What is your understanding of imagination?

Imagination is the inherent power/ability within us to visualize beyond the limitations of our senses and our past experience...it is essentially the power to create. A vivid/active imagination will render what some might deem fantastical creations, impossible creations...but imagination has no boundaries.

We are gifted with this boundless creative imagination/power for we are created in His Image (in His Imagination)...thus, we have inherited all qualities of God/Source/All That Is. Our essence contains the entirety of Source, as Its perfect expression/expansion. To imagine, then, is to bring into "existence" that which is not manifest, yet lies dormant outside of the boundaries of our extant physical experience.

Some say to imagine is to make believe...and it quite literally is. To "believe" is to "make" or bring forth. What an incredible, splendid, weighty responsibility we are given. We need only look around to see the varieties of imagination at work...some to the dark negative, others to the light positive. Then consider (imagine) all that we do not experience with our senses, but that nevertheless "is." There are levels, worlds, universes, eons beyond our knowing in glorious array, yet unknown to us...until imagined (brought forth) into being/presence/consciousness.

The mind is an imaginative, creative tool, always active, constantly producing what we ourselves call into being. What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve (Napoleon Hill). And what is belief, but an expectation, which then generates/empowers that which is imagined/thought into being. In this way, then, all thinking is creative imagination...for our thoughts call forth that which we experience.

So, imagination is the power of bringing to mind possibilities that lie beyond our purview.

i am Sirius

'Image'ination .. as the word suggests is the 'process of mental formation of Images'

these images are created from the 'memory' from associated images percieved by the senses thus forming a mental conception or a creation which can be either problem-solving .. or a fanciful one ..

Guess thats the theory part .. On the more practical side .. its a creative ability thats lets you form your own state of reality or should I call it 'virtuality' that we usually create from the objects we have already seen or conceptualised ..

Why someone has an abundance of it .. is because they do 'more thinking' and in forming more 'combinations' of concepts from their memories .. which give rise to 'new concepts' ..

while some dont complicate stuff and stick to their senses than the imaginative part .. so rarely forming 'new ideas' .. or even thinking about it .. I guess it happens if you dont put 'too much thoughts' into something ..

Well personally .. my understanding is that .. 'Imagination is a very powerful tool' .. infact our reality is what we have percieved it to be .. but it really doesnt change the reality we live in .. its only our perceptions that change .. but the more we have experienced it ourselves the more closer or accurate we are about reality with our 'perceptions'

BUT .. Imagination gives an ability to percieve things that we havent experienced ourselves as well ..

for example .. in a matter of minutes .. I can imagine almost every kind of person's life .. a sportsmans .. a movie star .. a mountain hiker .. etc etc .. I can imagine any type of feeling I would go through in a situation ..

though it might be far from the truth . but lets say my imagination is like '50%' accurate .. no no .. maybe like '30%' .. its still something I gain without having done anything .. like a better understanding .. all I have to do is 'think' about it ..

I think imagination gives us a way to understand something better than not having thought about it at all .. we can percieve things .. gives us a lot of empathy .. gives us capabilities far beyond our 'real' world .. In fact .. I kinda think there is a whole world inside each person ..

We can live anyone's life .. be any place we want .. but then we shouldnt lose touch with reality nor forget our imagination could hardly be the truth .. just knowing its just something and is really cool ..

Its a handy ability we all got for an instant perception of the whole world itself maybe .. and then work on from there in seeking the truth ..

Hope it didnt sound too absurd .. :-) ..

Imagination is based on re-arranging the elements of memory; the better memory one has, the better selection of elements of memory. Imagination is like studying for an exam; you learn voluntary recall and repetition of the objects of your study, and how to manipulate them and recombine them in different ways. The more one reads, the better ones memory, the better the imagination. Go rent the movie, Dustin Hoffman's the Rain Man. The Rain Man is Dusssstin Hoffman's Character's younger brother, who is mentally challenged or retarded. To prove their self worth these folks, known as Idio-Savnts may develop extra-ordinary Arithmetical Skills, which is the case with Dustin Hoffman's Character's y9ounger brother; They work out a scheme to secretly exhange information, and go to Las Vegas; the younger brother can calculate the odds mentally, so Dustin's Character is able to make a lot of money, The House discovers what is going on, and tells them to leave and never return but allows them to keep the fortune they have won. So the movie ends happily there after! Idio-Savants just work on their numerical abilities all the time. They can mentally multiply two five digit numbers by each other. Any number they encounter, they have probably ran across it before.

They work on expanding their multiplication Tables to Two Digits, to Three digits, to Four Digits, and to Five Digits. I once worked as a Payroll supervisor trainee, at New York University Medical Center, and could draw up a Pay check, with five deductions mentally, just for the fun of it. The more you work on it the better you get.

The capacity for memory is inherited. My father was very good at history, and so was I. Imagination creates an interest in things, and this helps one remember them. One only remembers what one finds interesting, and remarkable. The elements one has stored in memory, can then recombined in interesting ways. Memory and Imagination mean constantly finding many interests in life.

i hate to be the odd one out but i disagree with the answers i read.

i think that imagination is our ability to piece together parts of everything we have seen, heard, smelled, touched or (inside us) felt. when was the last time you 'came up' with something new? Can you imagine a new colour? Yet we can blend together colours we are aware of and name the points inbetween; like turquiose (blue+green), or orange (red+yellow).

Some people are just better are piecing things together in new ways, and do it more than others. Those are people with greater 'imaginations', i believe.

When we see things put together in unexpected ways we believe that theyr'e 'original', but in reality the building blocks that made up those thoughts had been collected from what we've already seen.

So if you think about it, there is no such thing as imagination.

PS: man, that's extremely depressing...

To me imagination is our ability to create and partially live in a different world than the one around us.

We may ourselves be at the centre or create beings that in some unconscious way express our longing for adventure. They may also be the embodiment of our desires and hopes,anger and distress.

People with no imagination are usually very down to earth,they care more about the real world as they would call it,forgetting that imagination is one of the richest gifts a human can be born with.

There would be no Art of any kind without it,because creativity is the child of imagination.

I like the kind of imagination that seems to spring from nowhere. Like, say, when a beautiful stranger walks onto the train where you are and sits down next to you with her perfume and a smile.

Bang! A door has opened on a new world. As satisfying as it can be to reminisce or build castles in the air; there's nothing like having that door open and see there is so much more than we have in our own dreams.

I hold onto this like a talisman, despite the noise that seems to hold the power, or at least the desire, to drown everything...

EDIT: ...exemplified, for example by a TD monkey who gives every answer a bad rating. No opinion, no imagination: just destructive for the sake of it.

Highly creative people use parts of their brain us average folk don't. Usually, highly creative people are either ADD, bipolar or have some other thing that allows them to use parts of the brain in a way others can't. If you have lots of energy, don't sleep much, or don't require much sleep to function, are very creative during periods of high energy, you may be bipolar. My wife is BP and is very creative. She is also very hard to understand sometimes.

I don't know what imagination is, but I depend on it to sustain my existence in reality. Sounds odd to say it, but imagination maintains my reality.

Just the other day, I was walking atop the grape vines of Italy's countryside on a sunny day. The tree tops, the leaves, the grass and flowers as gentle and soft as they are became my pathway. The wind was my music and the sun my play friend. The breeze carried us to the stars, the heavens, the space above our planet. The darkness looked cold, the distance from familiar challenged my ability to let go and just be. And there in the vast emptiness of the universe, I again found myself in the familiar. I was playing on the surface of the seas on a warm and sunny day. The wind is my music. The sun my friend. Imagination carry me away.

That's my understand of imagination.

Dear Just Be

A great Question!

I saw it late last night ... Too late to answer then, but have been thinking about it today ....

So glad I came back, and have been able to read the inspiring answers from I am Sirius and Harijann's.

They are Answers of great wisdom and inspiration and go to the very heart of the nature of imagination. I agree wholeheartedly.

I am mainly just starring questions at the moment rather than answering, as I am going through a spell of brain fog at the moment. But wanted to try to answer your question so that I could also say (((hugs)))

Namaste

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Imagination is the basic source of all creation.

Like space imagination has no boundaries it’s free, unbound, when it finds a receptive mind the seed of imagination is pollinated. Imagination has no logic or reasoning it is to the mind to define it. Few give shape to this imagination and excel, the rest just let it as it is, believe it to be just an imagination nothing beyond, hence impossible.