts. First we survey the written material. Our aim is not to grasp the content in detail, but to get a sense of its structure. Then we gather a list of key terms, or trigger words, whichembody the core concepts or events. Trigger words alert our minds to the details we might want to explore more thoroughly later. When done effectively, previewingisshort and sweet—about five minutes for a book, three q minutes for a report, and as little as 30 seconds for an article. During that time, we clarify and refine our purpose, review the trigger words, and decide whether to continue reading or call it quits. If we choose not to read something that does notmeetourneedsor interests, itisallright. Previewingis like x-raying abook—gettingabroad sense of its underlying structure. Understanding structure gives us something that learning theorists call a schema, a set of expectations about what is coming up next. When we know the structure of written text, we become more accurate at predicting its content. As a result, our comprehension and reading pleasure soar. In summary, previewing gives us the skeleton of a book or article first. During the next steps of the PhotoReading whole mind system, we add body to the skeleton. Step 3: PhotoRead The PhotoReading technique begins with placing ourselves more fully into the relaxed, alert state of mind and body called the The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 20 accelerative learning state. In this state, OR distractions, worries, and tensions seem to fall ;,. Wy , " away. SÁ ste Then we adjust our vision for the ES > PhotoFocus state. Here the aim isto use oureyes + in a new way: instead of bringing individual words into sharp focus, we soften our eyes so that our peripheral vision expands and the whole printed page comes into view. PhotoFocus creates a physical and mental window— allowing direct exposure of the incoming visual stimuli to the brain. In this state, we mentally photograph the entire page, exposing it to the preconscious processor of the mind. The exposure of each page stimulates a direct neurological response. The brain performs its function of pattern recognition, unencumbered by the critical /logical thought process of the conscious mind. Ata rate of one page a second, we can PhotoRead a whole bookinthreeto five minutes. Thisisnot traditional reading. After PhotoReading, we may have little if any of the material in conscious awareness, which means we may consciously know nothing. Thenext steps create the conscious awareness we need. ça Step &: Activate During activation werestimulate the brain — probing the mind with questions and exploring parts of the text to which we feel most attracted. We then super read the most important parts of the text by scanning quickly down the center of each pageor column oftype. When we feelitis appropriate, we dip into the text for more focused reading to comprehend the details. m dipping, we allow ourintuitionto say, “Hey, turnto the last paragraph on page 147! Yes, that is the one. The ideas you want are right there.” Other activation techniques developed while reading this book include rhythmic perusal, skittering, and mind mapping. These also help us gain access to the deeper impressions established by PhotoReading. When we activate, we involve our whole brain, connect the text with our conscious awareness, and achieve our goals for reading. Part Two: Learn the PhotoReading Whole Mind System (1) Y Ro ), le Mind Sai 4 N  Photoeadin a >) lfhote Mund ocê — 3 Step 1: Prepare I perform better at any activity, from public speaking to fishing, if Tam well prepared. Yet, 1 used to pick up a book or magazine and just start reading with no preparation at all. Now I treat reading as a goal-oriented activity. Preparing for a few moments increases my concentration, comprehension, and retention of what T read. Preparing may seem simple, but it isthe foundation ofeffective reading. Allstepsof the PhotoReading whole mind system actually revolve around preparation. Being prepared to PhotoRead is much more than gettingthe book out to read it. It involves stating your purpose and fixing your point of attention to enter the ideal state of mind. Prepare 1. State your purpose Establishing purpose is hardly a new idea. Francis Bacon, the sixteenth-century English philosopher, said it well, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” All reading ultimately serves a purpose, either consciously Example of purpose A human resource consultant went to the library to PhotoRead the corporate reportonaprospectiveclent before their inttial meeting Her purpose for the eight minutes she invested was to get a feel for the trends of the company where they had come from and where they were headed Her goal was to get In sync with the corporate executives and relate her skuls effectively to their present and future needs Example of purpose A banker wanted to interface his new computer with his new printer After hours of trying, he remained unsuccessful Before going to bed, he PhotoRead both manuais His purpose was to let his other-than- conscious mind work outthe details of the problem and solve 1t upon awakening Within the first half-hour after awakening, he had the printer working perfectiy or unconsciously. When we state our purpose explicitiy, we greatly increase the odds of attaimng it. Purpose unleashes ability. Almost anything can be accomplished with a strong sense of purpose. Purposeistheenginethatdrives the PhotoReading whole mind system. Establishing purpose is power which can be felt emotionally and physically. Readers with a firm sense of purpose acquire new feelings about the act of reading. They sit as if they mean business. Whenyouhavestrong purpose, your body becomes strong and alert. Set your purpose by asking questions such as: * What is my ultimate apphcation of tms material? What will l expect to do or say differently after reading it? Maybe I simply want to pass time or savor the experience of reading. * How important :s this material to me? In the long run, how worthwnhile is it? Does reading this material create value for me? If so, what specifically is that value? * What level of detail do I want? Dol want to emerge from reading itwith thebig picture? Do I want to understand only the main points? Do I want to recall fe Read italics onty The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 28 pretend this is a magic tangerine, and it will stay in place no matter where 9 you putit. &— * Gently close your eyes and let the tangerine balance on the back of your head. Notice what happens to bd your physical and mental state as you do this, You will feel relaxed and alert. ) With your eyes closed, imagine your field of vision opening up. * Maintain the relaxed feeling ofalertness as you open your eyes and begin reading. Here is an experiment you can donowtodiscoverthe potential effects of the tangerine technique, Take any page of this book you have not yet read. Without the tangerinein place, read two or three paragraphs. Afterwards, reflect on your experience, Then, put the tangerine in place, using the method described above, andread twoorthreenew paragraphs. Compare your experiences. During the experiment, you might be overly self-conscious of doing something different. If so, you might find the effecthard to detect. Many people report a wider visual field, fluid movement oftheeyes withlessstaccato or jumpy movements, and the ability to read word phrases or even whole sentences at a glance. Playing with this technique lets you flow through reading material with increased speed and ease. Your ability to concentrate ontheinformation improves, and reading becomes more relaxing. Atfirstyou will consciously place the tangerine on the back of your head. Soon it will become automatic so that, whenever you approach reading materials, one unit of attention fixes into place. This physicalhy relaxed and mentally alert state is also perfect for other important activities. Itis widely researched as a state of peak human performance. This state is similar to contemplation, meditation, and prayerin whichyou areabsorbed in the present moment. While this is a state of relaxation, it is not the same as going Prepare 29 to sleep or becoming drowsy. Rather, you focus your mind with aninner calmness, You have accesstoallyournatural, inner resources. Put it all together The following procedure can help you prepare for reading in 30 seconds. You may wish to have a friend guide you through it or record it on tape so that you can play it back later. * Placeyour reading materials in front of you. Do not read them yet. * Begin to relax by closing your eyes. Become aware of yourself from head to toe. Your spine is erect, your posture is comfortable, and your breathing is relaxed. * Mentally state your purpose for reading. (For example, “During the next ten minutes, I will read this magazine article for ideas to help me improve my time management skills.”) * Place the imaginary tangerine at the top back part of your head. * Become aware of yourself as relaxed and alert. Bring a slight hint of a smile to the comers of your eyes and the comers ofyourmouthto relax your face. Even with your eyes closed, you can imagine your visual field opening up. You have a direct eye- mind connection. * Now, at a rate that is comfortable for you, maintaining this state of relaxed alertness, gently open your eyes and begin reading. More on the tangerine technique The ideal state for reading is typically in short supply for many people, especially at work. When we read at work, the Phone is often ringing, someone in the doorway is talking, we haveto hurry to make a meeting, and extraneous thoughts about groceries or car repairs keep a traffic jam in our heads. With such a morass of mental events, where does our attention end up? All over the place. Reading is next to impossible. Incontrast, the ideal state for reading is the flow state, when you are totally absorbed in the task at hand. That is where the tangerine technique comes into play. Read Bullets - a The PhotoRending Whole Mind System 30 In the mid 19805, I read a fascinating article in Brain/Mind Bulletin about Ron Davis, a reading specialist. Davishad dyslexia, areading disability. While searching fora solutionto this problem, he made a discovery. People with dyslexia, he found, have a roving point of attention, one that wanders through space without coming to a fixed point. Skilled readers, on the other hand, have a fixed point of attention located just behind and above the top of the head. By training himself to redirect his attention, he raised his reading, writing, and spelling skilis ftom an elementary to a college level in fewer than three years. Today, Davis runs a private clinic for people with learning disabilities, His excellent book, The Gift of Dyslexia, describes his method in detail. His sessions begin by training his clients to find the ideal point of attention, which he calls the “visuo-awareness epicenter.” I tried his technique myself and immediately noticed an increasein my concentration and ease in reading. If this technique had worked on dyslexics, Ispeculated, what might the effect be on a normal adult reader who has been too scattered to read efficiently. Davis's work had provided me with a creative leap. To accomplish the effect of his “visuo-awareness epicenter,” I developed the tangerine technique. Most people find that several benefits flow immediately from the tangerine technique. To begin, they quickly and easily enter a relaxed state of alertness. In addition, they calm their minds and automatically focus their attention, The result is an instant improvement in reading skills. Historically, the tangerine technique has come down to us ina variety offorms. The Chinese thinking cap, the wizard's cap, and even the original concept for the “Dunce cap,” believe it or not, were all devices for focusing attention. Each causes part of your attention to fixate at a place above and behind your head. Experiment with this technique. If the image of a tangerine does not work for you, then try another way of fixing your attention to the place above and behind your head. Imagine wearing a sombrero, with a bird sitting on top of it. Feel the sombrero resting on your head and focus your attention on the bird. Another way is to imagine standing outside of your body, Preview 33 1. Survey the material When my wife and I considered purchasing our home, we firstexplored the neighborhood. We walked to the lakefront and around the block, and we drove to the elementary school and into town. We looked at a map and explored the nearby county and regional parks. In other words, we surveyed the territory. As you consider reading a book, magazine, or other publication, survey it too. You will learn its structure and know how to proceed. Walk around the written material to notice; * titles and subtitles * text on the front and back covers table of contents copyright date * index * first and last pages of books, or in other documents the first and last paragraphs of any sections * textprintedin boldface oritalic print, including headings and subheadings * material set off as boxes, figures, or charts * summaries, previews, or review questions Youmay be amazed athow much you can gain through this strategy. In some cases, you will find everything you want to know—just through surveying. Surveying allows you to know what the text seems to be about and can help you predict what to expect. It can help direct you where to look for important information. “How to” books, for example, usually present you with a number of tasks to perform in a certain order. A “what is” book often presents a problem and offers a solution. Do not spend much time surveying: a short article, thirty seconds; a longer article or report, three minutes; and a book, five to eight minutes. That is all. If it takes any more than that, then youare probably reading in a conventional sense —notsurveying. Surveying has an added advantage. It promotes long-term memory, because it helps you comprehend and categorize the material you read. It encourages you to build a mental structure of what you read. Any material you actively organize, you will remember longer. w se Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 3 2. Pull out trigger words Have you ever felt while reading that certain words were leaping off the page and begging for special attention? Chances are those important words are the focal points of the author's message. Those words have an urgency. “Hey, look atme,” they seem to say. Those words are trigger words. Triggerwordsarekey words—thehigh visibility, repeatedly used terms that present central ideas. They are the handles which will help you grasp the meaning of a text. Trigger wordshelp the conscious mind formulate questions for the inner mind to answer. They become targets for your brain during PhotoReading and activation. Your brain will highlight them in its search through the text, helping you quickly find meaning and accomplish your purpose. Locating trigger words is simple. For example, in Chapter 2, I mention elementary reading, paradigm shift, purpose, and beliefs. Thoseterms qualify as trigger words. Spotting them helps you develop curiosity, an essentialingredientin effective learning and efficient reading Most people locate trigger words with ease when it comes tononfiction. They might draw a blank when previewing fiction such as short stories, plays, novels, and poetry. Fiction offers us trigger words in the names of persons, places, and things. Locating trigger words is a fun way to test the waters before diving for meaning. Just flip through every 20 pages or so of a book and notice what words catch your attention. AH places you survey will aid your search: book covers, tableofcontents, headings, and theindex. Inan index, look for the words that are followed by the most page numbers, These are bound to be important trigger words. AtfirstI suggest that you make a mental note of five to ten trigger words for an article and write a list of 20-25 trigger words for books. You should be able to reach those numbers in two minutes or less. Be playful and relaxed, and it will be easier to spot high powered terms.  Preview 35 3. Review The last part of previewing helps assess what you have gained from your survey and list of trigger words. Take a mini- inventory. Determine whether you want to go farther with the document and extract more of its content. Think about whether you can meet your purpose for reading or whether you need to redefine that purpose. Remember the 80/20 rule? Ask yourself whether this book or article relates to your “top 20 percent.” After previewing, you might even . | decide notto read the document. That is tf all items are arranged in : . order of value, 80 percent of | Ne of the kindest things you can do for the value would come from | yourself in this age of information only 20 percent of the items, | overload. Save yourself the trouble of while the remaining 20 | ingesting information you do not need. percent of the value would | you have other things to do. Save time come from 80 percent of the for them, After previewing, you might decide you only need to know the document in a general way. Later, if you want more specific information, you will know where to find it. Itis like using a set of encyclopedias: you do not have to memorize the contents of each volume. You only need to know enough to pull the correct volume off the shelf. The 80/20 Rule: Read as you would shop for groceries Yourbrainexcels at classifying perceptions and recognizing patterns. Previewing helps accomplish both. It allows you to build meaningful categories, establish patterns, and locate the core concepts which lead to understanding. You start to discover the 4-11 percent of the text that includes its key message and satisfies your purpose, Without categories, the text would appear as the world doesto anewborn-—a constant parade of unrelated sights, sounds, and other sensations, a “blooming, buzzing confusion,” as psychologist William James described it. The secret to successful previewing is to avoid getting into atext too deeply too soon. You may find yourself tempted to stop previewing and start reading for details. Notice your urge to ns E Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 38 This allows the PhotoReader to keep the conscious mind's filters out of the way. Postviewing accelerates the activation process as well. In summary In this chapter you learned: * Previewing lets your mind create patterns to increase speed and comprehension while reading. * To preview you must survey, pull out trigger words, and review. * Surveying is a walk around the outside edges of what you are reading in order to understand its structure and how to proceed. * Trigger words are key terms that help you formulate questions that your inner mind will work to answer later. * Reviewing is a mini-inventory that helps you make sure you are reading what meets your purpose, * Previewing can switch off access to the brain's larger data base if misused. * Postviewing provides an ideal alternative to previewing for the novice PhotoReader, especially for those who try to read and understand an entire book while previewing. To apply the technique of previewing, take a moment to imagine the types of reading materials you might face in the coming week. Imagine previewing those various sources of information. Notice how a few moments of previewing can save you hours of time this week, because you quickly tune into information you want and eliminate redundant and unnecessary reading. Chapter 5 brings you to the next step, PhotoReading, the most provocative and exciting of all, Preview 39 A businessman was asked ta speak at a conference. He was unable to prepare for the presentation in the traditional sense of reading books, taking notes, and writing his speech. He was only able to PhotoRead several books, so he figured he could wing it. To his surprise his presentation flowed with aplomb. He even presented statistics which just popped into his head—apparently provided by his other-than-conscious mind. He received excellent feedback from his audience and later verified every fact with the books. A computer programmer learned that by PhotoReading pages of code he quickly discovered program bugs. Another prograrnmer said his ability to write effective code improves when he PhotoReads pages of code written by other programmers. A mystery writer PhotoRead dozens of mystery books to assimilate styles, techniques, dialogs, descriptions, etc. Immediately his writing flowed more easily. He began sending the first or second drafts of chapters to his agent instead of his usual fifth or sixth draft. The technical director of the virtual reality department of a supercomputer company PhotoRead allthe literature he could find on his industry. Since class, he has become a pralific writer, presenting professional papers to conferences around the country. He receives high professional acclaim from his colleagues. A PhotoReader forgot someone's name. He PhotoRead the telephone book and the name immediately came to him seconds after PhotoReading the page itwas on. An actress is better able to memorize her lines by PhotoReading the script first. She also says this helps create a better understanding of her characters. À bookkeeper said her ability to manipulate data in spreadsheets increased significantly. She found it easier to remember the programming commands and to detect errors. An attorney found himself challenging an expert witness during cross- examination without a clear sense of why he was asking the questions. tt became obvious as the expert witness' testimony unraveled, The attorney had PhotoRead books the evening prior which contained facts contradicting those ofthe witness, Ata conscious level, the attorney did not know the facts. From an other-than-conscious level, his mind had given him the guidance necessary to achieve his goal.  6) (3) x / Photoleading 4 Whole Mind System 2 “ 5 Step 3: PhotoRead PhotoReading rockets you to success at the speed of light. In today's information deluge, why drown with regular reading or barely survive with speed reading? Now you can thrive and succeed with PhotoReading. This chapter describes how to start using themost provocative step of the PhotoReading whole mind system. To master PhotoReading, keep a playful and open- minded attitude, PhotoReading relies on thebrain's natural ability to process information at a preconscious level. Forthose who let go andtrust their mind to do the work, PhotoReading provides a phenomenal opportunity to discover their true potential for learning. Through PhotoReading, you expose your brain to patterns of text by mentally photographing the printed page. This is nota technique to work hard at nor is it something that the conscious mind has to figure out in order to perform it better. To strain at PhotoRead 43 attuned state, you open up access to the deeper “data base” of your long-term memory. Many classes, books, and tapes onrelaxation and meditation can help you gain skill at entering the ideal learning state. The Learning Strategies Corporation Paraliminal tapes guide you through similar relaxation techniques used in PhotoReading seminars. 3. Affirm your concentration, impact, and purpose Thoughts either support or derail the leaming process. Positive, affirmative thoughts assist learning, and negative thoughts negate or prevent it, Placing positive thoughtsin your mind canhelpyou develop skills and achieve desired results. These thoughts, called affirmations, help direct the material you PhotoRead to your inner mind. The most useful affirmations for PhotoReading include: * “AsT PhotoRead, my concentration is absolute.” * “AllthatI PhotoRead makes a lasting impression on my inner mind and is available to me.” * “F desire the information in this book, (say the title here), to accomplish my purpose of (restate your purpose)” Affirmations give direction to your brain by clearly establishing goals. The process of affirming also bypasses the limitations imposed by the conscious mind, It redirects any negative internal dialog and opens you to the possibility of success. K is important that your goal or purpose be one you can achieve. A poorly formed goal would be: “I want to have photographic recall of everything I PhotoRead.” Since that is not the purpose of the PhotoReading step and perfect recall of everything is not reasonable, such an ill-formed goal could lead to undue frustration and non-performance. Awell-formed goal would be: “To fully absorb this material and to speed my application of these techniques and concepts in my life.” The achievement of such a goal is within your control and leads to greater ease and success. The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 4, Enter the PhotoFocus state The PhotoFocus state uses your sense of sight to input visual information directly into the other-than-conscious mind. In this step, you learn to use your visual system differently than with regular reading. Rather than hard focusing on individual words and word groups, you achieve a “soft gaze” to notice the entire page at once. When 1 first developed PhotoReading, Iknew thathard focusing the eyes sent information through the conscious mind. PhotoReading required sending information through the preconscious processor into the brain. My guestion became “How can [look at You strengthen the eye-mind connection with Photofocus. | This shifts the emphasis of reading away from the page in | frontofyour eyes to its meaning wfuchisstored behind your eyes | in your mind). something without using hard focus to look atit?” De-focusing the eyes was not the answer. That only made me feel spacey and lethargic. My feelings of relaxed alertness vanished as if my physical and mental clarity was connected to my visual clarity. One afternoon 1 mulled over this paradox. Iread an article about an art teacher named Betty Edwards. In her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, she said, “If you want to draw my thumb, don't draw my thumb,” because you will use the left brain—the analytical, non-artistic side of the brain. She said, “To draw my thumb, draw the space around my thumb” That strategy uses the right brain —the creative side of the brain. Using her advice, 1 began looking at the two pages of an openbook. Itookin all the white space in one expansive gaze, not looking at the words. Suddenly, the pages took on a clarity and depth, appearing almost three-dimensional. In the center of the page there emerged a third, rounded narrow page. This reminded me of experiences Ihad as a child. My mind tended to wander if I had to sit and wait. Occasionalty, if 1 happened to be sitting in a room with a tile floor, I became aware that the floor appeared as a three-dimensional grid—as if there were two layers of lines, about six inches deep. If I tried to look at it itwould disappear. The effect would only linger ifl maintained  PhotoRead 45 a relaxed, divergent gaze, as if looking into the distance. The recognition of this unique visual state was the beginning of PhotoFocus. In the years since then, many discoveries have connected PhotoFocus to ancient traditions of seeing with the whole brain rather than the limited conscious mind. The essence of PhotoFocus is using your eyes in a new way which is called “seeing with soft eyes.” This contrasts hard focus which is our normal practice of getting a sharp, clear image of a single word, phrase, or line of print. With PhotoFocus, we open up our peripheral vision and prepare to mentally photograph entire pages at once. In so doing, we process visual information at a preconscious level and feed it directly into your brain's nonconscious memory storage system. Aclear description of soft Seeing with “soft eyes” is hardly new. Taoist Iterature from China refers to an “ali-seeing gaze." So does Carlos Casteneda, author of a popular series of books about the practices of Don Juan, a Mexican shaman, eyes comes from Miyamoto Musashi, a legendary fifteenth- century swordsmanand author of The Book of Five Rings. In that book, Musashi refers to two types of vision. One he calls ken, anobservation of surface appearance and external movement. Kan, in contrast, is seeing into the essence of things. Using the peripheral vision of kan, said Musashi, a warrior could spot an enemy and detect an impending attack before it happened. Thoughwe have no enemiesto attack, with PhotoReading we can use the other benefits of kan: calmness, concentration, creativity, intuition, and the ability to greatly expand our visual field. The physiology behind kan-—or PhotoFocus, as we call it — is fascinating. The retinas of our eyes can be divided into two regions. One is the fovea which is densely packed with cells called cones. These cells bring images into hard focus. Each cone hasasinglenerve connectingitto the brain. Information entering the fovea is processed by the conscious mind. As we move into the periphery of the retina, the second area, we find different cells called rods. Even though several hundred rods are connected to the same nerve, these cells are extremely sensitive. In fact, they can detect the light of a single candle ten miles away. While in the PhotoFocus state, we are drawing much more upon rod vision than cone vision. The Dgr The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 48 you can notice as you relax more. Here is another way to see the blip page. Sit back from a table just a bit. Place your open book on the table near the edge. Look past the bottom edge of the book and see your feet on the floor. Slowly move the book into your visual field so thatitalmost coversyourlineofsightto your feet. If younotice thebookin your visual field, you will probably realize that there is a doubling of the crease in the book. Between the two crease lines, something appears. That is the blip page. Play with moving yourself more toward the book (and the book more toward you) until your line of sight is right through the center of the book, and you still have the double line. Canyou do it? If it is tough, do not worry. After years of habitually focusing on the printed page, your first exposure to PhotoFocus might be challenging. Then again, you might find this to be easy. No blip? No problem! If you do not see the blip page, you can still be a proficient PhotoReader. Remember, the goal of PhotoFocus is to minimize conscious processing and maximize preconscious processing. Seeing the blip page signals you have a divergent gaze, which is one way of preventing conscious processing. But there is another way: Looking at an open book-—right at the center crease-—open upyour field of vision so that you see all four corners of the book. Soften your gaze so that the lines of print are not in hard focus. Notice the empty margins and the white space between paragraphs. Imagine an “X” comnecting the four corners of the book. (Use this technique if you are sighted in only one eye.) As you experiment with these techniques, go easy. Remember, hard work does not help. Relaxing and noticing your experience are the main ingredients of success. After playing with your visual system for two or three minutes, just close your eyes and rest for a few minutes before you play again. Many of these exercises can help strengthen and balance your visual system. Since all natural eye improvement methods are based on relaxation, itis importantto give yourself the chance to rest your eyes. The point of these exercises is not to hallucinate but to teach yourself how to diverge your eyes. Achieving “soft eyes” and maintaining PhotoFocus while PhotoReading will PhotoRead 49 take time, so be patient. A 3 Theideal posture for PhotoReading is , ) sitting upright, with the book propped up &S ata 45 degree angle to the table (90 degrees to your eyes). If you tuck your chin in slightly you straighten your spine, permitting better energy flow to your brain. na Your gaze will be through the center of the book, but at first, itis okay ifyou gaze over thetopinorder to see the blip. Ifyou cannot maintain the blip at first, simply notice the four corners and the “X,” rather than struggle with divergence. 5. Maintain a steady state while flipping pages Your accelerative learning state and PhotoFocus state may be fragile at first. Distracting and self-critical thoughts may disrupt your attention, and you might find yourself tempted to bring the printed page into hard focus again. If this happens, simply remind yourself that your purpose rightnow isto maintain an ideal state for learning. Place the imaginary tangerine on the back of your head (refer back to Chapter 3), and notice the blip page again. You can use two additional techniques to maintain your state while PhotoReading. First, keep your breathing deep and even. Second, chant to the rhythm of the turning pages. These actions occupy your conscious mind, keeping it free from distractions while your other-than-conscious mind continues PhotoReading. The chant-—a rhythmic internal statement of supportive words—is particularly important, because it focuses your mind and blocks negative thoughts that might otherwise occur. Maintaining a steady state willenable you to breeze through books quickly and effectively. The steady rhythm is wonderful for keeping the brain relaxed and open while you mentally photograph the pages. The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 50 O nos Flip ASP gue ” TZ. DD . ÉNLGÊ> Hg Here is how to maintain the accelerative learning state ç while PhotoReading: * Remain in an open posture. Rest your feet on the floor Read with your legs uncrossed, Bullets * Keep your breathing deep and even. * Turnthe pagesofthebook ina steady rhythm-—one page every second ortwo. Seeevery two-page spread with “softeyes.” Your gaze is through the center of the book, noticing the blip page. If you cannot see the blip, notice the four corners of the book, the white space on the pages, and an imaginary “X” connecting the four cormners. * Chanttothe rhythm of your tuming pages. Take one flip for each syliable of the following chant as you mentally repeat: Re-lax...Re-lax... Four-Three-Two-One... Re-lax...Re-lax... Keep the state... .See the page... * Donotconcern yourself with missing pages. Just letthem go. You can always come back to them on a second pass through the book. * Continue the chant to the rhythm of your page turning. Let your conscious mind follow the words of the chant, * Letgoofdistracting thoughtsby bringing your conscious mind gently back to the activity at hand.  n / PhotoReadin g Uhote Nes System 6 Step 4: Activate A professor at a state university in Minnesota had been asked to give a speech. Most of what he wanted to present was contained in two books, so he PhotoRead them at bedtime, expecting to activate them the next day. That night, he dreamed of delivering his speech. As he awoke from his dream, he grabbed a pencil and paper and joited down everything he could remember of his dream / speech. In the morning, he reviewed his dream notes and realized his speech was completed, savea few transitions whichhe added. Later that day he examined the books and discovered his notes contained all the relevant points he needed. I love hearing such stories from PhotoReaders. Those examples are great when they happen. For most beginning PhotoReaders those experiences are the exception rather than the tule. This chapter explores ways to know that we can consciously o d a The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 54 access the information we need from materials we PhotoRead. 1 do not advocate merely sitting back and hoping to dream about information at night and then expecting to be ready to speak before a group or perform on a school test. Becoming active with the information makes comprehension occur. Four levels SF Activation, the next step in the PhotoReading comprehension: whole mind system, gives you the conscious | 1 Awareness awareness needed to fulfill your purpose. Through | 2 Familianty the process of activation, we build increasing levels | 3. Knowledge of conscious comprehension. You begin gaining [2 Expertise awareness, move to a sense of familiarity, and finally achieve the knowledge you desire. Activation after PhotoReading is quite different than trying torecallwhat you read inaregular manner. Activation techniques are designed to restimulate the new neural connections you createdby PhotoReading, rather than trying to force recallthrough the critical /logical conscious mind. Beingactive and purposeful is essential for gaining conscious comprehension. During activation you are attracted to text televant to your purpose. If you have no purpose for reading a document, generally httle benefit can be gained from activation, The two types of activation are: spontaneous and manual. Spontaneous activation occurs without conscious effort on our part. Perhaps you have had the kind of “aha!” experience that happens when yousuddenty solvea problem thathas preoccupied you for weeks, or see the face of a friend in a crowd, or remember the name of someone you met months ago. Such activation is an automatic connection to past experiences, to neural patterns already existing in your brain. Stimuli in our environment, cues we may have not been looking for, spontaneously trigger a flood of previous associations. Spontaneous activation feels similar toa flashof creative insight— sudden and unexpected. Although PhotoReaders reportmany storiesof spontaneous activation, they remain the cherry on top of the ice cream and are not the main entree of the PhotoReading whole mind system. Manual activation, which we will describe in this chapter, means to activate by design. Ituses the actual text as a catalyst for Activate 55 restimulating the brain, bringing the information you need into consciousness. As you learn to activate, notice what you are feeling, doing, and thinking when experiences of awareness, familiarity, or knowledge occur. This careful observation will help you understand your own intuitive signals and further your activation skills. Jump start activation with postviewing After you PhotoRead, postviewing makes an excellent transition step into activation. Postviewing is similar to the preview step described in Chapter 3, with an additional purpose to formulate questions. First you survey the material to examine its structure and understand the essence or main point. Then make note of trigger words, those key terms upon which the author built the presentation. Finally, playfully explore throughout the text to locate areas in which you want to delve into more detail. During your postview, when you notice areas within the text that interest you, begin to formulate questions you want to answer. But, do not read to answer those questions yet. Use this time to build curiosity and strengthen your desire to find out more. This increases motivation and directs your brain to build neural connections. Playing with the physical text to formulate questions is the beginning of “mind probing,” explained in detail in a later section. How much time should you take when postviewing? Generally 1 recommend that you take 5 to 15 minutes. Be flexible. Keep in mind that your goal is to leam enough about the written materials to plan your activation. 1 usually take more time postviewing (up to 15 minutes) if my preview was short (one to two minutes). If my preview was long (five to eight minutes), [ gained enough understanding about the structure and essence of the materials to focus my postviewing time on formulating questions. In that case, postviewing might only take five minutes. The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 58 Super read and dip After probing your mind, you go to the written materials and actively move through the text to retrieve the answers you seek. What do you want to know from the text you are exploring? Where in the text can you go to find it? When super reading, the next step of activation, you quickly look through large blocks of information and locate the place where your answers reside. First, you will tum to sections of the text which attract you in some way, based on your purpose for reading. “Visual cues” orcluesin your materials give you a sense that certain sections are more important to you than other sections. These clues may be chapter titles or subheadings in the text that carry relevant information. Then super read by rapidly moving your eyes down the center of each page in the section you have chosen. Notice that parts of the text attract you as being more important. At those sentences or paragraphs, you will “dip” into the text, reading a sentence or two until you sense that you have received what you want from the passage. Then resume super reading. In the PhotoReading course, we often explain super reading with a visualization that is straight from those sacred bastionsof American literature — comic books. Imagine that you are Superman coming to Earth for the first time. From an aerial distance of one hundred thousand miles, you see Earth as a swirling blue ball. You set a flight path straight toward the planet. From ten thousand miles away, you can start to make out theoutlines of continents. You also noticehow muchof the planet iscoveredby water. Zooming in closer, you notice the variegated land surfaces: deserts, rain forests, praíries, and mountains. Suddenly, you are attracted to a lush, green island with a sandy beach and a magnificent ocean view. You touch down, spend a short time exploring the terrain, and take a quick dip in the water. Satisfied, you take to the skies again, searching for another place to land. Activate 59 This is a perfect metaphor for super reading and dipping. Super readingallows you tosoar overthe whole printed landscape. Dipping allows you to touch down on the parts of text that directly serve your purpose, Tosuper read, your gaze mustremainopen, nottryinghard to find specific information. With a soft, open gaze, your eyes can move more smoothly down the text. At first, your visual field may be rather narrow. As you continue experimenting with noticing more, your visual field opens up. Try this: as you read these words, notice whatever your peripheral vision picks up at the sides of you. You might lose the flow of the text temporarily, but do not let that distract you from the experiment. The moment you open your visual awareness, your gaze for the text in front of you becomes softer, less hard- focused. This permits you to relax and notice whatever catches your attention—that is where you dip. How do you know where to dip? Just follow your hunches. Your brain has been exposed to the entire text by PhotoReading, soletyour internal signals at the periphery of your awareness be your guide. Do not worry about justifying your decision every time you decide to touch down for dipping; those signals are prelogical and pre-verbal. Monitored at the periphery of your conscious awareness, the signals come from connections madein thenonconscious data base of your brain. Notice and heed them. Follow these hunches and discover where they lead you. You can use the same technique when locating anything, by the way—not just places to dip. You can draw upon the vast knowledge within you in many situations. My wife Libby went to an estate sale in which a roomful of old books were being sold. As she walked in, surrounded by floor to ceiling shelves full of books, she entered PhotoFocus. She asked herself“Is there an old or rare book in here that Paul would want?” Her eyes instantaneously flashed over to one book which she walked across the room to pick up. Itwas the perfect book for me. Although her mind told her there were no others, she spent the next twenty minutes looking at every title, only to discover her mind was right-—there were no others. When super reading and dipping, follow your intuitive Dg> signals about where to look. Sometimes it is as simple as noticing à The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 60 where your eyes are pointing and choosing that direction. Sometimes you will find your hand just opens the book to the exact page. Pay attention, Notice whatever signals your mind offers. Super reading and dipping, like all steps in the whole mind system, are strategies that keep you active, questioning, and alive to your purpose. You end up with enough information to make crucial decisions: where is the sentence or paragraph that sums up the essential point of this document? How much of this textis relevant to your purpose? Do you want to continue reading this or go to another source? While dipping, you might experience a common problem. Your tendency, because of years of schooling, is to think you should dip into everything. If this happens, you are reading unnecessary details that do not serve your purpose. For example, you dip to read an illustration the author is making about an important point. That works, The next several paragraphs give additional, but redundant, illustrations. If you dip into those, you may just be wasting your time. If you waste too much time, you bog down in details and possibly veer off course into more irrelevant material. That is when the old reading paradigm is often rearing its head. Your conscious mind may be on a guilt trip. For some of us itis as if our second or third grade teacher is reprimanding us by saying “Stop! You missed a word. Go back over that more carefully. You are not really reading that. Now do it right!” When you get these kind of signals, thank that part of you for its concern. Let go of the worry that you are missing things as you super read. Your grade school trained conscious mind wants you to read, comprehend, remember, and critique everything as you go. But reading experts for over fifty years have said thatis the worst way to read. Keep in mind that comprehension comes in layers. Each time you super read and dip, you peel back another layer of “not-knowing” to reveal what you need at the core of your text. Trust your intuition and dip when you feel strongly moved to de so. Ifyou dip into information you do not need, remember the purpose for your reading. Tell yourself to look for the spot where that information is contained and dip there. With a firm Activate 63 in the upper half of our alphabet than in the lower half, Take a look at the following sentences: Neat yUU DEE yr 4 MIEALI ALA VISUAL O. Da vma find thic asciar nr mara Aifficah? See? Itis easier to make sense ofthe words when you see the upper half. Similarly, more cues for meaning show up in the topic sentence of a paragraph, than in the rest of the paragraph. And, in a five paragraph theme, more cues appear in the first and last paragraphs. When activating an article or book, look for the cues that will give you the most meaning. Look at the structure of the written piece and determine the author's scheme for writing. Then super read and dip to follow the author's scheme. Here is what Imean. Perhaps you know that the author first describes a problem, then later in the text explains how to solve the problem. Let us say you want the author's steps for solving theproblem. Because you understand the author's scheme for CO writing, you can bypass what you do GNAI not need and move quickly to the place USL <——, for dipping and “es 123 achieving your goal. We eatl tio SOution wa, “following the author's train Pu of thought.” In the PhotoReading seminar Iuse an illustration to represent this: "e, 9, * The problems the author grapples with $, drive the train. fg * The main argument or arguments about where the problems come from is the main “cargo” in the flow of information. This cargo is built upon certain propositions the author is trying to sell you and is composed of key terms. * The solutions emerge to suggest a remedy for the problems. The train of thought is one scheme used by authors to present information. Discover other structures within articles or The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 64 books. These structures for presenting information show you where to super read and dip to quickly get the information you need. One more point about super reading and dipping: though these strategies may sound like conventional speed reading, they are not. Super reading and dipping take place after you PhotoRead-—after exposing the entire text to your brain and downloading itinto your nonconscious memory storage system. So super reading and dipping help you consciously connect to the vast data base already within and recognize what you know to be important. Inaddition, the goalisnot to memorize the material or make itall available to the conscious mind. Instead, super reading and dipping help you sense structure, retrieve essential information, categorize the material in a meaningful way, and build a mental summary. As a result, your comprehension and long-term retention of the material increases. Skittering your way to success with text thinking find that an alternative to super reading and dipping works well. “Skittering,” a technique developed by Dr.]. Michael Bennett, gives analytical minds a feeling of greater security while stillallowing for rapid movement through text. Bennett presents skittering in the Four Powers for Greatness Personal Learning Course as a technique that exceeds the performance of speed reading techniques. When used as an activation technique, skittering offers a valuable alternative to super reading and dipping. Skittering achieves very fast and surprisingly accurate understanding of lengthy material that is informative or instructional in nature. The steps in the skittering process are used to cover an entire text or section of a book, and it works equally well for journals, reports, and lengthy web-based reading. One of the steps of the process involves the rapid, erratic eye movements referred to as skittering, per se, and makes a huge difference. fo The term skittering describes a wild, dancing-about dy movement like that of a waterbug on the surface of a pond. This Sé PhotoReaders who have strong preference for analytical Activate 65 movement of the eyes gives the brain an opportunity to look at all of the words in a paragraph that support its main premise. Consistent with the idea that only 4 to 11 percent of a text carries meaning, skittering over all the words lets your brain capture the important ones and feel secure in passing over the rest of them. Inthesteps of skittering that follow, “read” means rhythmic perusal—the style of reading used earlier to describe dipping. * Enter your ideal state for reading; relaxed aleriness * Review your purpose * Read the title, subtitle and preface (if there is one) * Read the first few paragraphs of the written piece * Read the first sentence (also known as the topic sentence) of the paragraph you are going to begin skittering on * Moveyoureyesinarapid patternoverallthe wordsinthe paragraph, except those in the first and last sentence, noticing thosewordsthatseemto carry meaningful supportto the premise in the first sentence. Dr. Bennett uses the phrase “skitter the augmentation.” The movement of your eyes can follow a zigzag from top to bottom or bottom to top. Itcan follow circular pattern clockwise or counterclockwise and move from the center out or from the edgesinto the center. There isno set pattern, butyou will discover a preference for one of them. Play with them all to find what works best for you. This movement gives your brain a chance to spot ideas that augment or add to the main conceptin a paragraph. * Ifthe meaning of the paragraph remains unclear, read the last sentence. Continue this process through each succeeding paragraph until you near the end of the reading selection. * Read the last few paragraphs completely. * Read the summary if there is one. * Review and reflect. * Create a brief mind map of your own words to describe the piece. Create a mind map While looking through a box of my old graduate school materials, I discovered a wonderful contrast between two types ofclass notes. One type of notes was the traditional linear outline y Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 68 em er isirds Et E ts tre Gain a new experience of memory This book is about shifting your paradigm of reading as a whole. To aid that process, we need to reconsider the role of memory. Ihave been fascinated by the work of Gerald Edelman, MD, a Nobel prize winning neurologist and author of The Remembered Present and Bright Air, Brilliant Fire. Edelman's ideas offer the most convincing explanation I have yet found for what may be happening when we activate material we have PhotoRead. Edelman's theory claims that memories are not stored in a localized fashion in the brain but are reinvented each time we access them. What happens when we remember is that we create a mental context for an idea, re-enter important cues or bits of related information, and follow neural “tracks” that have been Activate 69 laid by previous experience. When enough cues are entered and the correct neural pathways are stimulated, the ideas and images we want to “remember” are not recalled from storage but are recreated right on the spot. Applying this view to PhotoReading and activating, we begin to understand what might be happening to produce such remarkable results. When we PhotoRead, the brain processes written materials more physiologically than cognitively. That physical exposure to the brain opens neural networks inside the brain that can lead to later mental connections. The result js increased speed, familiarity, and ease of comprehension. You will have the ability to connect with the most important information almost instantly, rather than trying to figure it out as you read. You do not have to waste time investing hours in a book to get the knowledge you want. This is much like laying a set of railroad tracks for a train to travel on later. PhotoReading laysin the tracks. When we activate the material, we re-enter the original information through super reading and dipping, and the conscious mind follows the tracks to the destination of full comprehension. Iadmit T cannot do justice to Edelman's theory of memory in a few short paragraphs. It is far more important for you to experience this process rather than have me try to explain it. The activation techniques of mind probing, super reading, dipping, and mind mapping are all gateways to that experience. In review of the ideas of this chapter, you leamed: * There are two types of activation: spontaneous and manual. This book is concerned with manual activation. * Clear purpose is essential for activation. * Mind probing, the first step in activation, means asking questions that you want to answer. Take five to ten minutes immediately after PhotoReading toexplore the text and formulate questions you want to answer. * Kis best to wait after PhotoReading before activating— at least twenty minutes, but ideally 24 hours. * Super reading and dipping involve moving quickly over sections of text that attract you, then reading selected passages that answer your questions. Read Bulets Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 70 * An understanding of the author's scheme or structure will help guide your super reading and dipping. * Mind mapping is a highly visual and spatial way to take notes. Ithelps activate materials because it uses the whole mind. * Activation stimulates the brain giving cues to the associations your brain has constructed. As a result, you consciously connect, meet your needs, and satisfy your purpose for reading. The final step of the PhotoReading whole mind system is to rapid read which is presented in Chapter 7. N A thirteen year old boy attended the first PhotoReading course in Mexico. Although he has been sighted in only one eye since birth, he applied the skills of PhotoReading eagerly. A month after the course, one of his teachers asked, “Does PhotoReading really work for you?” His response was to hand her his dictonary, which he had PhotoRead several times. He told her, “Give me any word, and | wiltell you where the word Is positioned on the page.” He correctly identified the position of nine out of ten words, to which the teacher responded, “Hmmm, maybe it does work!” An electrical engineer at a large power generating utility found himself contributing in a meeting—actually leading the group—on a topic for which he had almost no experience. He was baffled by his obvious expertise. When back in his office, he wondered where his sudden infiux of knowledge came from. Then he noticed a stack of trade journals on his shelf that he had recentiy PhotoRead. Sure enough, the most recent journal contained an in-depth analysis of the meeting's topic. A postal employee entered zip codes into a computer while in the accelerative learning state. He became more relaxed and made fewer mistakes than before. A home-brewer PhotoRead a new book on beer-making. That night he dreamed of a new recipe which he later tried. It was his best batch to date. Rapid Read 73 you will come to information you do understand—discovering clues in the text which answer the questions you were stuck on previously. By staying in a relaxed, alert state with rapid reading you keep extracting the information you want—information that relates directly to your purpose. Rapid read or super read? A common question is, how does rapid reading differ from super reading? At first glance, the two steps might seem similar. Rapid reading, however, proceeds straight through the text from beginning to end of an important chapter or the entire book. Super reading, a step of activation, seeks out sections of the text you are attracted to and zips lightly down the center of the page. Rapid reading might involve slowing down to a more conventional reading speed; you might do this to comprehend a technical drawing ormathematical > formula, ortosavoraline of poetry. In contrast, super reading means maíntaining a brisk speed and dipping into the text at any point; there is no requirement to move through the pages in order. Super reading has been compared to the actions of a Superman scanning the Earth from outer space and deciding to touch down on certain continents. We need another analogy for rapid reading —perhaps that of taking a river kayak trip. Sometimes you careen over white water rapids, then paddle leisurely on placid waters. Then you might be back to rapids again. The point is that we stay active and alert, and our speed varies depending on the material being covered. Rapid readingisnotalwaysnecessary. Attimes, previewing, PhotoReading, and activating may be all you need to attain your desired reading outcome. Many business people never need to use the step of rapid reading. When reading business related information, such as reports and manuals, they acheve their purpose using the other steps of the system. The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 74 Students studying a textbook and people reading for pleasure will use rapid reading quite often, because it gives the conscious mind more to explore. PhotoReaders who enjoy reading novels will preview, PhotoRead, then move directly into rapid reading, by passing the activation steps altogether. Play with the wonderful options the PhotoReading whole mind system provides you. You will find the best path to achieve your purpose for reading. Demonstrate how the system works for you Therapid reading technique is reassuring, because it builds full conscious comprehension of the materials you are studying. Like the manual activation techniques from the previous chapter, rapid reading works mostly with the conscious mind, As you achieve your reading goals using the PhotoReading whole mind system, you might wonder which step is having the greatest impactupon your success. It will be easy to assume that the techniques involving the conscious mind are the biggest contributors, because you gain conscious comprehension when you use them. It may be difficult to think the nonconscious step of PhotoReading really did anything at all, Thesystem works becauseitis a whole mind system. Boththe conscious mind and the other-than-conscious mind participate. By all means, enjoy the benefits you receive consciously. At the sametime, keep noticing other positive effectsin your life that we might assign to the domain of the nonconscious mind. The most stunning demonstrations of the PhotoReading stepoften come as spontaneous activation. Stories of spontaneous activation from PhotoReading graduates are wonderful encouragement to all beginning PhotoReaders. They all have similar characteristics. The reports sound like this: “Í was in the situation in which Ineeded or wanted some information, and it showed up. 1 was noteven trying at the time to remember it. It just happened. The information just appeared, just popped into mind, not because 1 was trying to recall it, but almost on a whim.” The “aha!” experience of spontaneous activation is a convincing demonstration. It has been proof for many people Rapid Read 75 that the PhotoReading step of the system is actually working for them. The paradox is, how do you plan to have a spontaneous experience? You cannot—because it must be spontaneous. Do not sit around waiting for spontaneous activation experiences. There are other ways to test the system. In my original studies of PhotoReading, Ihad compelling evidence that PhotoReading was working. Some evidence came from spontaneous activation, but mostly it came from manual activation techniques. Forthe first year of my graduate studies, [ did not have the PhotoReading whole mind system. In the remaining eighteen months, I used PhotoReading for everything. The contrast was enormous. 1 kept on top of every subject, completing reading assignments and research reports with ease. The pressures of keeping up with my studies vanished. Since those early days of PhotoReading, Thave consistently seen that students inschool have the bestongoing demonstrations that PhotoReading works. Why? Because they are using and testing the system all the time, both objectively and subjectively. K you are not in school, you need to set up your own measures. I want you to have a convincing experience of PhotoReading. Here are some ways you might testit for yourself: * For one week, PhotoRead everything and activate anything that you need to comprehend. The next week, go back to regular reading. Decide which week was most productive. * When you see a book at a friend's house that he has recently read, ask ifit was worth reading and how long it took to read. Borrow the book and spend one-tenth the time with the book (or one-third the time if you are less daring), using the five stepsofthePhotoReading whole mind system. Then, get together with your friend and discuss the book, without mentioning that this is your own private test. Afterwards, let your friend decide if you understood the book. * Find a quiet time to notice the way your brain responds to PhotoReading. Select a novel with high emotional content such asa lusty romance novelor a suspense thriller. Then, goina room with few distractions. Light only the book so you can see little else, keep the room quiet, wear comfortable clothing, and maintain a comfortable room temperature, The idea is to make itas easy as “do Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 78 SH — ma A PhotoReader was giving a radio interview about PhotoReading. She PhotoRead a book by an author who had just been interviewed. The author asked her specific questions about the book and the PhotoReader spoke in great detail precisely answering the questions. On another radio show, the astounded host exclaimed after hearing the PhotoReader's answer to a question, “You are almost rereading this page. That is page 97 randomly pulled out of the book. That's exactly what it says there.” Later in the show he said, "It sounds like | have the author on.” A man in his thirties with a neurological disorder PhotoRead books at the university's medical library hoping to find clues. He later woke from a nap with an unusual dream regarding the disorder. He cailed his doctor who said, “| hadn't considered that. Let me consult a colteague.” A Systerns Manager for the United States Air force used PhotaReading to get his degree in Computer Information Systems Management. He took 15 credit hours worth of exams in humanities, social sciences and world religions within one week having never attended classes on the subject matter. To graduate he had to pass these tests, so his motivation was high. He PhotoRead six books on each topic a couple days before each exam. Not only did he pass and get 15 credit hours, but he got a B plus average on the exams. This score was higher thanthe average ofthe students who took the exams after attending a semester of classes. He is now using PhotoReading to earn a commission as an officer. A college senior used PhotoReading to prepare for the final exams. As a senior working to secure a job for after graduation, he dropped his regular studies hoping to get caught up at the minute. He phoned a PhotoReading coach at Learning Strategies Corporation in a panic the night before the exams. After the conversation, he got into a relaxed state and PhotoRead his class materials. He ate dinner, worked out, and went to bed relaxed. The next day he confidently took his exam and passed. PhotoReading put him at ease and allowed him to prepare mentally for the test. Before giving a presentation on peripheral development to a technical college supervisory management team, an instructor PhotoRead ten background books. She activated the books using syntopic reading strategies. The presentation went so well that the management team invited her to return as the subject matter expert for another presentation. An average student PhotoRead a novel for a literature exam and scored 100 percent. Part Three: Develop and Integrate Your Skills Rea Bullets 8 Make the PhotoReading Whole Mind System Part of Your Daily Life Now that you have been exposed to the steps of the system, you can certainly apply them to this book, if you have not done so already. Here are my suggestions on how to proceed. * Usingthisbook whichyou know cansupportyouinyour current life goals, establish a clear purpose for reading it and enter the ideal state of mind. * Preview the book for five minutes, noting trigger words as you go. * PhotoRead the book by following the steps of the procedure in Chapter 5. You can PhotoRead this book in fewer than three minutes by flipping a page every two seconds. When finished, give yourself the closing affirmations and relax for a few moments. * Idealiy, get up and take a break for a short while. Then come back to activate. * Activate by mind probing to formulate questions. You can play with the book to accomplish this in five minutes. * Activate further by super reading and dipping, or skittering. Concentrate on activating the remaining chapters of this book. Take no more than twenty minutes for this. * Review and summarize all you gathered during your first activation session with a one page mind map of the entire book. * Take a minute to affirm your ability to apply these advanced reading strategies in your daily life. As you do so, you Make PhotoReading Part of Your Daily Life 83 thearticle, Finish your activation with a quick super read and dip, oryoumay wantto skitter itto get what you need, Mind mapping can serve you if you want to capture and retain written notes for future use. * Novels—Some readers enjoy reading a book as much or more than going to the movies. I found out that when my whole mind is engaged, reading a novel is more exciting than a movie. Iprepare as usual by fixing my tangerine point and entering the accelerated leaming state, Next, | preview the story, looking for the names of significant persons, places, and things, Then I PhotoRead the book, which, of course, does not spoil the ending. Finally, Ifollow PhotoReading with rapid reading. Super reading and dipping serve little or no purpose for enjoyment of a story. * Textbooksortechnicalmanuals—A strategy of previewing followed by PhotoReading is the ideal start. Determine the chapters or major sections you wantto activate first. Choose your activation steps according to how much of the content you want to recall at a conscious level. I usually start with summary questions at the end of a chapter to do my mind probing. With a purpose clearly in mind and questions well formulated, you can use super reading and dipping or skittering to gather the information you need. Here you might choose to eliminate the rapid reading step. If you are a student needing to study for school or a professional returning to classes for professional development and continuing education, read the section coming up titled “Study with your whole mind.” Email, web pages, and electronic files One executive bemoaned the deluge ofinformation coming to her each day. “Ham away from my office for a day or two, 1 retumto anemailin-box with over onehundred emails!” Another executive using the PhotoReading whole mind system boasted that in less than ten seconds per page he could digest email text and enter meetings fully prepared. “Now I need a class on PhotoTyping!” Studieshave shown that people read from computer screens at rates 25 percent slower than when reading printed materials. Speed of transmission across the internet used to be the biggest “gr Ty Read Bullets Read Bullets The PhotoReading Whole Mind System 84 problem in information transfer. Now it appears that getting the information from the screen and into the mund for processing has become the biggest challenge. Related problems of low screen resolution, poor writing quality, and inadequate organization of material willnot slow down the PhotoReader, The PhotoReading whole mind system trains the brain to quickly locate units of meaning and respond with purpose, without wasting time and energy focusing on each word or sentence in an electronic text. Short electronic files, web pages, and email are besthandled with previewing followed by rapid reading. Longer pieces are best handled using the full system. The speed at which electronic pages can flash on the screen adds a thrilling dimension to PhotoReading. It is not unusual for someone to PhotoRead at speeds from 100,000 to 1,000,000 words a minute. Tens of thousands of books are already available on the Internet for PhotoReading. You can PhotoRead many books in a web browser while others require downloading onto a computer tobe viewed ina word processing program. A show produced by a British television company and presented on The Learning Channel showed the program'shost Paul McKennaPhotoReading, novels on the internet. His PhotoReading rate exceeded 25,000 words a minute, and he answered test questions at over 70 percent comprehension. When you want to read electronic files, you should make the same decisions to preview, PhotoRead, super read and dip, skitter, andrapid read as you would with regularbooks. However, the mechanics of those steps will change due to the high speeds possible using computers. Consider the following modifications, * PhotoFocus-— Because electronic files are usually not presented on two side-by-side pages as is a book, you will notbe able to see the blip page. Once you have mastered PhotoFocus, you will be able to use PhotoFocus on electronic files without needing the blip page for verification. Less experienced PhotoReaders should follow the alternate PhotoFocus strategies presented in Chapter 5. A soft gaze at the center of the computer screenastext flashes seems thebeststrategy for the PhotoReading step. * Page flipping—No pages to turn on the computer, so this becomes fast and easy. “Scrolling” through text tends to be more Make PhotoReading Part of Your Daily Life 85 confusing tothe brain than using the “page down” and “pageup” functions on the keypad. Transferring large files into a word processing program and manipulating it with these functions makes for easy PhotoReading. Then, use the scrolling function to move through text for the other steps of the system. Study with your whole mind The PhotoReading whole mind system naturally creates a perfectstrategy for moving througha semesterofreading. Imagine previewingand PhotoReadingevery book for the entire semester on the first day of class. Throughout the night, in your dream state, the material is reviewed and organized according to your needs and purpose. When you receive a reading assignment for a textbook, preview and PhotoRead the chapters, plus PhotoRead one ortwo on either side of them. For example, if you are assigned Chapters 3and 4, preview those and PhotoRead Chapters 2 through 5. Use thythmic perusal to read the chapter summary and study questions at the end of the assigned chapters. Then, super read and dip to find the answers to the questions. When you attend class, you naturally and spontaneously activate the chapters. Create mind maps during the lecture for all yourclassnotes. Forinstantreview ofthe entire lecture, takeyour multiple mind maps and combine them into one. Determine if you need anything else from the reading assignment. When you need specificinformation, super read and dipto findit. Tohandle vague feelings of uncertainty, use skittering or rapid reading to cover anything else you wantto study in the chapters. Mind map important points that you need to memorize, such as specific facts, formulas, theorems, and historical events. Before writing reports, use syntopic reading described in Chapter 11. You can preview and PhotoRead dozens of books on the subject of your report. Then super read and dip in the most important texts to get the core concepts you need. Mind map your first draft and write your report from your mind map. When studying for tests, look over your mind maps, PhotoRead your assignments to get yourself in the flow state, then use rapid reading to review chapters assigned for the test,