How Nikola Tesla Took Control of His Imagination
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tesla’s Imagination
Nikola Tesla was a polymath with an incredible memory. He had a natural talent for imagery, but it was something he struggled to bring under his control. As a child, he was also plagued by an inability to suppress visual imagery.
He witnessed his brother’s death when he was still very young, a scene which would haunt his imagination. Getting rid of these kinds of unwanted images was something Tesla committed himself to accomplishing through dedicated practice.
In Tesla’s own words as written in his autobiography:
“There was another and still more important reason for my late awakening. In my boyhood I suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong flashes of light, which marred the sight of real objects and interfered with my thought and action. They were pictures of things and scenes which I had really seen, never of those I imagined. When a word was spoken to me the image of the object it designated would present itself vividly to my vision and sometimes I was quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not. This caused me great discomfort and anxiety.
None of the students of psychology or physiology whom I have consulted could ever explain satisfactorily these phenomena. They seem to have been unique altho I was probably predisposed as I know that my brother experienced a similar trouble. The theory I have formulated is that the images were the result of a reflex action from the brain on the retina under great excitation. They certainly were not hallucinations such as are produced in diseased and anguished minds, for in other respects I was normal and composed.
To give an idea of my distress, suppose that I had witnest a funeral or some such nerve-racking spectacle. Then, inevitably, in the stillness of night, a vivid picture of the scene would thrust itself before my eyes and persist despite all my efforts to banish it. Sometimes it would even remain fixt in space tho I pushed my hand thru it. If my explanation is correct, it should be able to project on a screen the image of any object one conceives and make it visible. Such an advance would revolutionize all human relations. I am convinced that this wonder can and will be accomplished in time to come; I may add that I have devoted much thought to the solution of the problem.
To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something else I had seen, and in this way I would often obtain temporary relief; but in order to get it I had to conjure continuously new images. It was not long before I found that I had exhausted all of those at my command; my “reel” had run out, as it were, because I had seen little of the world—only objects in my home and the immediate surroundings.
As I performed these mental operations for the second or third time, in order to chase the appearances from my vision, the remedy gradually lost all its force. Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes.
These were at first very blurred and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but by and by I succeeded in fixing them; they gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things. I soon discovered that my best comfort was attained if I simply went on in my vision farther and farther, getting new impressions all the time, and so I began to travel—of course, in my mind.
Every night (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would start on my journeys—see new places, cities and countries—live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations.”
Chasing Away Unwanted Images
In order to get rid of unwanted images, Tesla began by simply recalling the sights and scenes he had experienced in reality: he’d look at the world around him, then recall what he saw later on. Once recalling the past no longer helped push away intrusive thoughts, he began creating new worlds in his mind, which were initially fuzzy, but with practice became solid and well defined.
He did this over and over again, until he had mastered his imaginative faculties and was no longer plagued by dark images.
Tesla, of course, benefitted from some kind of hyperphantasia, so he started with a certain gift for imagery, but he stilled had to practice it in order to gain control of his natural talents.
We might not reach his heights of visualization, but we can learn a lot from how he went about mastering his own powers: by practicing diligently.
On Imagining Real Experiences
It’s worth noting that in the passages I quoted above, Tesla started by imagining things he had seen before he started using his imagination to create new scenes from whole cloth.
You can do the same thing. First, paint mental images of your environment. Once you got that down, then you can start creating fantastic environments using your imagination.
The first part is easy: just attend to the present moment, close your eyes, recall what you see, then open your eyes again and see what you left out of your image. Do this regularly until you’re happy with your ability to paint the present moment.
On Imagining The Fantastic
Once you can do that with ease, you can start practicing creating scenes you haven’t personally experienced. I’ve written about submodalities in the past, the sub-properties for our senses (brightness for vision, soft for touch, etc). That’s where I would focus my efforts when creating scenes from scratch. A simple technique for exploring submodalities is to just ask “what do I see/hear/feel/smell/taste” three times for each sense. Paint in layers of submodalities to create richer, more vivid mental images.
Imagination is like a muscle, and you need to use it for it to grow. Even Tesla, a giant among giants, had to put in the work to control his imagination.