"Imagine if You Will"Your brain is a theater. You are the writer and director of all that happens on that stage in your brain. Is the brain and mind the same thing. No. The brain is an organ of the body. The stage upon which everything mental occurs.The mind is the image factory. The thinker. The consciousness. The emotive (feelings). The locomotive of the body. Your mind is the result of a functional brain. In other words, your brain produces your mind.
Imagination is the brain forming mental images, conceptions, perceptions and sensations when the lights are out in the brain. Huh? The lights are out? Meaning there is not perception through the five senses. Close you eyes and imagine. In fact, you don't have to close your eyes in order to imagine anything. A writer, a storyteller, and yes, a liar is a fabricator of imagined reality.
Your imagination can run wild with any kind of images ranging from sublime to horrific and everything in-between. Albert Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” When I was a child my playmates and I discovered the truth of Einstein's words. We would often engage in an entire afternoon of "Make Believe". We sometimes called our game "Let's Pretend". I can recall the "vivid" world we created, complete with emotion and behaviors.
"OK, it's your turn to get killed. I will shoot you three times." I said. "OK, you shoot me three times and I will limp back to my horse and ride back to the hideout." My buddy said. "OK, you ride back to the hideout, but just as you ride up, I will jump out of that tree (pointing to the Mamosa tree that he was supposed to ride under on his make-believe horse) onto you and your horse." I replied. Then he said, and I said, and this went on for hours. By the time evening and dinner came, I had died 14 times, been run over by trains and stage coaches, found millions of dollars in gold, and got the girl 39 times.
Someone asked me if I thought children's imagination today has been shortchanged by visual and auditory overload. No. The imaginations of contemporary children have been stimulated beyond anything my generation of chidren ever thought possible. We certainly had to use our imagination more simply because we did not have the visual or auditory imput that children have today. That is not to say that our imaginations were better, we just used them more.
Imagination is a great gift. The content of those mental stories being played out on the stage of the brain is incredibly important. It determines the emotions and behaviors that will follow. A morbid imagination can be a curse. "Imagining the worse" is also a curse, robbing one of potential joy and serenity. Imagination is like faith in that it can move mountains that could not be budged with logic and reason. Train your imagination. Manage your imagination. Use it to motivate yourself to higher achievement. Imagine wonderful and positive worlds. Imagine yourself being happy, succeeding, getting the things you want and need in life. Imagination is yours to use as a healing balm. Positive imagination is one of your greatest gift to yourself. Nepoleon Hill said, "What the mind of man can conceive (imagine) and believe it can achieve."
Imagination is like faith in that it can move mountains that could never be budged with logic and reason.
“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
Oscar Wilde
