by Shahram Heshmat Ph.D.

Imagination enables one to look beyond the world as it is. This is how.

Key points

• Imagination can be thought of as a speculative mental activity.
• Imagination leads people to create new forms of reality.
• Imagination allows us to escape from the monotony of everyday life.

Imagination is a deeply human tendency. We spend a significant portion of our conscious lives in the realm of imagination (e.g., daydreaming, mind wandering). Imagination occupies an important place in the lives of children as they immerse themselves in games of make-believe (having imaginary friends).

Imagination can be thought of as a speculative mental activity (Dacher, 2025). We can project ourselves into another situation and see or think about the world from another perspective. The content of our imagining remains available only to us, unless in some way expressed by us. Imagination is essential to human flourishing. Imagination enables us to think about possibilities and go beyond existing constraints. Imagination allows us to escape from the monotony of everyday life (i.e., when stuck in a boring meeting or on a long train ride).

There are several different ways to use one’s imagination (Gosetti-Ferencei, 2018):

Inner imagining: Much imagining happens in our thoughts alone, invisible to others. That is, when we think privately to ourselves about something not immediately present or actual. We project ourselves into an imagined situation and imagine the experience. We can envision a sunny beach or winning a lottery.

Seeing-as: Seeing-as involves recognizing one thing in its likeness to another. For example, when we see faces in the clouds, or look at materials directly at hand and picture something we could make from them. This tendency is a kind of interpretive seeing. For instance, a landscape can be experienced as vibrant and inviting, or it may appear as melancholic.

Hypothetical thinking: Hypothetical imagining presents thoughts about scenarios or states of affairs that may be the case in contrast to the actual. I can imagine how would my life change if I were to make this decision, rather than another (owning pets)? What would life be like if I were to quit my job and move to Italy?

Pretend play: Beginning in the second year of life, children engage in acts of pretense, playing with objects and relating to imaginary friends. People wear makeup and costumes to pretend to be characters (superheroes, monsters), or entirely different people used in theater or on Halloween.

Pretend play can also provide opportunities to imagine perspectives other than your own and to imaginatively explore what those characters are feeling. We can ask ourselves, “What would I do if I were in their shoes, or would I too react in a similar way to such events?”

Creativity: Imagination is the main element of creativity. Creativity engages any or all of the above ways of imagining. Creativity involves the integration of possibilities, such as combining ideas (or objects) in a new way. Research shows that children who play a lot, for example, with imaginary friends, manifest greater divergent creativity. Creativity is an important ingredient in human happiness, as it reminds us of our possibilities.

Distorted imagination: Imagination may distort perception and belief. For example, delusions and ordinary cases of self-deception have been characterized as disorders of imagination. Delusions are false beliefs that are held with conviction and associated with a high degree of fixation. That is, a delusion is an imagined interpretation that is mistaken by the subject as a belief.

Hallucinations are widely considered instances of imagination that are involuntary and often mistaken for perception. In contrast, imagining is a voluntary activity. We can deliberately imagine what we know to be false, which is the very point of imagination.

In conclusion, imagination allows for creative insights that defy conventional reasoning, seeing paths that are not immediately apparent through logical thinking. Imagination enables us to talk to one another, understand one another, and work together. For instance, I can imaginatively put myself in my colleague’s shoes to determine what she is thinking and feeling and what she is likely to do next. Acts of imagination produce feelings of delight. Everyone can relate to the experience of losing themselves in a book, movie, song, or game, losing track of time and space.