There are 2 aspects of imagination: there’s a cognitive aspect (“what” you are thinking) and an emotional aspect (“how” you’re thinking those thoughts). What you think and how you feel are intimately linked. Here’s how imagination can lead to creativity, happiness, or depression …

 

Imagination

Imagination is your brain’s ability to pull images, ideas, etc. out of the brain and synthesize them into mental imagery. The major differences between imagination and other forms of creativity is that imagination focuses more on mental imagery and there is usually a heavy storytelling aspect to it. Imagination usually isn’t a single snapshot in time, but a story that unfolds.

• Spontaneous imagination = Mental imagery without conscious effort.
• Purposeful imagination = Also known as “Fantasy”
  • Active fantasy = Imagination applied toward a workable solution. This fantasy combines play with some level of constraints/limitations so that ideas will have a higher likelihood of being useful.
  • Passive fantasy = Fantasizing with complete freedom from constraints and limitations. There’s no worry about how practical ideas are.

 

Imagination and Creativity

The creative process can be described as a continual expansion and contraction of ideas where a creative generates ideas and then explores the implications of those ideas. This process is cyclical, creating a wave-like form.

Generating ideas requires divergent thinking. The best strategy for a creative in a generation stage is to create many ideas that are different from each other and (hopefully) different from what already exists in the field (they’re original). Imagination aids this process because it allows for a wide variety of ideas to combine together.

The exploration of ideas is about extending each idea to see what the consequences would be. This is where imagination and storytelling come together. The creative extends an idea and mentally explores the creative space around it.

 

Imagination, Happiness, and Depression

What you think and how you feel are intimately linked. What you think about determines how you feel and how you feel determines what you think about. They feed into each other.

Root-Bernstein (author of 13 thinking tools) describes imagination as a combination of “synthesis and play.” When imagination is mixed with play, then its enjoyable and productive. Play doesn’t require specific outcomes. It’s fun for its own sake. When imagination and playfulness go together it creates a safe environment where ideas are free to combine in irrational ways.

This, however, only describes imagination when it is friendly. Emotions like curiosity and playfulness don’t always exist with imagination.

In fact, for those with mental health issues, it’s probably more common that imagination is combined with negative emotions like fear or anxiety. In this case, the same skill of imagination is be applied, it’s only being applied with a different emotion, leading to different mental imagery.  When imagination is mixed with negative emotions, like fear, then the same ability to imagine is used to generate vivid imagery of fearful scenarios and then explore those ideas through storytelling.

It’s the same ability in both scenarios. Whether imagination as a blessing or a curse doesn’t come down to the process of imagining. It comes down to the emotions you experience while imagining.

 

Using Imagination To Fuel Happiness and Starve Depression

Because what you think (cognition) and how you feel (emotions) are so closely linked, there’s always an escape from a vicious circle. When you’re using imagination and fear to generate unwanted/undesired mental images or stories then simply replacing the negative emotion with a positive one will change the direction of your thoughts, leading to imagining scenarios that are more positive and uplifting.

An emotional shift may not happen instantly. Emotions have momentum in the brain. There’s lag time between replacing an emotion or thought pattern and experiencing an emotional shift. Emotions come from neurotransmitters in your brain (the most important being Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, and Endorphins). Replacing an emotion doesn’t instantly replace all the neurotransmitters, it only begins the process of replacing them. As imagination and playfulness continue, the mixture of neurotransmitters in your brain changes. An increase in “Happiness neurotransmitters” leads to imagining more-positive scenarios, which in turn releases more happiness neurotransmitters.

 

Jared Volle, M.S.