Zoltan Torey's Use Of Mental Imagery

Mental imagery is the ability to picture things in your head without looking at them. While this may be easy for some, others find it very difficult. Some people are able to imagine conceptual ideas that have never been seen before; others are only capable of picturing what they have seen. The senses and brain can play a large role in a person's capabilities, but one can overcome these limits with active work. Everyone perceives their experiences differently, making everyone’s personal understanding of the world unique, yet individuals are limited in their ability to fully comprehend everything by their senses, the way their senses interact and mental imagery capabilities.

By using more than just sight, one can strengthen their other senses

A man by the name of Zoltan Torey refused to let go of his mental imagery when he lost his vision at age 21. He “had been extremely successful, developing a remarkable power of generating, holding and manipulating images in his mind, so much so that he had been able to construct a virtual visual world that seemed as real and intense to him as the perceptual one he had lost” (Sacks 332). His way of perceiving the world became very “scientific” and he began finding ways to check that his imagery was accurate. This allowed Torey to live freely and think of certain topics in ways he never would have when he had his sight. Torey was eventually able to picture himself inside machines to see the hardware and how it functioned. His deep understanding of how the world functions allows his understanding to be so detailed that it functions as his physical world. The exceptional use of his mental imagery helped him to develop his world in such a way that his experiences are unlike anyone else’s. Another blind person by the name of Sabriye Tenberken has a very strong and imaginative mental imagery. She recalls once being on a trip to the Great Salt Lake of Tibet. When she turned to face the lake, she pictured “‘a beach of crystallized salt shimmering like snow under an evening sun, at the edge of a vast body of turquoise water… And down below, on the deep green mountain flanks, a few nomads were watching their yaks grazing,’” but she had not been facing the lake, she was facing toward some rocks and other boring landscape (Sacks 334). Though she completely lost what little vision she had at birth when she was 12, Tenberken was able to envision beautiful landscapes like her version of the Great Salt Lake of Tibet. This Great Salt Lake may not look as beautiful to