Mental Imagery – Phantasmata
Climb to Mount Everest.
On May, 1953 two teams were committed to climb Mount Everest. The first team was Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans and the second team consisted of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. May 26, Tom and Charles accomplished climbing only 300 feet away from the summit. It was an accomplishment that no other human was able to accomplish, but why stop at 300 feet? History stated it would be too dangerous with low oxygen supply to reach the summit.
The next team left on May 29 and Hillary and Norgay set to to climb the mountain and reach the summit. Sir Edmund Hillary had a mental imagery in his mind before climbing that mountain. He had a feeling that he would give everything he had and he was sure that his team was going to reach the top. He believes that is someone is going to start a challenge and they are not completely confident they are going to succeed, then why bother starting it. He believes, it is better to start something that you are not sure you can do. When you overcome and defeat those obstacles the satisfaction is much greater! It takes a lot of concentration!
Sir Edmund Hillary had mental imagery since he was young. He was a dreamer and most of them was adventurous dreams. He would take long walks and find himself dreaming. He created the mental imagery and condition himself at early age.
His story motivated me and it made me look more into Mental Imagery. Plato describes Phantasmata as we call today as a mental image. When some desirable object is not actually present to our senses, exerting its pull on us directly, our motivation to strive to obtain it is driven by our awareness of its (memory or fantasy) image.
Learning from Sir Edmund Hilliary’s story inspired me that it is ok to be a dreamer. It is suggest to paint a mental image of your dream (what you want to accomplish) and accept the challenge to overcome it. Without a mental image I will not have the direction.
Whether I am in long drive or a long boring run, I let my mind wander and dream of impossible accomplishments. I see and feel myself living that dream. I paint a mental image and then I create a visual road map, drawing the checkpoints and risks I have to overcome to live that dream. Until this day, all the small and large accomplishments I have was having a mental image seeing myself and feeling my soul in that image. I live it before I encounter it. I have a beautiful image in my mind and one day I will have the opportunity to live it.
Ryan Enriquez
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