How to Start Using Your Imagination

How do we go about optimally using our cognitive function of imagination? 

To direct our imagination we start by making it conscious.[1] And to make it conscious we can start with our language, knowing that our language does not reflect reality; rather, it actually makes reality for us.[2]

Simply put, the power of our imagination is largely attributable to our complex language system.

Our language contains analogies and metaphors, which enable us to perceive beyond our immediate physical space. That, in turn, gives our brain an extremely unique characteristic, which is that it makes our imagination potentially infinite. We then can imagine scenarios that have no counterpart in reality.  We can create stories of past events or events that have never happened and our brain will be so immersed in them, that it will present us with images and sensations as if they were real. Our language, thus, evokes experiences, which then become stories, which, in turn, are acts of imagination.[3]

As the cognitive Neuroscientist, Lera Broditsky, remarked in her talk on Human Imagination at UCSD:

“Language allows us to take a finite set of elements and recombine them in all kinds of new ways. It is, then the infinite engine of creativity. It allows us to generate new ideas to put things together. We get these ideas, sometimes, a recombination of things and then we go from there.”[4]

This is simply how this cognitive function of ours works. In other words, our ideas are designed to trigger a response, whether it be to take an action or to have another idea.

Our brains are, therefore, creativity engines with unlimited potential output. And the only obstacle is that, as we stated in our previous article entitled, Imagination-Focused Therapy: What Type of An Imaginator Are You?, our imagination is limited by our current frame of reference. Once we have found out what type of an Imaginator we are, we begin to overcome this obstacle by making use of a trigger to form new ideas through the Process of Inquiry or new combinations of tools.

For example, Free Association Journaling and the Scan system, both of which are unconscious interventions, can be very powerful tools.

Free Association Journaling is very powerful because writing helps capture the idea before it triggers a response. It encourages us to actively expand our imagination.[5]

As such, we can start to use our imagination to tell ourselves a story. We then can start telling our friends and people around us about that story, then it starts feeling real, and then it starts becoming what we think is our reality, or our fate. We may then start taking action based on that story as our point of reference, as long as we believe that story. Hence, Einstein’s observation, as we explained in a previous article, entitled, Imagination-Focused Therapy (IFT): What is Imagination? The First Component “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encompasses it all.”[6]

What is important for us, then, is to remember that our ability to imagine new and desired experiences is limited by our current frame of reference. This explains why imagination has been leading our technology and scientific advances. Movies and television, through experiential entertainment, have been creating stories that immerse all of us, worldwide, into worlds beyond our current imagination, thereby expanding our collective notion and belief of what’s possible.

For example, Star Trek has been known to have triggered the imagination of countless scientists and engineers. Our imagination makes us one and unique at the same time.

We all have it. It has the same infinite power for all of us. But none of us use it the same way. We have a window in our world that no one else will ever have; yet the variety of imagination, once combined, widens our frame of reference, and extends our thinking.

Imagination is that function, then, that we universally share, and it is our true common language.

We then can use our imagination, this unique feature of our brain, to expand the canvas itself.[7]  And this is exactly why ideas spark ideas. This is exactly why the moment we think a thought we are going to think another one. This is the reason why the moment we feel a feeling, we are going to feel another feeling.

And all this takes place so we can relate; and how we relate to our thoughts or our feelings matters. And we may be relating to them unconsciously or consciously. This also means we may not know what to improve, where to start, and how to go about improving them.

This is the reason why the first of the 7 Components of Imagination-Focused Therapy consists of Psychoeducation. This is the reason why we are extending this invitation to all clinicians, like you, to join us, so you help your patients and clients properly reach the following 4 Goals:

1. Learn about their faculty function of imagination.
2. Increase their awareness on how they have been using their cognitive function of imagination
3. Learn how to reap the infinite benefits of their cognitive function of imagination
4. Learn how to implement the optimal use of their cognitive function of imagination in every single aspect of their lives

Are you ready to help them do just that? If so, please join us for this 4-week Certificate Course on Imagination-Focused Therapy. Click HERE now to enroll.

[1] Gosetti-Ferencei, Jennifer Anna. The life of imagination: Revealing and making the world. Columbia University Press, 2018.

[2] Reuland, Eric. “Language and imagination: Evolutionary explorations.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 81 (2017): 255-278.

[3] Dor, Daniel. The instruction of imagination: Language as a social communication technology. Foundations of Human Interacti, 2015.

[4] Boroditsky, Lera. “How Language Shapes the Way We Think.” IRL @ UMSL, https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/13/.

[5] Parker, David, and Michael Evans. “Drawing and the unconscious: a practical workshop in imagination and free association.” (2012).

[6] Einstein, Albert. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Arti Grafiche Recordi., 2019.

[7] Zittoun, Tania, and Frédéric Cerchia. “Imagination as expansion of experience.” Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 47.3 (2013): 305-324.