The power of creative imagination

We all use our imagination, all the time. Sure, lots of people think they don’t have much of an imagination, but that’s just not the case. We’re seeing things in our mind all the time, it’s just how we are. If you’re one of those people who think they have trouble clearly imagining things, try to think back to watching a favourite film, and focus on a particular scene. Go on, do it … I bet you can see it quite clearly, almost as though it were being played out right in front of you. And you can hear the dialogue, right? And the voices … you can hear the characters speaking and laughing or whatever they’re doing, and it’s as plain as day. That’s your imagination! You can conjure up images and sounds and feelings of things that aren’t happening right now (except in your imagination). It’s a very important faculty, the imagination. It’s our internal cinema, where we can instantly churn out footage for all kinds of reasons. There’s no need for a production team, or a screenwriter, or a foley artist, or a gaffer. They’re all you! There’s no need for a team of props guys and set dressers either … yes, you take care of all that, quickly and easily and without even involving the unions! Construction, transport, lighting, it’s all taken care of. And there’s no need to wait three months or six months for enough well staged and watchable scenes to end up ‘in the can’ before you have anything worth showing. It’s instant! Yep, we can produce something of watchable quality in a flash, and go ahead and watch it, again and again. And we can take care of post-production too, updating where necessary, and almost instantly.

It’s a very useful faculty as well. By using the imagination we can try out things in advance, and in safety. Instead of just diving in and trying to do something potentially lethal (e.g. some of the stunts you see folk doing on YouTube!), we can take it out for a dry run and see how it ‘feels’. If we can’t even manage it safely in our internal laboratory, it’s probably not a good idea to jump on that unicycle and head for the slack rope you set up between two buildings! Not yet anyway … you might need some more real world practice, and some more visualisation.

The basketball experiment

You must have heard of the now famous experiment conducted back in (I think) the 50’s, where a group of basketball playing schoolkids were split into three smaller groups. One was told to practice throwing hoops for twenty minutes a day for the next three weeks. Another was told to do nothing, just carry on as normal. The third group was told to just imagine throwing hoops for twenty minutes a day for the next three weeks, and to do it really well, seeing the ball slipping into the hoop successfully, time after time. At the end of the three weeks they were all tested on how many hoops they could throw successfully. The first group, who had practised on the court, had improved by something like 23%. The second group (no practice), had not noticeably improved, things were about the same. The third group, who had only practised mentally, had improved by something like 21%! So just using their imagination, i.e. visiting their internal cinema on a regular basis and seeing themselves successfully throwing hoops, they had improved their real world skills. And damn near as much as the first group, the ones who had practised on the court. This one experiment (which by now has been repeated many times and in many different ways) shows the power of the imagination. We can improve our performance in all kinds of things just by visualing being successful. Now that’s truly amazing!

The value of daydreaming

Lots of people don’t recognise the value of daydreaming, which is just one aspect of using the skill of imagination. I remember a teacher who used to enjoy seeing how accurately he could throw a board duster and manage to bounce it off my head if I was staring out the window (he was pretty good at it too!). He thought I was ignoring him completely, and to be fair he was such a lousy teacher that he was probably right most of the time. But lots of times I’d be lost in thought and using my imagination constructively (and sometimes even about school stuff!), but to him I was just a kid paying him no attention. Like most teachers I came across when I was at school, he didn’t seem to have any idea how the brain worked.

So don’t forget the power you have in your imagination. You can literally see your own success, before it happens. And the more you watch re-runs of that, the more successful you’ll be. It’s a skill we all have available to us and, when you consider how valuable it is, it would be a shame not to use it. Actually, the best thing is to use it on a habitual basis, seeing yourself excelling in all kinds of things and generally becoming more and more successful. You can add power to some of the scenes you create, simply by paying attention to the details (remember, you control everything!). Use strong colours, make the scene vibrant with movement and action, turn up the volume. It can intesify the whole experience, and if it’s something you’re trying to learn, or get accustomed to, this can help tremendously. The opposite is also true; if there are things that scare you or cause you anxiety, turn the volume down and drain the colours till you’re watching an almost silent black-and-white movie. The scary thing (heights, crowds, spiders, balloons, clowns, standing up to make a speech, whatever) won’t seem nearly half as scary now. And fade the image, just drain all the intensity out of it, to make it even less powerful. Remember, you’re the entire production team, you can do anything you like.You can even run a reel backwards at high speed to make it seem ridiculous, or play with the speed dial, making it faster, then slower, then backwards … it all helps to de-scarify the whole movie! Constructive thought, in the form of creative visualisation, is one of the most powerful tools of the human mind. It can take the sting out of harsh or traumatic experiences, and it has the power to overcome illness and disease. It can also propel you to almost unimaginable wealth (I say ‘almost’ because that level of wealth is imaginable, that’s the whole point!).

Wallace D. Wattles probably said it best:

“There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances. Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it; and this can only be prevented by holding the thought of the TRUTH.

To look upon the appearance of disease will produce the form of disease in your own mind, and ultimately in your body, unless you hold the thought of the truth, which is that there is no disease; it is only an appearance, and the reality is health.

To look upon the appearances of poverty will produce corresponding forms in your own mind, unless you hold to the truth that there is no poverty; there is only abundance.

To think health when surrounded by the appearances of disease, or to think riches when in the midst of appearances of poverty, requires power; but he who acquires this power becomes a MASTER MIND. He can conquer fate; he can have what he wants. “

from The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D Wattles