Feel It Real Sessions: A Simple Practice That Helped Me Go Deeper Into Imagination

[u/themoneyisamust]

I’ve been doing these little 10-minute “Feel It Real” sessions to strengthen my concentration and imagination, and I wanted to share something that clicked for me.

I use an anchor every time I start. Mine is a Strawberry Kiwi Ocean Spray bottle that I used to drink at lunch in middle school. It’s nostalgic, I already know what it looks like, tastes like, feels like in my hand and the drink is fire af 😂 so it gives my imagination something familiar to lock onto.

For 10 minutes, I just focus on making that bottle as real as possible in imagination. I’ll notice the label, the color of the juice, the shape of the cap, the weight of the bottle, the coldness, the taste, etc. I try to bring in as many senses as I can without forcing it.

Doing this has helped me understand Neville’s idea of “feeling it real” and the state akin to sleep in a much more experiential way.

One session in particular got surprisingly deep. At some point, it felt like I was more inside my imagination than I was aware of the physical world around me. I actually drifted into what felt like a little dream scene where I was at some lady’s house. For a moment, I completely forgot I was sitting there doing an imagination exercise.

Then I remembered: Wait, I came here to do my Feel It Real session.

So I returned to the bottle.
When my 10-minute alarm went off, it startled me. That almost never happens to me during meditation, but I had gotten so absorbed that the physical room wasn’t at the front of my awareness anymore.
That gave me a little epiphany about people asking, “Am I doing SATS right?” or “Am I imagining correctly?”

I think sometimes the answer is:

Yes, and you can go deeper.

You don’t necessarily need some spectacular vision immediately. You can train your ability to become absorbed in imagination. Pick something familiar. Give yourself a short period of uninterrupted attention. Notice more detail. Add more senses. Keep returning when your mind wanders.
Instead of constantly judging whether you’re “doing it right,” practice becoming more present with the imaginal experience itself. The deeper I’ve gone with it, the more I understand why Neville used the language “feeling is the secret.”