ORIGINAL: Mike Ledbetter
I think the ideal is to actually imagine yourself in the cockpit. I have forced myself to do this during deadsticks and other emergencies and it is what has worked best for me.
For the life of me, I can not imagine myself in the cockpit. My brain just doesn't work that way (some days I think I'm lucky it works at all!). The only way that I can imagine myself "In the cockpit" is to turn in the direction of the plane. That is how I was taught way back when, and THAT is what still works best for me (In the rare times when I need it).
The more I think about shifting your body to make orientation easy, the more I think it would be bad to rely on, especially if you had an emergency.
You said yourself that you have had to FORCE yourself to use your method. In an emergency, what is better, forcing yourself to think, or turning your body?
As I said before, this is exactly why no method is bad. Imagining yourself in the cockpit works for YOU, therefore it is the best method for YOU. Telling someone that another method is wrong is like telling a left-handed person that throwing a ball with their right hand is a better way of doing it because that's how most people throw.
So I repeat - NO method that works is bad.