Drive How You Wished You Could with Mental Imagery “on the Spot”

Have you ever been driving on the track or even on the street when you suddenly did something that you didn’t think you could do? You must have been saying, “wow, I didn’t know I could drive like that…” or “how do I do that again?” Did you sense that exact moment would happen just before it did? It’s almost like for that split second, your skill went up by three levels. Maybe you braked later than you thought was possible, or you managed to pull off a four-wheel drift for the first time. For that split second, whatever was happening, you did something extra special. Maybe it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. It was almost as if something enlightened you or there was a force commanding your body to drive the car in a certain way. Maybe you felt like this for a whole lap! You probably didn’t realize it at the time, but you were somehow able to visualize what was about to happen. The truth is that you probably drove that way because you imagined, it just before it happened. What you experienced was not only your potential, but your imagination lighting up like a firework. Something changed at that moment which allowed you to perform at a higher level and I am about to break it down for you. It probably felt really good too!

What a mental image is:

Go onto Google and look up “mental image”. Read the definition on the right side of the page. This phrase, “mental image”, is used to refer to an experience that you have in your psyche(your mind) which represents an experience that could happen in real life. Many great racing drivers practice “mental imagery” in their off-time so that they can practice and improve when they are away from the track. I want to share how you can not only improve your mental images but also learn to use mental imagery WHILE driving. I call this technique mental imagery “on the spot”.

How we have mental images in our daily lives:

I believe that everyone has mental images, all the time. Before you get out of bed in the morning, you experience a mental image of yourself crawling out from under the sheets and walking over to your dresser. When you are about to take a corner in your car, you experience a mental image of yourself driving the car through that corner. In our normal daily lives, this is a subconscious act and we don’t experience very vivid mental images. This is almost always something that we are unaware of, but it is still happening. Our mind creates these mental images in the background for us while our awareness is in the physical world. You can think of mental imagery like experiencing an “idea” of what we are about to do, a moment before we do it. Seeing mental images is our way of mentally rehearsing for whatever is about to happen.

How to experience mental images:

I am talking about mental images as “experiences” because they are more than just pictures. It’s like seeing a GIF in your mind, but now include all of your other senses. It could make you feel a certain way or put you in a certain mood. Your mental image could have a happy filter, or a funny filter, or a scary filter. I am mostly talking about the type of energy or vibe that you get from a mental image. There is no limit to how we can perceive things in our minds. Maybe you don’t “see” anything in your mental images but you can sense exactly what is happening spacially. It could be like that dream you had where you watched yourself from a 3rd person perspective. Different mental images will be more vivid and feel more lifelike than others. A mental image could be a tiny “idea” or it could be a full-blown experience happening in your head. Everyone’s brain undergoes mental images differently. When it comes to mental imagery for racecar driving, you have to do what works best for you. Try everything and keep track of what works well and what doesn’t. Think outside of the box.

I believe that when we, as humans, get into the flow state we naturally see a certain type of mental image that I refer to as “the brain language”. I cannot describe what this feels like, but I can say that the human brain has its own way of planning for the near future. You might not have told yourself in English, to “use more of the road”, but you had a thought that resembled that command. That thought included some way of planning what that was going to feel like, how you were going to do it, and your brain told your body to move in that way. Your brain’s optimal way of functioning is not in English, but rather in its own language of mental images and feelings.

Manifesting our Mental Images:

The important thing to remember is that we will subconsciously manifest our mental images and actualize them in the real world. It is not a coincidence that we have these mental images constantly, throughout our lives. After we have undergone a mental image, the action has been programmed into our subconscious and all we have to do is trigger that action when we desire to. Your mind is creating these mental images for you to act upon, as a guide. If you can see a mental image of something, you can do it in real life. If you can’t see a mental image of yourself accomplishing a task then you will probably fail at that task. Sometimes you might see a mental image of yourself doing something long before you do it. Sometimes a mental image will pop up right before you have to take action. If you have a mental image of doing something, you will probably find yourself reliving that mental image in real life, one way or another. The best part of mental imagery is that you can imagine yourself doing something and your mind and body will be able to copy that mental image without you having to understand how or why. If you want to drive a certain way in your car, make a mental image of what you want to do. If you want to choose a certain driving style, you just need to make mental images of what that looks/feels like. Then, when it is time to drive, you just copy those mental images. I am saying the same thing over and over but here is another way of looking at it: once you have felt what it feels like to do something in a mental image, your body will do everything in its power to replicate that feeling in real life, and therefore replicate that mental image. You might be asking, “can’t I just see a mental image of myself driving faster?” Well, yes!

Seeing is believing. If you imagine yourself taking a corner 2mph faster, you will believe that you can do it. Let’s say you try to create that mental image and your brain doesn’t allow you to. You cannot go 2mph faster until you build a mental image of yourself going 2mph faster. Every driver complains that they are limited by their car, or their tires, or something stupid. The only limiting factor in racecar driving is your mental imagery. If you cannot go faster, it is because you cannot a way to drive faster. The fastest drivers in the world have a clear mental image of themselves driving the way that they do. When you set a new fastest lap, it is because your mental image was improved, whether you were aware of that or not.

There is something that I want to make you aware of that I have experienced before. I would do mental imagery in my room, in between track days and it would feel great. The problem is, when I went to the track, things just didn’t feel the same. I realize now that when I got to the track, I subconsciously reverted to my old mental images(or maybe I completely forgot them and I had to improvise) and I was not able to apply the new mental images that I created back in my room. This is why it can be helpful to do mental imagery right before you go out and drive or at least look back on the mental imagery sessions that you did. My mental imagery “on the spot” technique will also remedy this big time!

Mental Imagery on the Spot:

I just want to say that none of this is backed scientifically, but I am sure that you will be able to understand how I see things and apply this information to go faster and faster. This concept of mental imagery “on the spot” is something I just sort of came up with and I use it while I am driving, all the time. As I have explained above, we all naturally create mental images for everything we do in life. The trick with mental imagery “on the spot”, is that you focus specifically on your mental images when you drive. This allows you to consciously adjust and tweak your mental image based on what you are feeling in the car. This will accelerate the process of leveling up your mental images and allow you to adapt to any situation that is thrown at you.

The basic concept of mental imagery “on the spot” is that you craft a mental image of how you want to drive, just before you replicate that mental image in real life. This is something that is all about feel. It took me some practice before I got comfortable experiencing mental images while I was driving, let alone being able to make adjustments and tweak them. If you have a driving simulator or even just a driving game on your console, you can practice it there first. This will require some mental flexibility when you begin to try this mental strategy. There is no right or wrong way to do this, it is all about whatever you think is the right way for you!

There are mainly two things happening:

1. Experience the mental image of your choosing, in your mind’s eye
2. Actualize that mental image in real life

With mental imagery “on the spot”, you are constantly doing two things at the same time: experiencing/crafting mental images of what is coming up… and actualizing those mental images that you have already seen. Our mental imagery is fluid. To understand this, you have to keep in mind that we are only experiencing “now”. Think of it as a stream of consciousness. When you are practicing mental imagery “on the spot”, you are constantly doing two things at once. The first thing is more of a conscious act: creating and experiencing mental images for the future. The second thing is that you are constantly actualizing those “already-seen” mental images into the present/reality. These two things will happen at the same time when with practice. This actualization part is more something that I feel happening TO me. I am only really focusing on creating the mental images for what is coming up and my body can’t help but copy the mental images I have seen. Your mind sees the mental image and your body copies it in real life.

In the beginning, I would see a mental image of the corner I was about to take, AND THEN I would focus on copying that mental image in real life when I went through the corner. Your mind creates the mental image for the upcoming corner, and then your body carries out that mental image. This is a good way of isolating the two components before you can do them both at the same time. Everybody starts somewhere.

Here is an example of both components working at the same time:

When you are on the straightaway, you see a mental image of yourself entering the corner. You know exactly how you are going to use the brakes, turn the car in, downshift, and then ease off the brakes smoothly. When you get to the entry of the corner, you are physically copying the mental image that you already saw. While you are carrying out the mental image that you saw of the entry, you are creating a new mental image for what is going to happen at the apex. When you get to the apex, you would then be physically actualizing the mental image you saw for that apex, as you are crafting the mental image you want for the exit of the corner.

“I am able to get to a level where I am ahead of myself; maybe a fifth of a second, who knows? When my car goes into a corner, I am already at the apex.”
-Ayrton Senna

Don’t get too caught up in the fine details and wording. All of this should just be sort of happening. Play around and struggle in the beginning but it takes practice and making mental adjustments.