Is imagination another cousin of creativity?
Imagination is visualizing something that is not there. It is seeing something with your mind’s eye.
Now I want you to actually absorb what imagination is. First read the whole article, then try out what it suggests and then read it once more!
Just sit back and relax in your chair or wherever you are right now. Sit down on the carpet if that feels good. Relax, close your eyes and let go of all tensions.
Now imagine that you are lying down in a beach chair in Phuket or Bali. The weather is perfect with cool breeze blowing. You are with friends and family. You are sipping your favourite beer or coconut juice.
Everything is right with the world and it feels great – the taste of the drink, the half-read book lying next to you, friends cracking jokes around you, strangers greeting you as they pass by, some sand stuck on your feet and swimwear.
Make the picture as vivid possible. Now, imagine that suddenly there is a thunderbolt. The clouds gather. It becomes darker, a bit chilly. You hear the sound of raindrops falling. Before even you know it, it is already raining heavily.
You pick up the book and the bundle of clothes. You start running towards your hotel. You are all drenched. Everyone is rushing for shelter. See their facial expressions as they run, shrieking and laughing.
As you run, you are shocked to see that now it is raining fish! And a few of them land plunk on your head. You look up in amazement.
Suddenly, you see a huge shark falling from the sky. Its mouth is open. You can see its gleaming teeth and you are barely able to jump out of the way as it lands exactly where you were standing.
It is interesting to note the controls that you exercise on your imagination – the situation, the context, the brightness, the colours, the sound, the feel, etc!
Next time when you are very hungry, imagine that you are so full you cannot have another bite. Or when you are very cold or very warm, imagine the opposite. It will be very interesting to note what happens.
As your thinking is not bound by any real-world constraints, your mind can easily move from ‘what is’ to ‘what can be’, switching from the realm of the known to the realm of the unknown.
Children know this art better than anyone else. Moreover, they think in pictures. They have the ability to spontaneously generate vivid images in their minds.
Every time they read a book or listen to a story they have a movie running in their head. They have the ability to evoke entire worlds in their minds.
Your imagination too was very powerful when you were a child.
As you grew up, you lost that power gradually. As you sank more and more into ‘what is’, you stopped thinking in terms of ‘what can be’ and your ability to see with your mind’s eye diminished.
If imagination is the art of moving from ‘what is’ to ‘what can be’, so is creativity. Imagination is therefore an important input for creativity.
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