Throughout history, famous religious leaders such as Paul, Mohammed, Buddha, the Sufi prophets, and Christian saints such as Mother Teresa have experienced extraordinary images - images with an incredibly strong psychological and emotional impact. James Tissot (1836–1902): The Vision of Saint Joseph In contrast to physical objects, mental images have great flexibility and mutability. Many people first start with the images being vague and then through practice, the mental imagery becomes more vivid. Vividnessĭefinition: The degree of clarity of the image, whether it is fuzzy, or clear and unambiguous. However, most people passively experience dreams with little control over what is occurring. In a daydream, everything is controllable.
Controllabilityĭefinition: Whether the image can be manipulated by zooming, enlarging, rotating, shrinking, etc. It’s not unusual for imagery to bring up emotions such as fear or happiness. For example, an image often has other sensory modes such as sounds and feelings. Numbers of Sensory Modesĭefinition: In this case, whether the imagery has other senses embedded within it. According to Cratty (1983), there are three different types of experience one can have. One way to define mental imagery is according to its characteristics. One thing that separates a vision and a dream is that leaders bring about their vision in the real world. Thomas Cole (1841-1848): The Architect’s Dream.