1. A method of magnetic resonance imaging comprising: (a) establishing a steady state resonance condition; (b) intermittently permitting a steady state echo to occur by interrupting the radio frequency pulses; (c) sampling magnetic resonance data during the echo; (d) maintaining the steady state condition by applying radio frequency pulses with an interpulse interval that is shorter than the sample relaxation time; (e) repeating steps (b), (c), and (d) with a plurality of magnetic field gradients to collect a plurality of magnetic resonance data samplings; and, (f) transforming an image representation from the plurality of samplings.