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Book Blaster Issue 11
Michael Evans, from Edmonstown, Mid-Glamorgan, is celebrating. "That's not wine my daughter is drinking in the photograph, honest!" he says. He has just passed his law exam with a higher grade than any one else in his class but without handing in a single essay throughout his whole course. He even left his revision to the last three days but, thanks to PhotoReading, he had an unexpected success.
Michael works as a car salesman and has spent the last year squeezing some free time out of his schedule to attend the evening classes in A-Level Law. "I didn't hand in any work during the whole course because I hadn't had the time," admits Michael. Each week his fellow students would hand in the large amount of written homework to their teacher.
"the truth is that with working long hours I hadn't done the reading. And people were handing in essays every week and I was the guy with the excuse," he remembers. But not the day he called his teacher to find out how he had done in the gruelling law exam, and how his fellow students had got on.
"I wasn't expecting to pass the exam in all honesty. Even though I had an interest in the subject, I knew I hadn't put the work in and the lecturer kept telling us that you won't pass unless you put the work in."
In fact, Michael passed his A level law with a respectable C grade. Not so, the rest of the group. No-one got higher than a D according to his teacher.
"Considering that I put in less work than anyone else, I'm very pleased. I don't know if it was to do with PhotoReading, but on the day it just seemed to click right in. I imagined my mind just being blank because I hadn't done the work. But I started writing and I just seemed to remember everything as I needed."
"What I did was to PhotoRead the materials from the course, and I did several mindmaps of all the different subjects which I think helped me more than anything else.
"Doing the mind-maps was time consuming. I left it all to the last minute so it was all in the last two or three days.
"When it came to the exam itself I remembered the colours I had used on the mind map. I saw the pictures, not the notes. But in doing law you have to remember the names of the individual cases. Basically there are about eight different subjects and there are as many as ten fairly important cases you have to know and others you could know and you have remember the more important ones."
His experience in the exam itself was markedly different from previous encounters with the exam hall.
"I was quite nervous until I sat down and started writing. One of the things that I did before I went in was to play some of the slow classical music. I also used that while reading and I think that helped.
"I didn't go in thinking I've PhotoRead this so I'm going to be better than I have before, it was just that when I started writing it all came to me before. Before PhotoReading I would get the occasional block.
"When I told the others that I'd got a better grade than them they seemed surprised and a perhaps a little jealous.
"the lecturer gave me the results of the others in the class. She was disappointed that nobody got an A.
"What I do wonder now is, if I got a C without trying, what could I have learned if I had really worked?
As we were about to conclude the interview, Michael became suddenly intent on changing the subject.
"Can I ask you something," he said. "When you talk to people about Photo-ReadingS wellS what do people say about dreaming?"
Michael's experience of dreaming has changed remarkably since he began PhotoReading. He has clear, vivid and emotional experiences
"Since listening to the course my dreams are really weird. I don't know if its a coincidence, but I enjoy it. I'm dreaming a lot more and I'm remembering them as well.
"I'm going to get some of the CDs that Chris sells to do with dreaming because it's something that I really enjoy.
"Last night I was singing with Madonna. When I woke up I thought that wasn't really Madonna, because the face wasn't hers, but in my dream it was.
"It's quite a strange feeling. I sometimes wake up feeling that its a shame they're not real. I've even fallen in love in a dream and then woken up disappointed."
Now Michael feels he has all the material he needs to fuel his other passions. Drama and writing.
"the whole family is also in a theatre group three or four times a week and I've got an interest in writing. Sometimes I write my dreams down because they make good stories, some of them.
"I have shelves and shelves of books on writing. That was another reason for buying the course: to get through these books!"
It's what you'll be doing for perhaps a third of the rest of your life. So imagine using your sleep to revise and review what you learned each day.
That is the amazing experience Age Hakkenberg has had since he became a PhotoReader. Age is 24 and studies automotive engineering in Ijsell, Holland. He bought the PhotoReading Whole Mind System last year and got great results in his exams as a result of using PhotoReading. But it was what happened at night after his Photo-Reading that most astonished Age.
"I now get dreams about what I studied several hours before," says Age. "I can recapitulate it all and I have visual images of whatever I have learned. I can even speak to someone else in my dream and get feedback from them about what I'm learning. Most of the time the other people in my dreams know more than I do about a subject! they correct the things I get wrong."
"the techniques used helped me to get more clear dreams. I get a really relaxing feeling before PhotoReading. It's just like a mist being cleared away by the wind. It is great to have such a clear mind."
"In my opinion it is more like stepping back from yourself and looking at what you are doing more objectively. If you're really busy with some difficult task and you go back a little and say to yourself that is what I have and that's what I have to do. You 're not in the problem, you can see the problem."
Whatever Age's experiences in the normally ethereal world of dreams, in the hard reality of the exam room his PhotoReading has been a revelation which has delivered concrete results.
"I've had good results with last-minute study," he says. "I feel it has been very useful. Last year I got the CDs and after the holidays I had my exams. I got through all my exams with great success. If I hadn't used PhotoReading then I don't think I would have got the same results and I would have taken a lot longer to do the studying."
"In Holland we call exam cramming 'stampen'," he goes on, "that is, stuffing a book into the top of your head. Of course, cramming takes as much work as PhotoReading, but PhotoReading gives you an edge. When I did my exams I got into PhotoFocus. I read through what I had to do and relaxed. then I closed my eyes for a few minutes and relax my whole body and mind and then I started to write down the answers that popped up."
And it hasn't just been Age that has benefited: "I've recommended Photo-Reading to a lot of people," Age continues. " I taught what I could understand to some of my fellow students. there was a mixed reaction. Some of my friends weren't getting high enough grades. they didn't believe me at first, but if you score 6 or 7 instead of 3 or 4, that's pretty good. Some improved their results by at least 50%."
Ron Fereday wrote in from Weymouth in Dorset. Now approaching his 70s, Ron feels that the expanded consciousness that PhotoReaders seem to enjoy may actually prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Ron and his wife Gwen are members of the local Alzheimer Group, for people whose relatives suffer from the disease, the symptoms of which are loss of memory and general wasting of the mind.
Ever since reading an article about an Alzheimer patient who regained lucidity after being given a dental anaesthetic, Ron has been convinced that the sufferers are not changing by deterioration, as commonly thought, but that the brain is choosing somehow to close down mental doorways.
After working through the PhotoReading course in a week, he and his wife felt "so much more mentally alert." Ron says: "It has got to be livening up our brain cells and if that is fact then the possibility of deterioration lessens and the chance of denying Alzheimer's any foothold with us.
Ron is a healer and the author of the self-healing and meditation book, the Three Faces of Spirit (Regency Press). Having bought the course on a gut feeling, he says he and his wife really enjoyed the approach taken by Paul Scheele.
"Those who regularly practice meditation and visualisation will prance through this purchase with delight," he notes.
After starting with a reading speed of around 100 words per minute he and his wife PhotoRead their first book after about a week.
"We had in front of us a 53,500-word book which we had never set sight on before the exercise," Ron recalls.
"We could spend a total of nine minutes of study following approximately five hours method practice during the previous week. From 20 questions spanning the whole book, I managed 11 correct. That's 55 per cent comprehension which I found amazing.
"Gwen performed even better with 14 correct from the 20, or 70 per cent," he says.
For 19-year-old Stuart Dee, the excitement of discovering the PhotoReading Whole Brain System has been tinged with sadness. Stuart has been amazed at his experiences since he bought the course three months ago. He has impressed his colleagues at work and passed his driving theory test with a score of 100%. But he finds it saddening that his friends and family don't want to tap their hidden abilities in the way he has.
"It makes me quite sad that people don't know this is available," says Stuart from his home in Stockport. "I look at my friends and think why don't you use your potential?"
At the very beginning of his PhotoReading experience, Stuart got modest results, but then things somehow fell into place as he played the dictionary game.
"I was quite amazed. It's quite a strange experience. After PhotoReading the dictionary, you say a word and then visualise where it will be on the page. It's a bit too much to be chance by now. I must have looked up at least 100 successfully now. I even looked up 10 in a row which were bang on the spot on the page where I guessed they would be."
Stuart's best result to date has been at his work as a computer programmer and analyst for Gen-a-sys Ltd. About a month ago he got to work early and decided to do some PhotoReading. "Nobody was around, so I got into state quickly and PhotoRead two Information Weekly magazines of about 100 pages each in five minutes. I didn't do any trigger words or anything."
After an 11 hour day, Stuart didn't activate the material that night. But a week and a half ago... "the Managing Director was saying something about Unix and some kind of emulation package that he didn't understand," says Stuart. "He asked me if I had heard of it."
Suddenly Stuart could see the page of a magazine before him. "I said, 'yeah I've read about it' and I jut had the feeling that that it was definitely in Information Weekly, so I walked out, flicked quickly through all the magazines, found the page and left it on his desk.
His boss was impressed. "I think at first he probably thought that I'd read it that morning. Only afterwards I realised that I had PhotoRead it."
But even when people can see that Stuart has improved his memory, his learning ability and his knowledge of the latest programming techniques, he has nevertheless been surprised that they seem unwilling to try something so powerful for themselves.
"My parents didn't think it would work, neither did my friends," he remembers. "I get the odd comment like 'God your memory is improving'," he says "or 'you've got a big vocabulary', but often I don't say anything because people don't understand."
Stuart feels that with a little curiosity, effort and application his friends would amaze themselves with their untapped potential. And that's truer than ever when people can make use of state-of-the-art technology, such as the PhotoReading Whole Mind System.
"It's powerful stuff if you use it," says Stuart. "That's why it's not so difficult to outshine people these days. People seem to be getting lazier."
Like many other Photo-Readers, including the teachers who sometimes contribute to Book Blaster, Stuart wants to see PhotoReading introduced into schools, so that more people find out about it. And he says, it could have extraordinary benefits as part of Tony Blair's drive against illiteracy in schools.
Stuart wanted very much to share with you his favourite book: How to Develop a SuperPower Memory, by Harry Lorayne. We know it well at LifeTools -- it's a memory classic, "an absolute pot of gold," in Stuart's words. You can order it from any good bookshop, priced around £5. Publisher: Thorsons, ISBN 0-7225-2784-5.
As a reader of Book Blaster, you'll know that people are using PhotoReading to achieve their dreams, but how about using your dreams to work on your PhotoReading? To those who master the ability to awaken within their own dreams and play a "conscious" role in that alternative reality, many adventures and learning opportunities are available.
Lucid dreaming is not easy. It takes a lot of practice. But some significant technological steps are being taken and Chris Payne, MD of LifeTools, decided to make the NovaDreamer available to the LifeTools community.
Book Blaster: How did you come across the NovaDreamer?
Chris: What happened was that we'd started selling the original MindLab, and as I'm always looking out for new tools, I saw an ad for this lucid dreaming device and tried it out for myself. I'd tried to lucid dream for a year using a book called Lucid Dreaming in 30 Days by Harary, and got nowhere. But eight nights after I started using the NovaDreamer I had my first lucid dream -- it was incredible!
What is a lucid dream?
Lucid dreams are dreams that are as real as this reality. they are just as solid as normal life. the room around you is as real as the room you're in now, and if you knock on a door, the sound you hear is as real as the sound you would hear if you knocked on your own front door.
the NovaDreamer lets you know you are dreaming, and signals you to become lucid.
Isn't it pretty uncomfortable going to sleep attached to a machine?
Well, the NovaDreamer is soft sleep mask with a small printed circuit board nestled in foam in the forehead area. It's completely self contained -- there are no wires attached to anything.
You can sleep with it on even face down or lying on your side. What happens is that when you go to sleep and start to dream, the device shines an infra-red beam onto your eyelids and this beam bounces back onto a sensor.
When you start to dream you go into rapid eye movement, or REM sleep. the device realises that you are dreaming, waits a couple of minutes and then flashes a light and/or sounds a buzzer. Inside the dream you'll hear the buzzing, hear the flash of a light in the dream, and if you have prepared yourself enough, you'll say: "Hang on a minute, a flash of a light and a buzz: maybe this is a dream now".
the moment you question the reality, you wake up inside the dream and experience it as a real world. It is incredibly exhilarating. What most people do is fly through the air. the other thing you can do is to bring to mind the book you have PhotoRead and fly into the pages and experience what the book is about. Alternatively, because you are in control of the dream, you can tell yourself that the author is round the next corner and he is -- then ask him questions about the book.
BB: It is easy to have a lucid dream?
Chris: No, some people can take four to six weeks to experience their first lucid dream with the mask. Most of the other devices we sell require no effort at all, but with the NovaDreamer you have to put effort in. But the results of your effort can be truly remarkable.
Tell me more about that first lucid dream.
On that eighth night, I woke up in the night and looked at the clock. It said 4.15am. then I turned away and looked again at the clock as electronic devices don't function properly in dreams.
the time was still 4.15, so I knew I was awake.
Some time later I woke again. I lifted up the mask, raised myself up off the bed and checked the time: 5.15. I looked away and looked back. I couldn't make out the time clearly -- I thought I had sleep in my eyes.
Rather than give up I persisted and tried again to read the time. the next instant my body began to float into the air. I could feel every hair on my skin move gently as if in a faint breeze -- and I was aware of the whole of the room below and in front of me. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life.
I've had numerous experiences of a similar nature since then. For example, I've been in forests where the colour green had an entirely different quality. A deeper, richer feeling. I imagine that people who have experiences on hallucinatory drugs tell similar stories.
the NovaDreamer costs £299 + £4.95 p&p from LifeTools. Ring for a free colour brochure. You can also obtain the best book on lucid dreaming: Exporing the World of Lucid Dreaming for £4.95 + £1.50 p&p. It's written by Stephen LaBerge, the inventor of the NovaDreamer. It's also a great book to PhotoRead before you go to bed. Sweet dreams!
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