Photo reading???

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Ugh. Same author, read the reviews!

That book is authored by the "cocreator" of Photo Reading, Paul Scheele (aka thief, see my earlier posting)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...85386/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_5_1/107-5189627-1290966

But the good news is that this 14.95 version of the snake oil is just as good a purchase! An excerpt from the reviews:

The entire PhotoReading step could probably be skipped with no effect whatsoever on the outcome - except that you would arrive there faster. The other four steps are sufficient for getting a vague idea of a book's content - and believe me, a vague idea is about all you'll ever get using this author's system. Study after study has shown that the faster you read, the less you'll comprehend.



After "prereading" and "skimming" and "visualizing" that and a few other paragraphs, :p I comprehend this truth...

Questionable product
+ selfish product pusher
+ heavy radio/TV rotation
+ testimonial-laden pitch
+ optimistic public
= frequent free market exploitation
:mad:



However, new formula since 1994 (and especially recently)...

+ small percentage of Internet-savvy public
+ excellent search engine logic (read: Google!)
= likelihood that more people will be informed of the likely outcome of purchasing said product



So same old same old - BUYER BEWARE! Only the invention of the Internet, there is no more "ignorance" for an excuse!

Good luck people... :cool:
 
Re: Ugh. Same author, read the reviews!

PS:
In case anyone has not visited page "2" of this thread, I am relisting my links I posted way back then...

(Referring to the original program that "Photo Reading" seems to have been "borrowed" from...)

Oh yeah, this is the name of that full-fledged program...
Subliminal Dynamics Brain Management

As I had scribbled in my surfing history (http://batman.getmyip.com/SurfingHistory/2001/09/15.asp)

Photo Reading is apparently STOLEN from another program "the Subliminal Dynamics Brain Management Course"
as they state on this URL:
http://www.subdyn.com/photored.html
Click to expand...
 
An opinion from Germany

An opinion from Germany
Hey,

is anybody interested in one opinion from Germany ? No? Doesn`t matter.

Some month ago I bought the book "PhotoReading " by Paul Scheele (15€ or 14 $).
The book promised to read 25.000 (!) words per minute, but most the time he told you to visit some training college or to buy a video course.

I don`t belive that it is possible to read that fast. It might be that you can get the essence of a book very fast, but not by reading it.

His concept consist of 5 steps.

1. first you have to get in the propper mood,

...it`s never bad for learning if you really concentrate on the topic you are studding.

2. You have to get a general idea.

3. Photoreading

4. Activate, (you should ask questions on the text)

5.Rapid reading (some kind of speed reading)

So, Photoreading consists of 5 steps and only one of it is really photoreading.
I think you can really get faster through your reading stuff by using the 4 other steps.

But buy no way they are 250$ worth.

In general the book tells you:

Concentrate on you topic. Ask yourself what is necessary for you.
Get an overview of the book and look for the parts that you need.

that`s all I wanted to say about it (I hope I haven`t made to many mistakes, sorry for that!)

all4one
 
Want to know the scientific truth about the reading process and the credibility of speed reading courses?
Check in a library for a book by M. Carver Phd. about RAUDING.
Yes, spelled rauding. It is a term he made up to describe reading at a cruise speed at which we comprehend about 75% of the text.
I could order it from the CAL State LB library through the LA County library system.
It's the only text I read that had true scientific research conducted into the concept of reading speed.
I took two different speed reading courses before and asked and received a refund for both. Did not work for me. I could rush through text as they suggest but could get nothing out of it.
I heard the infomercial for Photo Reading and went ahead and ordered it. Still waiting to receive it.
I am only curious about what this guy has to say, that's all. They will end up refunding my money too.
M. Carver had it straight and correct, if you want to read some thing and realy understand and enjoy it you have to RAUD it. That is, reading it the way you read some thing with out paying attention to the speed but to the content of the text.
That is reading at between 100 and 300 words per minute for most of us.
I will come back to this bulletin board to tell all you curious minds about my review of Photo Reading.
Deal?
 
Oops, I had Carver's name wrong. His name is Ronald P. Carver, not M. Carver as I posted previously.
Run a Google search on "rauding"; it will bring up a listing of his work and credentials.
I highly recommend reading (not Photo Reading) some of his work. It will teach you about reading and the reading process more than you ever thought there is to know.
 
i am not very certain of this but i have heard about an experiment that was conducted in late 60s that i"d like to state:

OBJECT:
==============================================
To find out grasp of brain.

APPARATUS:
==============================================
Human guniea pig,newspaper page.

PROCEEDURE:
==============================================
A man was asked to read a small article in a newspaper and was asked to memorize it.he memorized it and then later on quoted every point with accuracy.however when asked about other articles,he was blank...

He then hypnotized and was asked to quote other articles and their content...he did it successfully...

this just shows how fast and how photographic our Sub-concious mind is...

bye!
 
I've been looking closely at photoreading and the infomercials etc, as well as checking out some of the other speed reading products on the market. Sounds like there's a lot to it. Some of the other ones such as Reading Genius (their name is their URL also) are more scientific and backed up by facts though.

Spacebum
 
Interesting that you mentioned Reading Genius. I took this course 4 years ago.
The more interesting part is that I have just finished taking the Photo Reading course yesterday.
Readign Genius is no different than other speed reading courses that train you in moving your eyes faster down and across the page. Don't waste your time with it.
Photo Reading on the other hand introduces a different concept, that of reading with the "hole mind" i.e. , concious + other-than-concious mind (this is what Paul Scheele calls the subconcious mind).
It spends very little time with the mechanics of moving your eyes over a page.
The Photo Reading system is a combination of 5 steps.
Preparing mentaly, review the material to create initial familiarity and trigger questions, Photo Read i.e. read at an other-than-concious mind level. During this step no concious comprehension occurs. Next, you should activate with "super reading and dipping". This is going over the material once again at a fast rate, this time at a concious level, see where you feel like read more for better understanding (this is "dipping"). And last, if you still feel that you want to get more you should "rapid read", going over the book once more at a fast and even pace to pick up more comprehension. These last two steps is where Photo Reading bear resemblence to common speed reading courses.
Also, you can see that you are required to handle a book more than just once "reading it" as this course teaches you to.
The base concept behind this course is deffinitely a powerful one.
You should be so lucky to be able to master this way of reading.
I am impressed for the better (see my sceptic note posted previously in this discussion thread).
However, now that I have completed this course I still cannot race through books at 25,000 words per minute. I can Photo Read a book at 25,000 words per minute but can't show any thing at a concious level to acknowledge that I read this book.
This is the problem with Photo Reading. Having no immediate concious gratification, makes it problematic for an every day reading; at least to begin with. Additional practice may change that. Since I just finished this course I cannot tell whether it's for real or not.
I will keep on trying.
 
SpeedReading

I have read a few books on speed reading. In my experience the techniques work...but regular practice is quite necessary. I've always read faster then the supposed average...300-400 wpm for me.....after applying the "techniques" I was able to read at an average of 3000 wpm(words per minute) in about a week, and felt the potential for greater speeds....that was a few years, and I had a job that allowed constant reading(3rd shift at a gas station). I have since stoped reading as much and am back to my former reading speeds. Anyway, through my experience my comprehension improved(in my opinion) from about 70&-80%(depending on subject material) to 85%-95%. Also when "Speed Reading" I didn't feel like I was reading but taking the arrainged words and creating pictures in my mind so to speak.

Now here's my 2 cents on PhotoReading(which I havn't tried)..

"Photoreading" by title, would seem to be something valid(But not sure about the system taught). If you think about how our eyes see and our mind processes the complex images of our surroundings in an instant, It would only seem feasible that we could do the same thing with less complex "images" or words. It would just take some practice to retrain you mind/brain to do this since we are taught to read in a specific way and do so for such a long period of time before we attempt to find another way to "read". In my opininon there is no reason to sound out the words in your head to comprehend what you're reading....you don't describe a picture item by item to youself to understand what you see when you look at it. Now based on what other people have said about the photoreading steps...the idea of phtographing the text into your subconcious makes some sense, I don't always imediatly remember what I have read but when asked questions about the subject I know the answers.

Well, any other thoughts.
 
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I am also in the UK and have not seen the infomercial, but I did see the program that I think stuart from cornwall was refering to - the guy is called Derren Brown ( www.derrenbrown.co.uk ) - he was a magician, but had an interest in psychology and decided to use this, and his knowledge of the mind to amaze and entertain. He used to have a reconmended reading list on his site (mainly psychology text-books and such) but sadly no longer.

He explained how he had developed a photographic memory, as anyone supposedly can, and used it to 'photo read' books. He demonstrated this by memorising the Oxford English Dictionary (about 2000 pages) in 20 minutes, he then asked a volunteer from the British Library to randomly choose pages, then the collumn, then a certain number of words dow - and proceeded to recount the word and the definition. He then did it with other books (non dictionary). It seemed he did not 'know' all the info in the books, but could recall it at will from memory.

I think there may well be something in this, as photographic memories are undisputed, and if you could view the page as an image, I see no reason why it could not be recalled.

However, just because you can remember something, or have read it, does not mean that you understand it - there is more to understanding quantum mechanics than just reading a book about it. The spped at which you read does not dertermin your intelligence, and being abole to read fast in no way makes you a genius.

By the way, zzz - did you get your money back on the course?
 
I did receive my money back on the Photo Reading course minus a $20
shipping cost.
Now, 10 months after taking this course I no longer attempt to use this\
this technique for my daily reading.
I did put a lot of time and effort into practicing after taking the
course, but after a while when no results are apparent, it becomes
a waste of time.
I can Photo Read books all day long but none of the information is
available for me at a concious level. In other words, it's like I
never read it and don't know any thing of it. I do read a lot and
the only way I can comprehend, remember and process written information
is through reading it word by word. Nothing else cut it.
I've yet to come across a credible testimony from any one whose
experience is any different than mine.
 
sorta works, sorta don't

Yo, all. a couple years ago i took the P.R. seminar in Minneapolis.

Good seminar, great bunch of people taking it. Makes you feel good. They had little toys for you play with while listening. Something I wish a lot of my teachers would have allowed. Would have saved me detention time, plus the money i lost on all the books, pictures, toys that i had confiscated.

To the point,

P.R. seems to work....in a way. I get some recall, mostly images, and I wasn't able to recall specific information bits. Might be better if I practiced more, but i gave it up out of some frustration, and the fact that i just love regular reading.

On saturday morning, (semnar is three days. Friday night to Sunday afternoon) they had us flip through a standard dictionary. About a page-flip per second. After five minutes or so, you're finished with it. Then, you do a guided relaxation for a few minutes. Then, the instructor asks you to let words float up in your consciousness. Then ask if it feels like it's on the left page or right page. THen left or right column. Then if it feels at the top middle or bottom. Then, if you can, count how many entries it is from the top, or from the bottom.

We did this with ten words, writing down our locations for each word. Then we "came out" of meditation, and checked our word locations. Everybody had about 90% correct rate on page, and about 70% or so on the right column. (both of which beat the natural random chances of doing so.) I got about 60% of my words in the right page, right column, and whether near top, middle or bottom. One guy, got half of his words located exactly..., how many entries down or up from top or bottom for 9 out of ten words. ANother guy thought of a word that wasn't in that dictionary, and placed it correctly where it would be if it was in the dictionary.

NOw, those guys might have been ringers, but the seminar isn't expensive enough to provide for salaried ringers to go to each seminar. I wasn't a ringer, and got some results that were less than amazing, but much better than random. And everybody but one, had similar or better results.

On sunday afternoon, the instructor passed out paperbacks with the cover covered, so the cover, and title pages were covered...only the text was able to be viewed, we were told. We photoread the books with the text upside down. We had no idea what the book was. AFter reading, we were given paper and pens and pencils of various colors to draw our impressions, feelings, whatever "came up" from the experience.

I started drawing, and ended up with mounted men running down on people foot, slaughtering them. Dead bodies lay around. Fire was from the horses nostrils and the half-dozen riders' swords. Black smoke and more fire was on the horizon.
I felt positively sick as i drew this, i felt my insides twisting. I felt nausea, helplessness, death approaching.
(I'm not saying i drew a masterpiece, but it was recognizable as an Armageddon type pic, with the riders of the Apocalypse, etc., etc.)

Then she asked us to remove the covers of the book. IT was "On the Beach", the story about post-nuclear war world, where only Australia survived the initial nuclear exchange, but the Radioactive dust cloud slowly approaches and descends on Australia, killing everyone. I'd never heard of the book before, and the story didn't ring any bells. I've since seen the movie--decent movie, actually saw it last night for the first time.

Now, before more cynical readers barf on me here, I'd like to say that this does not substantiate most of the claims of near total recall of the information posted on the P.R. websites. It's not helped me significantly on my nonfiction reading, and I got bored with most fiction after a few thousand books.

There is SOMETHING to it, some sort of recall. However it has not proved useful in my life, merely a very interesting experience.

There's probably a way to get most information from what you photoread, however, i have not achieved that.

The seminar, home course, and books are great study guides, aside from the photoreading, which remains a great magic maybe....
 
please help me

hi,

i have been research most of programs for photoread or fast read or whatever. which of them will help improve on fast read? anybody ever try them? please tell me if any program (photoread) did improve your read. thanks
 
Re: please help me

Originally posted by machoangel
hi,

i have been research most of programs for photoread or fast read or whatever. which of them will help improve on fast read? anybody ever try them? please tell me if any program (photoread) did improve your read. thanks
Click to expand...

I am going through the book 'Power Reading' by Rick Ostrov and it is a realistic program. Rick was the top instructor at Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics years ago. He promises an average increase of doubling your reading speed after using his methods.
These claims of reading 3,000 wpm and up to the rediculous claims of 25,000 wpm as Photo Reading advertises are absolute marketing hype in my opinion. The only people that can actually read and comprehend at those speeds are people with photographic memories.
I recommend Power Reading and it even received an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars at Amazon's web site.

Hope this helps.

Mike
 
others could

I read in romanian science magazine from the 70's about reading very fast. They said, it was about using your visual chanel instead of the audio one to transfer information to the brain becouse it is a lot faster. The interesting part was thet they gave some examples of famous people that read very fast. Among them an american president (don't remember) and Balzac. They have been described to read very fast with total understanding. This is a skill thet would help many a lot. It remains to be seen if it can be developed by everybody and how. It seems that beyond the comercial crap there are not encourageing results( I read all the posts). My intuition tells me that it is possible. I feel I can accept information much faster that reading can provide me. It will be very interesting to hear an oppinion of someone thet works in the field of psichology. I am sure that researches in this field have been made and I woud like to hear some official conclussions if anybody knows.

Sorry about the grammar/spelling mistakes.
 
bassguymike said:
I just was watching a Photo Reading infomercial a few moments ago, I came right to the internet to learn more about it.

I went to the offical website and found that it was some $250 to get the "kit."

I'm reluctant to dish out that much money without actaully knowing how it works.

If anyone knows anything about this "Photoreading," I'd like to hear what they have to say.

-Mike
Click to expand...

Try the following link.
http://www.photographicqmemory.com/
The cost is around $10.00. Best wishes.
Geocb
 
Even if you retain most of the info. in a book from photoreading, i still don't think its very useful. Why? Because there is no possible way that the brain can analyze information that fast. So you can't actually be learning anything. There is a difference between retaining information and understanding something.
 
Anon1268 said:
It seems I had jumped the gun...

PhotoReading does not seem to be speed reading, and after I had waded through all of the commercial, advertising crap ( which, as an aside, contains the phrase 'As Yoda, from The Empire Strikes Back said, "Try? There is no try. There is only do or not do." ' It makes me squirm! ) at http://www.photoreading.org/ , I am convinced that this is actually quite an interesting idea, and I would even go as far as saying that I have seen evidence of this technique in my own learning in the past. The untapped potential of the brain is a very interesting subject.

Now, the problem is, why do people wish us to PAY to use our OWN brains? Im not paying. But i'll find out how to PhotoRead. I'll post here what i dig up.
Click to expand...
down loaded some photoreading tapes on the web (i agree that the price is too high without proof)
at first was hard so i kind of gave up
but started a new j0b with loads of reaeding to be done {i,m in IT}
had to get beyond the speed reading that i am good at
using the photo reading techniques
i began to get better
cant read a page a second
but i am far enough to see that this is ultimateley possible
but this is a process not an event and will take time
at the moment i can get into state and as long as my eyes cover the whole
page i have confidence that my braiin absorbs it
and in IT u have to recall the data
i would seriously recommend it
u have to read much faster than u vocalise to get the full benefits
and u must not fight it
dont try and understand what u read until u get to the end of the page
u dont try and get nourishment from food while u eat
your body does that by itself
 
...I have read the PhotoReading book by Scheele and listened to mp3s of the "paraliminal tapes"... it is pretty much unadulterated bullshit. It is very mystical and vague and convoluted and all other terms also involving shady. I have pretty much determined that it doesn't work.

There is another speed reading technique, which seems to work relatively well at least temporarily - Real EyeQ. I downloaded it and burned it on a cd and played the software. It forces your eyes to move faster and your brain CAN handle it... it also charts your reading speed... pretty cool... the charts seem a little skewed because the reading tests seem to change based on what level you are on... but it seems to work anyway... try it.
 
Speed reading works.....
Speed reading isn't about learning at high speed, it's about not learning crap!
Most of the words in a text don't need to be learnt, alot of sentances don't contain much info.
Speed reading is about skimming over the rubish at high speed.
However when you reach something that needs to be learnt your reading speed should be slowed so that you can comprehend it.

Photographic memories are for people with brain chemistry problems, the neuro transmitters stay at the junctions for alot longer than they should. They can 'photograph' something and reproduce it, but their brains are so screwed up they don't comprehend alot of things. Thats not to say they are freaks or unwanted.
Anyone can do a similar trick. Read this post 100 times, you will create a photograph of it. Don't photograph this post, learn something useful.

If you want to learn faster, learn to speed read a little bit, and learn to slow down when you want to remember something.
If you want to really remember something, read it again and again and again and again....
You can train yourself to get faster.

I always found that i got brain lock when learning the same subject for too long.
Try switching subjects when you feel you aren't getting somewhere and switch back only when your brain triggers a question.
I found having half a dozen books on different things quite fun, you do get a natural high reading too much information.
Your brain will trigger questions for days, you can always go back to your books.

I don't think spending $250 dollars on an infomercial makes any sense.
Spend the money on those books you've been wanting to buy.
Learn everything.
Buy a 'little book of calm', just because.

Keith
 
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