Andy W:
End in Sight:
* One form of visualizing involves seeing an image of the part of your body that you're scanning, perhaps complete with a component of that image showing your attention moving along it, i.e. a mental representation of what you're experiencing and doing.
* Another form of visualizing involves each sensory experience on your body having a visual quality, i.e. the sensory experiences look a certain way.
If your experience most closely matches the second type of visualization, you will likely find it impossible to change this, although you can stop any interplay between the way the sensations look and higher-level imagination and mental representation based on that.
Hi EiS, thanks for the prompt response.
The answer is that it is a bit of both and also somewhere in between.
With regards to the latter, like you, I find that sensations have their own visual representation. For example, a prickling sensation "looks" sharp and jagged, a mass of tension is a blob that shifts and moves, heat is dark, coolness is light, Vibrations and tingles are obviously made of smaller blobs or dots that move around. (...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
You should consider whether this is what you're describing. Read the article, google around, etc. and see whether you're describing synaesthesia or something else.
As for the rest, it sounds like there is some kind of interaction between these potentially synaesthetic experiences and typical visualization / mental representation. As far as Goenka-style vipassana is concerned, synaesthesia does not count as visualization, but the other stuff does and can be let go of...however, you will likely find it much harder to let go of some of it than a typical person would, and in my opinion it is not likely to be a significant problem (because you are not putting effort into
actively visualizing, which would be actively trying to dissociate from the experiences you're having). But as for the grossest kinds of visualization you talk about, such as
Finally, and this is more like the former of your two distinctions, I suppose I am finding that I visualise a body part in a more deliberate manner when I'm trying to place my attention there. For example, right now, it is no problem to feel my butt because I feel the pressure and warmth from the seat I'm sitting on. But in order to put my attention onto the top of my head and see what subtle sensations are there, I would need to "think" of the head in someway, and this inevitably means I end up seeing some image. In trying to tackle what Goenka called the "blind" areas of the body, I suppose I did end up visualising in a more deliberate and imaginative way. But again, I wouldn't know how to "place my attention" anywhere without this.
I think you'll find that you have to resort to this kind of thing less and less, as your ability to perceive sensations along your body increases, so long as you keep in mind that this kind of visualization is ultimately counterproductive, albeit potentially useful at the moment.
If there is a synaesthetic aspect to your experiences, then you may find that there is another way to experience that aspect...shifting the visual quality out of your "[spatiotemporally-extended] mind's eye" and into the pure sensory world. This would not be possible for vibrations or tingles (as they are, in a sense, fundamentally imaginary), but it might be possible for sensations such as pleasure, warmth, coolness, etc. I am not sure how to explain how to do this, but you might want to play with it for a bit and see what you come up with.
You also might want to take an inventory of your experience to see whether there are other aspects of your experience that are synaesthetic which you assumed everyone experiences...it may give you some insight into your mind, and be personally interesting as well.
If you have questions about synaesthesia and its relationship to meditation, feel free to ask!