Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (22 page)

Concentrate on concepts and ideas. Read with purpose and curiosity. It’s up to you to make your reading interesting enough for your mind to pay attention to it.

Replace Bad Habits

It’s always difficult to concentrate on NOT doing something. Don’t yawn. Don’t itch. Don’t look down. Don’t think of a blue elephant. Trying to not do something often has the opposite affect by drawing more attention to the thing you’re trying not to do.

When I was learning to ride a motorcycle, I discovered how riders tend to “steer” with their eyes. For example, if you see a road hazard you want to avoid, you have a natural tendency to stare at it. It’s obviously dangerous, so you don’t want to let it out of your sight. The problem is that staring at it will actually make you steer towards it. I learned to always look where I wanted to go, not where I didn’t want to go, and the motorcycle would automatically take me where I was looking. This led to a more effective way to steer on twisting mountain roads. I would keep my eye on a section of road ahead, and that is where the bike would go.

Your mind follows your attention, whether it’s positive or negative. Thinking about your bad habits only strengthens them. Instead of thinking about what you
don’t
want to do, think about what you
do
want to do.

Concentrating on stopping bad habits is also distracting because it’s one more thing to think about. You can’t really think of two things at the same time. You are either thinking about what you are reading or thinking about stopping a habit.

Focus on the ideas and that is where your mind will go. Try to visualize and imagine what you read. Picture the ideas and conceptualize what the text is saying. Think about what it means. This will make the ideas behind the text more meaningful and easier and faster to understand. It will make it almost unavoidable to read faster.

So far we’ve discussed skills, history, and the brain. This big picture, conceptual understanding of how and why reading with the right brain works should give you a meaningful context for the techniques to be discussed in the next two chapters.

But you don’t need to really think about all these things while you are reading. That is one of the beauties of reading for meaning. You don’t need to concentrate on a lot of rules, tricks, and tips. You only need to concentrate on imagining the ideas you are reading. Concentrate on seeing the meaning, and your mind will do the rest.

Practice Exercise #12

In this next practice exercise, instead of thinking about eliminating
bad
habits, think about creating
new
habits. No concentration should be wasted. Just think about seeing the meaning of what you’re reading, and let all the rest naturally take care of itself. Relax, ignore the bad habits, and let them go away on their own.

Imagine an airplane racing down the runway. You hear the rumbling noise of the wheels on the ground, but this wheel noise stops as soon as the plane leaves the ground. Concentrate on the ideas, and the sound will stop when your reading takes off.

When you’re ready, begin reading the first thousand words of

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel DeFoe

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

I was born
in the year 1632,
in the city of York,
of a good family,
though not
of that country,
my father being
a foreigner of Bremen,
who settled
first at Hull:
he got a good estate
by merchandise,
and leaving off
his trade,
lived afterwards at York,
from whence
he had married my mother,
whose relations
were named Robinson,
a very good family
in that country,
and from whom
I was called
Robinson Kreutznaer;
but by the usual
corruption of words
in England,
we are now called,
nay we call ourselves,
and write our name
Crusoe,
and so my companions
always called me.

I had two elder brothers,
one of which
was lieutenant-colonel
to an English
regiment of foot
in Flanders,
formerly commanded
by the famous
Colonel Lockhart,
and was killed
at the battle
near Dunkirk
against the Spaniards.
What became
of my second brother
I never knew,
any more than
my father or mother
did know what was
become of me.

Being the third son
of the family,
and not bred
to any trade,
my head began
to be filled very early
with rambling thoughts:
my father,
who was very ancient,
had given me
a competent
share of learning,
as far as house education
and a country free-school
generally go,
and designed me
for the law;
but I would be satisfied
with nothing
but going to sea;
and my inclination
to this
led me so strongly
against the will,
nay the commands
of my father,
and against all
the entreaties
and persuasions
of my mother
and other friends,
that there seemed to be
something fatal
in that propension
of nature
tending directly
to the life
of misery
which was
to befall me.

My father,
a wise
and grave man,
gave me serious
and excellent counsel
against what he foresaw
was my design.
He called me one morning
into his chamber,
where he was confined
by the gout,
and expostulated
very warmly with me
upon this subject:
he asked me
what reasons
more than
a mere wandering
inclination
I had for leaving
my father’s house
and my native country,
where I might be
well introduced,
and had a prospect
of raising my fortune
by application
and industry,
with a life
of ease and pleasure.
He told me
it was for men
of desperate fortunes
on one hand,
or of aspiring
superior fortunes
on the other,
who went abroad
upon adventures,
to rise by enterprise,
and make themselves
famous
in undertakings
of a nature
out of the common road;
that these things
were all either
too far above me,
or too far below me;
that mine was
the middle state,
or what might be called
the upper station
of low life,
which he had found
by long experience
was the best state
in the world,
the most suited
to human happiness,
not exposed
to the miseries
and hardships,
the labor
and sufferings
of the mechanic part
of mankind,
and not embarrassed
with the pride,
luxury,
ambition,
and envy of
the upper part
of mankind,
he told me,
I might judge
of the happiness
of this state
by this one thing,
viz.
that this was
the state of life
which all other people
envied;
that kings
have frequently lamented
the miserable
consequences
of being born
to great things,
and wish they had been
placed in the middle
of the two extremes,
between the mean
and the great;
that the wise man
gave his testimony
to this
as the just standard
of true felicity,
when he prayed to have
neither poverty
nor riches.

He bid me observe it,
and I should always find,
that the calamities
of life were shared
among the upper
and lower part
of mankind;
but that
the middle station
had the fewest disasters,
and was not exposed
to so many vicissitudes
as the higher
or lower part
of mankind;
nay,
they were not subjected
to so many distempers
and uneasinesses,
either of body or mind,
as those were,
who by vicious living,
luxury,
and extravagances,
on one hand,
or by hard labor,
want of necessaries,
and mean
or insufficient diet,
on the other hand,
bring distempers
upon themselves
by the natural
consequences of
their way of living;
that the middle station
of life was calculated
for all kind of virtues
and all kind
of enjoyments;
that peace
and plenty
were the handmaids
of a middle fortune;
that temperance,
moderation,
quietness,
health,
society,
all agreeable diversions,
and all
desirable pleasures,
were the
blessings attending
the middle station
of life;
that this way
men went silently
and smoothly
through the world,
and comfortably
out of it,
not embarrassed with
the labors of the hands
or of the head,
not sold
to the life of slavery
for daily bread,
or harassed
with perplexed
circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but in easy circumstances sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter, feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.

After this, he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, not to precipitate myself into miseries which nature and the station of life I was born in seemed to have provided against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread; that he would do well for me, and endeavor to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and happy in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that must hinder it, and that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt: in a word, that as he would do very kind things for me if…

Chapter 13: Visualizing

The Key

It’s not possible to think of two things at the same time. You can’t concentrate on
how
you are reading, while also concentrating on
what
you are reading.

The recommended techniques discussed so far may seem obvious, maybe even platitudinous. Sure, it would be helpful if we read groups of words at a time and yes, better comprehension could avoid verbalizing and regression. And few would disagree with trying to conceptualize or see the big picture and true meaning of what you read. But you can’t possibly think of all these things while also thinking about
what
you are reading.

The key to these reading techniques is
visualizing
.

Visualizing is not just one of the techniques—it is the
key
to engaging these other techniques while you are reading. Visualizing doesn’t interfere with thinking about what you are reading, because it
IS
thinking about what you are reading. Visualizing is just thinking about it with your right brain, the parallel-processing hemisphere that has its own very effective way of rapidly understanding large amounts of information.

Whenever you try to visualize information, you are asking your right brain to take a look at it. This is the reason that visualizing is the key to the other techniques; it leads your right brain to automatically do the following: