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This is a good question, since I use the term 'check that you could notice' a lot when I teach. One (that has become a bit of a meme) is "if there were an aircraft going overhead, check that you could notice it". Importantly, 'check you could notice it' ≠'visualise it' https://t.co/dFpzUbcdHk
There are two very separate mental moves happening here, though they can overlap. The one I am *not* pointing at is visualisation. I am not inviting people to draw some representation of an aircraft, or even the space that it's in, on the canvas of their imagination.
What I am pointing at is more akin to remembering or knowing, a summoning into existence of a direct experience. As you're reading this, wiggle your toes. You were probably not aware of your toes before I suggested that, but notice how you could 'just' wiggle your toes.
You didn't need to imagine your toes. You didn't need to send your focus down to your toes in order to wiggle them. What happened was: - the idea that you had toes re-entered your awareness - this made it possible for you to wiggle them - you wiggled them and it was effortless
This latter one is what I mean when I say 'check that you could notice'. It's a direct knowing that the space vertically above you exists and is expansive. You don't need to imagine the space above you to have a clear felt sense of KNOWING that it's there.
NONE of Alexander Technique takes space in the world of drawing pictures in your mind via imagination. But wait, what about all those nice little exercises like 'imagining' a thread coming out of your head and pulling you up? Or arrows pointing out of your knees? I avoid these.
These can be useful because of the overlap that sometimes exists between the two experiences I mentioned above. Sometimes, flashing an imagine of an aircraft above you is sufficient to activate the other, direct KNOWING kind of awareness. I refer to this 'subvisualisation'
If this works then fine, use it, but be careful: there is a risk of getting stuck in imagination space in our heads, rather than directly experiencing space itself. This is why my prompt is carefully phrased: "if there were an aircraft going overhead, check you could notice it"
The point is to call that space into being, into your experience of the world right now, to KNOW in a deep, embodied way that it exists This is also one of the more difficult things to convey - I don't see it talked about much in other mindfulness traditions, but it's crucial.