Is Reading at 10,000+ WPM/photoreading possible?

[Phil King]

What is the fastest possible reading speed while still being able to have high comprehension rates. The guys above claim to have 25,000+ WPM or about 80 pages per minute with the use of speed reading techniques. Ive also heard of mystics like Osho and Krishnamurti who were able to scan books quickly and be able to read hundreds of pages in an hour. Is this possible? Have any of you guys achieved super fast reading speeds. I cap out at around 500WPM or 2 pages per minute max.

Part of the reason im asking is because I hate the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of books that I know I will love and will provide me with great information, but theres just not enough time in this life to read everything I want. I probably have a To Be Read list of like 1000+ books and it will take like 10-20 years to finish them all. Not to mention how when you finish one book and read the bibliography, you find a few more books that seem interesting and then your list just grows exponentially. How do I come to terms with the fact that there is so many great books, movies, music, and more that I will never experience because of my finite time here?

Edited October 1, 2023 by Phil King

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, Phil King said:

How do I come to terms with the fact that there is so many great books, movies, music, and more that I will never experience because of my finite time here?

That's the real question. Reading faster won't get you there. What will get you there is contemplating death regularly, and using that to instill a focus and urgency about what you do want to spend your finite time reading and doing.

Ask yourself, if I had one month to live, what would I be doing? If I had one week, then what? One day? And then go do those things, because those are the things you actually care about.

[Carl-Richard]

Reading in order to learn something new is a circular process of reading something, thinking, having some insight, seeing some connection to previous knowledge, and then continuing reading. To think of reading as just a mechanical exercise of moving your gaze across the page is completely backwards. Reading is like creating a sculpture of pure understanding in your mind. It's not what goes on between the retina and the page that is most important.

That said, there are definitely steps to make you read better (and faster). Having an upright posture, sitting comfortably and still with your head facing forward rather than downward, complete silence and no interruptions, a good night's sleep, eating just the right amount of the correct foods, not over- or underhydrating yourself, taking a deep breath or maybe meditating with eyes closed for a while before reading, stretching, going for walks in-between sessions.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

You can learn speed-reading. I have a book on my book list that teaches it.

I learned it a long time ago, but it was so not enjoyable that I soon dropped it.

Reading too much is actually not good for you. What's much more important is to contemplate. You want to aim for quality over quantity.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Phil King]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You can learn speed-reading. I have a book on my book list that teaches it.

Lol I actually have that book sitting on my desk. I just havent read it yet. I probably should read it and practice the techniques by going back over books ive already read

 

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Reading too much is actually not good for you. What's much more important is to contemplate. You want to aim for quality over quantity

Yeah I have a bad tendency to go from book to book without deeply thinking about what each one really said or how to apply it in my life. Ive started taking better notes so I can more deeply internalize knowledge

 

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

a good night's sleep, eating just the right amount of the correct foods

Yes Ive noticed that carbs and sugar slow down my cognitive abilities and I zone out more.

[ZenSwift]

On 10/1/2023 at 1:22 PM, Phil King said:

 

There ARE people like this.

Very very rare. It's something that requires a very special brain wiring.

A friend of mine can read 6-10 lines of text at once. And he's a really unique guy. Rocket scientist smart. He claims to have read every book in his school library growing up.  I believe him. Dude is a fucking encyclopedia.

[Lucasxp64]

I use Text-To-Speech to read to entire books for me. I can go on a walk with a nice comfortable 120 WPM reading to me,  but I can listen up to 2x~3x depending on my attention and mood, I've read many books just by taking a walk. It's also very practical, since audiobooks can be more expensive/hard to find, they take more storage space & bandwidth.

I used to use "Spritz" I can "read" up to 500WPM perhaps. But as Leo said here, it's not enjoyable.

Any book that's worth of my attention is worth more processing time than input speed. So much so, that using TTS off-loads that cognitive bandwidth of having to sit down to pay attention and use my visual field to process information, and instead rely on much more comfortably listening to it.

I use Google Books app, I highlight what I want. I also switch back to reading with my eyes as well whenever I want, as opposed to an Audiobook. 

Edited April 11 by Lucasxp64

[numbersinarow]

Speed-reading induces fatigue, feels like work, and gives you a much lesser reward than if you took it slowly.

I might take it somewhat fast if I need to meet my daily reading quota but not to the point where I'm not getting anything from the book.

[Phil King]

On 4/11/2024 at 0:30 PM, Lucasxp64 said:

I used to use "Spritz" I can "read" up to 500WPM perhaps. But as Leo said here, it's not enjoyable.

Ive been doing quite a bit of practice recently and I can reach about 750-1000WPM/100-150 pages per hour with about 60-70% comprehension, though this is difficult to define. I recently read Walter Isaacsons 500+ page biography on Da Vinci in about 5 hours. I also had a pen to quickly mark stuff i thought was important and then folded the corner of the page so i could find it later. But yeah it does feel much more like work

 

On 4/11/2024 at 0:40 PM, numbersinarow said:

Speed-reading induces fatigue, feels like work, and gives you a much lesser reward than if you took it slowly

Yeah i definitely notice the fatigue, but I feel like its a brain workout of sorts. I honestly think it could be a trainable skill and that anyone could reach 1000WPM with above average comprehension and if you have crazy genetics, you could be someone like Harold Bloom and read 400+ pages per hour with 95% retention https://fs.blog/why-read/ https://www.reddit.com/r/haroldbloom/comments/4qibl5/question_was_bloom_seriously_capable_of_reading/