I was wondering, does step III Mental require you to be able to look around with your eyes closed and perceive everything as you do with your physical eyes? and this for 5 minutes?
No the mental practice of Step III is about visualisation and magical imagination . But to actually see in 360 degrees clairvoyantly is possible in meditative trance or mystic projection for example . And there is no reason for not extending this exercise to practice your clairvoyance and astral sight . Sit in Asana in dim light with the eyes closed . I prefer the throne pose .
Take the mental awareness to the chamber of the third eye sitting within it as a seed of light looking out from it like a great picture window or the wide windscreen of a plane . As you open in protection , deep cleanse breathe , raise energy . Look through the third eye at your hand placed in front of you . Then take the awareness to a point in front of your nose . Then slowly move the sight around at that level to the right all the way around until you are back at the same spot . Then look beneath you, above you without moving your head and try to view the room as if you are a being floating the size of a speck of light within the mind within the moonstone of the head .
With practice , you can learn to see in 360 as you project . The diamond of the brow centre is the third eye but all of the stones develop the same . A ring of centres will manifest or become imbibed with light from the third eye then behind it , to both sides and then to the bicardinal directions to fully manifest 8 centres . The third eye will be larger than the others . The others grow and then other rings of energy centres begin to stud the Moonstone until the head is like a planetarium of stars .
When these auxilary centres have developed as they do with projection , meditative visions , shamynism , et cetera , then the mystic can view 360 at will with ease . Before this point it seems to be painful to look as if tight unstretched , untested ,the eye moves stiffly , slowly . Be gentle with self and allow time for energy intake to develop you naturally rather then forcing the vision ,looking slowly in a pattern, at first .