Video Highlights – Tools to enhance your Imagination:
· Curiosity
· Practice
· Take pleasure in everyday things
· Ask questions
· Look for Mystery
· Write Soliloquies
· Anthropomorphism
· To-do lists, wordboards and mindmaps
· Concepts and facts
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Each one of us, when we are born, our mind is in the state of tabula rasa. Tabula rasa is a state of mind which is like a blank slate, free of all preconceived notions or beliefs. Our imagination is rich with rainbows, colours, magic, wonder and characters. Stream of emotions flow freely and playfulness is a natural state. But as we grow older, as we get educated, we gain knowledge and we learn things, then even though it wakes up our faculty of reasoning and observation, it also puts a gatekeeper at the dam of our emotions. The bony finger of our intellect points towards the spinner and wizard of our imagination, restricting it with too much logic and conflict.
Imagination is a muscle that needs to be exercised and stretched like all other muscles, in order for it to function at its highest capacity. According to Google, imagination is the ability to create mental pictures and new ideas.
Like physical exercises, there are mental exercises that can enhance the potential of our imagination. As we look forward to boosting our imagination, the world outside acts as our better half, a mirror that unfolds to us gateways to interesting ideas and picturesque worlds, only if we pay close attention.
For instance, all the monsters in the movies have been born as a result of experiencing anger within ourselves or angry people in our lives, either in real life or through stories and movies. Cartoons, characters, fantasy wonderlands, songs and objects have been fabricated through the department of our imagination.
So, pay attention and observe. Both yourself and the world outside. These are fascinating mirrors working to reveal to us marvellous insights and intuitive knowledge.
Then, practice asking questions.
How many stars are there in the universe? How many sand particles in all the deserts of the world? How many grass blades in your house garden or nearby park? How many flowers are there in the world? How many peaks? How many valleys? How many shades of colours? How many total sunsets passed till now and how many waves in the oceans? How many experiences you have had and how many number of unique feelings you’ve experienced? How many words do you know in total? Are all these things finite or infinite?
There are two worlds. One is the outer world, the world of objects, and the other is the inner world, the world of words and images. We can touch the objects of the outer world, we can see and smell and hear them. But when it comes to the objects of the inner world, we cannot touch them or point towards them, because according to logic, they don’t exist. Where are the fantasies we see in our head? Only in our head and nowhere else.
The gateway to this inner world is curiosity, and the faculty which spins and creates this world is imagination. Asking questions triggers the imagination to spin new worlds and display interesting pictures in your consciousness.
But imagination is different from thoughts. Science says that a human typically encounters approximately 60000 thoughts per day. But having these thoughts doesn’t mean having a colourful imagination. Thoughts are merely recycling of the old data from our memories and experiences. But when we learn to rise above thoughts, it stirs our imagination from other dimension of consciousness.
By human design, we are mathematical creatures. But imagination is something which is beyond all this mathematics. It puts too many subconscious layers on a picture to be deciphered and decoded.
And although imagination is about fantasies and la-la lands, there is one exercise that enhances the imagination like nothing. It is taking pleasure in everyday things. Sipping morning coffee with pleasure and attention, noticing your first thoughts in the morning and the last thoughts in the night, feeling the weather, taking interest in everything – activities like these help us stay centered in the present moment, which triggers the muscle of our imagination.
Another idea to stir your imagination is to see MYSTERY. Sensing mystery in everyday objects enable us to access our unconscious and deepen our focus on the screen of our mind where imagination carves new worlds. What is the mystery behind a dew-drippy leaf? How was it created? How did this flower got its fragrance? Why isn’t fire blue in colour? Why do I do what I do? Mystery is the passkey to open many doors of creativity. All the mystery novels are metaphors for the mystery of our minds only.
Another great idea to enhance your imagination is SOLILOQUY. Soliloquy is a fancy word for talking to oneself. Why do you have the opinions that you have? What things interest you? Why do you perceive the world the way you do? Keep a pocket notebook and record your point of view on various objects, feelings and experiences. Like diary entries, writing soliloquies can help you discover and unlock the deeper parts of yourself, and hence your imagination.
Adding to this, a great tool to prick your imagination is anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is assigning human characteristics to non-human objects such as animals, things etc. Don’t we read children stories with animal cartoon characters and speaking wardrobes and whispering dolls? All this comes under anthropomorphism.
Make to-do lists, wordboards and mindmaps.
Delve into facts and concepts. Did you know that the mathematical Fibonacci sequence can be seen in the branching of blood vessels and the arrangement of leaves around a stem, as well as in the spiral patterns of the human ear?
Did you know that there is anywhere between 60000 to 100000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. If they were taken out and laid end-to-end, they would be long enough to travel around the world more than three times? Our imagination is even vaster than this network, only if we learn to evoke it properly.
There is a psychological condition known as tarantism. In this condition a person bitten by a tarantula experiences an excessive impulse to dance. We too are funny little creatures bitten by the tarantula of our minds, and throughout our lives, we keep on dancing to the puppetry of our mind. The more we practice, the more we exercise the tarantula of our mind, the richer and incredible is the dance of our imagination. Isn’t this surreal and bizarre?
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