NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Aug. 30, 2022
Dateline: Mason City, IA
Meditation Easy without a Mind's Eye
(MASON CITY, IA) – If meditation is frustrating for you because you have no mind's eye, meditation researcher and author Jim Collison has good news.
Collison's article titled "Private: You CAN Meditate with Aphantasia" is posted today on the Aphantasia Network's aphantasia.com website. Aphantasia is the inability to visualize. Current estimates are that 1% to 5% of the population have no "picture-it" ability. Any kind of meditation that requires seeing an image in the mind can be frustrating for persons with no mind's eye.
Four of Collison's six children are aphantasic. It is rare for 4-of-6 children in a family to have aphantasia. Collison says all his children have been meditating for years with no difficulties because of a lack of a mind's eye.
Collison, who does have a mind's eye picturing ability, is author of "Simply How to Meditate." His book is the first how-to-meditate book that discusses the aphantasic condition and gives suggestions for how to meditate without a mind's eye. He also is author of the free downloadable "Guide to Teaching Living Moments Meditation: For Meditation Instructors, Wellness Coaches, Teachers and Parents."
Collison has been meditating for nearly 80 years. He writes in the aphantasia.com article "there are hundreds of ways you can meditate, without a mind's eye, for the purposes of lessening stress and improving your health."
One meditation practice he describes is Core Belief meditation, in which the meditator creates their own core belief statement and repeats it as an affirmation in meditation. Collison writes he's created six Core Belief affirmation mantras he often repeats in meditation, and "none of my personal Core Belief mantras requires having a mind's eye."
"There are many other ways to meditate that do not require a mind's eye," he writes. "In fact, you probably meditate already without being aware of it." Examples he gives are (1) knitting, crocheting, quilting, and other kinds of crafts, (2) collecting as a hobby, such as sports card collecting, and (3) weeding your garden.
How can such common practices be meditating? Because, Collison writes, meditating for relaxation, stress reduction, and other health benefits simply "requires that you focus your mind in the present moment, and breathe slowly."
Not having a mind's eye was rarely and not widely known until 2015 when Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from University of Exeter (UK) coined the term aphantasia to describe the condition.
The Aphantasia Network is a global community established to uncover and share new insights into what it means to learn, create, and remember with blind imagination.
About Jim Collison.
Jim Collison’s meditation experience began when he was a child. Now at age 89, he’s been meditating nearly 80 years.
His career as researcher, writer and editor began as sports editor of his hometown’s two weekly newspapers in Blue Earth, MN. He is a graduate of St. John’s University (Collegeville, MN).
Jim taught on both the high school and college levels and served as an educational consultant. He designed an educational program called ALERT (Adult Literacy and Employment Reading Training) and wrote and conducted such workshops as: Start on Success in Your Own Business, Power Over Fear, How to Take Advantage of Crisis and Change, and How to Help, Energize and Lead People.
Jim is the author of Simply How to Meditate: Meditation Made Easy for Beginners and Busy People, Skill-Building in Advanced Reading, Mental Power in Reading, NO-How Coaching: Strategies for Winning in Sports and Business from the Coach Who Says “NO!” and HIDDEN RICHES: How You Can Discover Hidden Wealth from Your Employees’ Ideas.
He was co-founder and president of Employers of America, a national association for employers, managers and supervisors. He was a founding member of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Committee in Waterloo, Iowa. He served as a member of the advisory council for the Center for Industrial Research and Service, associated with Iowa State University.
He lives in Mason City, Iowa.
Media Contact. For a review copy of “Simply How to Meditate” or to arrange an interview with Jim Collison, contact him by phone at 641-423-6156 or email him to: AuthorJim@SimplyHowToMeditate.com.