Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (23 page)

1. Conceptualize
   ideas.
   
2. See the
   big picture.
   
3. Read in
   phrases.
   
4. Recognize the real
   meaning.
   
5. Read in
   silence.
   
6. Move
   forward
   without regression.
   
7. Filter
   out internal and external distractions.
   
8. Notice
   connections
   between new and existing knowledge.
   
9. Save information in the long-term
   memory.
   
10. Comprehend
    faster.
    
11. Increase
    reading speed.
    

Visualizing is actually a method of staying tuned in to and making stronger connections to your reading. Visualizing is not always easy—nor is it always perfect—but the more you visualize, the more the other effective habits will follow. Visualizing is what tips over the first domino as you start reading with the right brain.

Focusing on visualizing automatically involves the right brain, because this is the part of your brain that handles visualizing. It sees pictures as whole ideas, not just strings of information like your left brain does. These big-picture ideas are the larger, more meaningful representations of information.

Visualizing with the right brain is when the real “mind-meld” takes place, linking your mind to the author’s. It’s when you
see
the author’s thoughts. The information that started as a concept in the author’s mind now becomes a concept in yours.

Types of Visualizing

Words, letters, spelling, and phonics are simply communication tools. They are symbols and devices used to send ideas from one mind to another. Actual communication occurs only after ideas are transmitted, received and then finally connected to related ideas in the receiving mind.

Visualizing helps you move beyond communication symbols to concentrating on the actual
content
of the communications. To visualize the content, you must concentrate on meaning.

This does not mean stopping to mentally draw a beautifully detailed image of the meaning of each idea. Instead, think more in terms of rapid movie frames flashing through your mind, each idea going by in an instant. Some are simple; some are vague. Some are clear; some are complex. Some may be mere ghosts of an idea, and some may be realistic. And some may not be images at all.

You can easily imagine a picture of an
object
, but what about ideas you can’t imagine as a picture? What about abstract ideas?

There are two ways to handle abstract ideas:

1. Metaphorical Visualizing
   
2. Conceptual Visualizing
   

Some ideas, although abstract, can sometimes be visualized as images metaphorically. An example would be imagining a heart to represent an abstract phrase like
“fell in love.”

But visualizing can also mean simply imagining the idea itself
—
that is, visualizing its
concept
. In this case, you wouldn’t see any real picture at all, but instead just imagine the
meaning.
Rather than seeing images, this type of visualizing would be more like what you do when you say, “I
see
what you mean.”

An image is only one part of a concept. Some concepts can include both pictorial and abstract information, while others can be completely abstract with no pictorial images at all. For these abstract ideas, you would be
visualizing concepts
.

Visualizing Concepts

To understand visualizing concepts, you first need to be clear what is meant by concepts and what is meant by visualizing.

Here are some dictionary definitions of concept:

1. A
   general
   notion or idea.
   
2. An idea of something formed mentally combining all its
   characteristics
   or particulars.
   
3. A directly conceived or intuited object of
   thought.
   

So you could combine these definitions to say a concept is a
general
idea—formed by combining all its
characteristics
—into an object of
thought
.

To conceptualize something is to mentally combine all of its characteristics. These characteristics are the attributes of the idea, its distinguishing traits, qualities, and properties. Considered together, these attributes represent the
essence
of the thing or idea.

For example, the concept of the word “dog” is a mental model including all the things that make something doggish. To conceptualize “dog,” you could imagine something with the attributes of fur, four legs, and a tail.

But concepts are not limited to physical attributes. Your concept of “dog” could also include canine behaviors and dogs you’ve known, as well as what you think of dogs. Basically, the concept of “dog” is everything “dog” means to you. And your concept of “dog,” although probably similar to the concept held by most people, is uniquely your own; it is based on your very own life experiences and ideas.

So when you read “dog,” you can instantly imagine your
concept
of a dog. Since a dog is a physical thing, your concept might also still include an actual image of a dog.

But what about the concept of “pet”? The concept of “pet” is more abstract than “dog.” There are many types of pets, so which pet should you picture? You could select an arbitrary pet to imagine, or else a group of many types of pets together, but the real concept of “pet” is actually
any
pet, not one or a group.

To visualize the concept of “pet,” you would need to imagine something pet-like, a generic, non-descript concept which includes all the attributes—friendly, docile, loyal, etc.—that make something pet-like to you.

But it will be difficult to create a real mental picture of “pet.” This is how conceptualizing an abstract idea is different than merely visualizing a mental picture. For the more abstract concepts, you don’t
picture
the idea, because there is no picture; instead, you imagine all the attributes that, in your mind, contribute to the concept.

Now for one step further into abstraction. How would you conceptualize “friendly”? The idea of “dog” might at least have a generic image, and “pet” may possibly have too many images, but “friendly” has no physical image at all. You can’t draw a picture of “friendly,” but you can still imagine all the attributes (helpful, trusting, pleasant, etc.) common to all the other “friendly” things you know.

What you are doing is considering the essence of what things are, whether this includes physical attributes or abstract. That’s why considering the essence of ideas is more than just a reading technique, but a way of thinking. Visualizing what you read is thinking
conceptually
. This type of thinking is what lifts your reading to another level
—
to right brain reading.

What’s In a Name?

Now that we’ve put physical images in their place as just one type of attribute, what about the
name
attribute?

The name attribute is the actual word or words used to describe the information, such as the words “dog,” “pet,” or “friendly.” The name is one attribute of the concept, but it is not even necessary for conceptual understanding. In fact, it’s quite possible to conceptualize something before you even know what it is called.

Here’s a food I’d never seen until recently.

I didn’t know its name, but I could still conceptualize it as a food, a plant, probably a fruit, and as something very strange looking to me.

It could have had a sign over it, describing it like this:

After seeing this sign, the next time I wanted to find one of these items, I could look for it by “name” by looking for this sign. But I would be “reading” the sign without saying the word, because I wouldn’t know the sound of the word since I don’t know Chinese.

The point here is that it is possible to read and understand words without thinking of the words or their sounds. I could simply
look
at this “word” and this would lead me to conceptualize this food.

I wouldn’t have to know that this was pronounced
fat-sau-gam
in order to conceptualize the meaning of the word. But even knowing one of the English names—fingered citron, Buddha’s hand, or bergamot—would really add nothing to my understanding. No matter what the name is, the idea—the concept—would still be the same, and the name would still be irrelevant.

The same goes for more familiar items. This
could be described as
or as
“apple.”
Either name, written or verbal, is still just a symbol. You could conceptualize this item as a group of several attributes, such as taste, shape, color, food group, texture, and
name
, but the name is just one attribute—one that is only required for communication, not conceptual understanding.