There is no right way to imagine. There is only your way. And once you know what your way is, the practices on this site get easier and work better.
This page takes about ten minutes. Nothing is saved. Nobody sees your answers but you.
Why This Matters
Guided imagery works by switching on the same brain networks that real movement uses. The clearer you imagine, the more strongly those networks switch on — and the more the practice can do. Clear imagining is the engine of the whole thing.
But people imagine in very different ways. It varies a lot between people, and it can get weaker after a stroke, especially if the stroke affected the parts of the brain that build mental images. Some people also have something called aphantasia — they have never been able to picture things on purpose, their whole life. It has nothing to do with stroke.
This is where most imagery programmes quietly lose people. They hand you a script that says "picture your hand closing." Someone who can't picture anything decides they're doing it wrong, and gives up. They weren't doing it wrong. They were given the wrong instructions.
There are two ways to imagine. You can be strong at one and weak at the other.
Seeing the movement in your mind, like watching it: the shape of your hand, where your arm is, the room around you. Most people assume this is what "imagining" means. For a lot of people, it isn't their stronger side at all.
Feeling the movement from the inside, without seeing anything: the weight, the effort, the stretch, the warmth in your palm, the sense of where your arm is. For getting movement back, this side matters at least as much as seeing — and for many people it is the stronger one.
Whichever is stronger for you is the one to build your practices around. That's what the rest of this page is for.
Part One · Warming Up Your Imagination
Five minutes · Do this firstYou can get better at imagining. It gets clearer the more you do it, like any skill. This warm-up starts with easy, everyday things and works up to movement — because starting with "imagine your weak hand closing" is starting with the hardest thing of all.
Take each one slowly. Give it twenty or thirty seconds. Nothing is scored here. This just wakes your imagination up.
Picture a lemon on a plate in front of you. That yellow. The bumpy, waxy skin. Now imagine picking it up — the weight of it, the cool surface, the slight give. Now imagine cutting it, and the sharp smell rising up.
Notice which parts came easily. The colour? The weight? The smell? That already tells you something about how you imagine.
Think of a room you know really well — your kitchen, maybe, or a room from when you were young. Don't try to see all of it at once. Start at the door. Move slowly. Where is the light coming from? What's under your feet? What sounds belong in this room?
If pictures don't come, notice what does. Lots of people get a strong sense of a place — how it's laid out, how it feels — without seeing anything at all. That sense is real imagining, and you can use it.
Now something with movement in it. Imagine reaching out and turning a door handle. Not watching yourself do it — doing it. Feel your arm reach out. Your fingers close around the handle. The handle pushing back as it turns. The click.
Do it slowly, in real time — take as long as the real movement would take. Rushing is the most common mistake, and it makes imagining much weaker.
Use whichever hand comes to mind most easily, including your good one. This is a warm-up, not a test.
Part Two · The Self-Check
Three minutesThis check asks about the same movements twice — once for what you see, once for what you feel. Keeping those apart is the whole point. It shows which of your two sides is stronger, so the practices can be built around it.
How to do it properly: for each movement, actually do it first if you can — with your good side if you need to. Then close your eyes and imagine doing it. Then rate the imagining. Doing it for real first makes your rating much more accurate.
Rate each one honestly. There are no good or bad scores here — only useful information. Nothing you type is saved, sent, or seen by anyone. Your result shows up on this page and disappears when you close it.
If You Scored Low — Please Read This
A low score is not a verdict, and it is not a reason to stop. Three things are worth knowing.
One: imagining gets stronger with practice. It gets clearer the more you do it. Someone who starts with faint, shaky images and practises for a few weeks will usually imagine far more clearly than when they began. The warm-up above is the training. Use it before every session.
Two: you might just be a feeler, not a seer. If your seeing score is low but your feeling score is okay, you're in good shape. For getting movement back, feeling is the side that matters most. Ignore every instruction on this site that says "picture" or "see," and swap in "feel."
Three: if both scores are low — and especially if you have never been able to picture things on purpose, your whole life — you might have aphantasia. It just means your mind doesn't make pictures. Your stroke didn't cause it, and it isn't something that needs fixing. People with aphantasia can still imagine movement through feeling, and through trying movements. Lean fully on feeling, on the audio, and on watching real movement. These practices still have something for you.
Watching someone do a movement switches on many of the same brain areas as doing it yourself. It also makes the imagining that comes right after much stronger. So if your imagining is faint on either side, watch first: a video, a family member's hand opening and closing, your own good side in a mirror. Then imagine it. Then try it.
Watch → imagine → try. That order beats imagining on its own for almost everyone — and if you imagine faintly, it's a lifeline.
This is a tool to help you reflect, not a medical test. It hasn't been formally tested, and you shouldn't use it to make decisions about your care.
It's built on ideas from proper imagery questionnaires — keeping seeing and feeling separate, doing the movement before imagining it, and rating how clear it was out of five. But it isn't one of those official questionnaires, and it doesn't copy one. The official one is called the KVIQ (the Kinesthetic and Visual Imagery Questionnaire), made by Malouin and her team for people with stroke and other conditions. If you want a formal check, ask your therapist to do the KVIQ with you.
The point here is simpler: to help you notice how you imagine, before you start, so the practices fit your actual mind instead of a guessed one. Whatever your result, it changes how you use the practices — never whether you can.