Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words Read Online Free PDF Page B

practicing with these exercises, these meaningful phrases will automatically appear to you in regular text as you look for ideas and concepts. When you scan text for meaningful ideas, you will automatically focus on word-groups that represent the more complete and meaningful building blocks of the sentences—the separate ideas which can be imagined as pictures or concepts.
    In the following demonstration, the meaningful phrases are indicated with black text. This example only shows one way this sentence could be divided; you could divide it differently as long as each phrase is meaningful to you on its own.
    It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. I t was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
    As shown in this example, the first phrase you might lock onto could be “ It was .” These two words can be imagined as a complete idea—in this case, one that gives you a context of the time this sentence is describing. So although “It was” is not something physical that you can actually form a picture of, it can still be imagined as a conceptual idea.
    The next meaningful phrase could be “ a bright cold day ;” This time, the words create an idea that might be imagined as an actual picture.
    As you continued across the sentence, you would pick up each of the short, independent ideas, quickly imagining what it means.
    You can’t know in advance which words will make up each thought-unit, but by looking for complete ideas, the meaningful portions will tend to jump out at you like friendly faces in a crowd. Also be aware that even though some word-groups may be more obvious than others, all these clumps of information will be easier to see when you are actively seeking ideas to visualize.
    One other thing to consider is that this is not a conscious, mechanical process; you won’t be thinking, “Look at the next word-group—now imagine the information.” Instead, this will be an internalized, subconscious function that will take place automatically. You will concentrate only on looking for and imagining a flow of meaningful ideas, and your eyes and mind will automatically work together to discover them for you.
    In short, the process of reading with the right brain consists of reading each sentence not as a list of individual words or as a string of sounds, but as a set of larger ideas which can then be linked together into the complete meaning of the entire sentence; this enables you to focus on the larger conceptual nature of what you are reading rather than the individual textual components.
    More will be discussed later about reading word-groups and also about visualizing physical ideas versus conceptualizing abstract ideas, but for now just know that you will be focusing on larger, more meaningful pieces of information, and passing whole ideas to the conceptual right side of your brain for faster and more efficient processing.
    As you practice with the specially formatted exercises in this book, you will experience what reading with the right brain feels like. You will experience reading and thinking in larger units of meaning and using the part of your brain which sees patterns and connections—the part which categorizes and understands larger concepts and connects them firmly with your existing knowledge.
    Reading with the right brain will move you away from reading words and sounds, to reading ideas .
    Practice Exercise #2
    As you read the next exercise, look at each highlighted word-group all at once and not as a string of words. Look at each as a complete unit of meaning all its own. As you do, think of what it means or what it looks like. Take whatever quick mental snapshot that comes into your head for each phrase. As you focus on