R. T. M. Scott: When I read a story my imagination reproduces the story-world of the author very vividly. If it does not, the story does not interest me and I pass on to the next. I do not hear sounds in connection with a story which I am reading except upon rare occasions. Taste, on the other hand, is very acute. Smells, too, are acute although not quite so acute as tastes. The sense of touch is not so pronounced, though I feel it to a certain extent. I feel no actual pain corresponding to the physical pain described in the story. In the case of taste my imagination produces the same result upon my sense as does the actual stimulus itself. (If the above proves me to be weak-minded or a degenerate please give me a chance to argue the matter with the fellow who says so.)
Limitations with the "eyes shut" need not exist. Pictures may be colored, in black and white, blurred or distinct. You are the master or a child wandering in fairy land. It rests with you if you will but practise regularly for short intervals of time. Five minutes every day at the same hour will be sufficient for a starter. Seat yourself in a chair with your back to the door and with your eyes closed. Imagine yourself rising from the chair and walking around behind your back toward the door. See the door and feel the knob so vividly that you have forgotten that you are sitting in the chair. Open the door and pass out, closing it behind you. Enter the room again and look at the back of your own head as you sit in the chair. Open the door and pass out, closing it behind you. Enter the room again and look at the back of your own head as you sit in the chair. Sounds silly, but try it once a day for six months. If you have made no progress in three weeks, give it up. If you do make progress, however, you will reach marvels at the end of half a year or earlier. There will be no limits and you will be able to visit any place that you ever heard of or never heard of as you please to be the master or the child. London or Cairo, the center of the earth or the opposite side of the moon await you while something unconscious sits in your chair with its back to the door. Proof? There is no proof for the man of science such as the counting of beans in a closed box. The reason for proof is doubt and, with doubt, the trick vanishes.
Solid geometry gave me more trouble than other mathematics. You can't prove me a maniac on this, however, for I fooled away my time at the commencement of the study and a weak foundation may have been to blame.
I am not quite sure that I "get" your next question. Perhaps I can not answer definitely. Sometimes I follow the author pretty closely and sometimes I leave the author in my lap while something sits in the chair with its back to the door.
I have no stock pictures. Each case produces its own vision.
In reading stories my imagination usually follows. In writing a story it leads or is led. You will say that, if it is led, it follows. Yes, but not in the same way. In reading it follows the plot. In writing it follows something altogether apart from the story and the result of that following is the story. What is this something which the imagination follows—which leads the imagination? It is, I think, that which makes us think at certain times when our thoughts are not lazily centered upon heat and cold or food and drink—the cravings and sensations of the body. There is something beyond all selfish desires and emotions and that something should be master of our thoughts if we are to function to the best advantage. If there is nothing on the other side of the grave, then all these ideas are nonsense. If we do continue to "live" after death, however, then that permanent self is not likely to be born at death. It is much more probable that we have it now or even that we may have had it for millions of years—perhaps always. If such should be the case it might well be that thought or imagination is sometimes influenced by the contact of our work-a-day mind with that real self which never dies and which may be a vast store-house of knowledge and high ideals.
I have considered these matters as "tools of my trade" and I try, very falteringly, to use them. The best theory upon which to work is, to my mind, the theory of reincarnation. Perhaps, however, that must be proved by each man for himself. I have studied it and I do believe that it gives results.
Robert Simpson: When I read a story and can't see the whole business—people, places, things—I don't go on reading. It is at once a lifeless thing—inchoate—a blur. I don't try to see and feel and taste and smell and so forth, if the story is getting over to me. If I don't experience these sensations in a greater or lesser degree, it is possible, of course, that I may have dyspepsia, but it is more likely that the story has a flat tire.
The pictures I see "with my eyes shut" are generally only half formed. The people are real and distinct enough—too distinct, I think, because I am tempted, in writing about them, to mark every trivial expression. Their positions in the pictures are most exact. But the furnishings or surrounding buildings or landscapes are not very clear, unless a chair or a house or a tree or several or all of these are absolutely necessary to the story. The whole scene, in other words, I see clearly. The details are blurred until they become specific. Then they stick out like a sore finger. The pictures are black and white for the most part. Red, yellow and green I can also see with fair distinctness. The finer shades are blurred. They fade in and fade out in an unsettled kind of way, as if I were having a hard time holding them there.
I never studied geometry or mathematics and I'm not going to. I was supposed to study them, but all I ever got out of them was a headache.