The Imaginative Mind: Mental Creativity
Learning April 6th, 2009
Creativity is one of my most favored traits and any activity with creative components is one I can easily value. My engineering role in designing software, developing others as a manager in new and creative ways and my writing and 3D graphics I create on the side are all examples of how I enjoy letting creativity spill out in life. I personally believe I’ve been crafted with the gift of creativity (as is everyone) and so there is great purpose and value in employing creative tasks in your life.
There are many ways to boost your creativity and it really is a part of any learning experience and new task so its an endless topic, which excites me a great deal because ultimately, the exercise of writing about it is also a creative exercise. This article looks specifically at how one can build an imaginative mind using creativity. An imaginative mind is one that can visualize beyond direct input and one that can explore things outside of the immediate reality and vicinity. To me, this is a great ability and one I am quite passionate about so, lets explore it a bit deeper!
Initializing Thoughts
Our thoughts are nearly continuous and tuning in to them can be done specifically for creative juices. Often we suppress our own ideas or thoughts in a split second without ever letting it surface to a voice or considered item. We often put a validation screen on our thoughts and bias everything we let surface by the judgments we assign or expect others to assign to that thought. This limits our mental creativity and kills a thought that would otherwise become the start of a great associative linking of thoughts and advanced creativity. We need to let any thought be developed and explored as our mind makes the neural connections and associations with more and more thoughts. This can happen in moments or it may take hours but it most imaginative if you let a thought continue to build and linger, don’t dismiss it or kill it on purpose. Ever.
Brainstorming
Putting the mind to an exploratory session like this is also known as brainstorming. Brainstorming is often considered something you do in groups and while that is true, it needs the same guidelines in your mind to let the imaginative mind explode with its full capacity and creativity available. Brainstorming at its best means that anything thought of on a given topic is valid. Anything goes. Any idea is considered no matter how obscure or off-base it may first seem to the logical mind. Logic is often the nemesis of creativity as we tend to judge our ideas and thoughts the moment they begin and we simply don’t give our imaginative mind a chance to develop them.
- Explore as many possibilities as you can
- Any idea is worth exploring at least for a short time
- Sometimes you need to give ideas time and let the subconscious work away
Outside the Box
The other effect our logical mind has is to keep us bounded into what seems reasonable. This unfortunately has a very negative consequence on our imagination as its very difficult to explore outside this box of reason or box of logic. The logical mind is bounded by what we know as well so anything outside this box is suppressed by any logic at first consideration. It’s important to get by this and let the creativity and idea be unbounded and originated from well outside the box.
The imagination is an amazing thing and you can certainly allow it to take hold of you in visualizing, day dreaming or full on dreaming. We’ve all experienced the power of the mind’s creativity in dreams and its possible to enable that same creativity in waking life if it’s practiced and repeated instead of suppressed. Let your mind wander, have fun with it, just imagine what that seemingly crazy idea might actually be like if you explore it further in your mind.
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Mike King
April 6th, 2009 at 7:11 AM
Creativity really improves the quality of life. I love this post and I especially love the idea of exploring as many possibilities as you can. We often limit ourselves creatively and that almost always hinders our abilities to live truly interesting and exciting lives.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Oh – this is so right on target.
There are so many things to try and explore in live if you keep an open mind to them.
I am open to trying new things and changing my routine often so I remain enthused with work and free time.
I never thought I would be colorizing B/W photos and learning different techniques to use on pictures as a hobby.It is pretty cool,relaxing and I understand what he is talking about with his designing.
He didn’t show me how to do it.He downloaded a program and tutorials on our home computer and said now make me something.
The race was on to learn it on my own.
Great article –
April 6th, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Have you ever noticed how creative people have a lot of relevant experience?
Most people come to conclusion about something based on their experience. This is the fastest response. The more relevant experience somebody has, the better conclusion they will draw. I think it’s difficult to suppress quick judgments. I think it makes more sense to educate and seek new experiences.
April 6th, 2009 at 6:42 PM
These are great suggestions. This is something I struggle with because I am so damn logical, but I’m getting better. Thanks for the insight.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:37 PM
@Positively Present – You are right in that often we limit ourselves. Keeping that imagination active to keep the creativity flowing adds so much to life, thanks for the comments.
@Bunny – I love how you put this creativity in context with learning, exactly what I think is the value of creativity. Thanks for your personal experience and thoughts.
@Mark – This is true, that experience with creative work will of course build the creative mind. Not exactly sure what you mean with quick judgments in this context though, care to elaborate?
@Stephen – We all creativity inside of us and the level we experience is based on what level of creativity we allow ourselves to display and play with. Use these ideas to improve yours and it will only expand more with use!
April 6th, 2009 at 9:45 PM
What enlightening observations about the mind and thinking. Thank you!
Karen
April 7th, 2009 at 5:41 AM
kudos!! Creativity is about trying up new things and taking risks, breaking tradional beliefs..etc
Lots of other techniques available:
SCAMPER, Random Input technique, Provocation, Reframing Matrix, Reversal etc.. Keep it up.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Great post, and very timely, as creativity is required to plug through this recession. Fear is obviously one of the greatest blockades to creativity – fear of taking risks, fear of consequences, fear of failure or ridicule, etc. As for stimulating creativity, has anyone had any success with mind mapping? Just curious.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:00 PM
@Karen – thanks for adding your comments lately, I’m happy to see you exploring my site here!
@Mohit – Thanks for mentioning these extra techniques, I was thinking of course just of the most common ones, but these may be great to explore as well once I do some research.
@Hayli – What recession? Isn’t that just each person’s perspective? OK, I’m just kidding, but I do think you are right in that people’s fears block creativity. The same thing has created much of the recession, I for one contribute none of that fear to it. I’ll stick to keeping my mind open and creativity progressing no matter what others think.
Mind mapping is definitely a great tool for creative processes as well and often works very well with brainstorming. I’ve used it many times and map my blog posts out in mind maps often.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:27 PM
Imagination is an important kind of intelligence. I favorite your site.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:44 AM
There are very few things more exhilarating that the flow of creativity. Thanks Mike.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Cool post! I think the more things that we can do, travel accomplish, experience, the more creative we can be.
I really like this quote:
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. –St. Augustine
April 13th, 2009 at 5:20 PM
Thanks Jade and Jonathan, nice to see your thoughts and added summary comments. Keep coming back!!
HIB, so do you think the experience needs to be before the creativity, or the creativity before the experience? (Could resist that chicken and egg question).
I’m not sure about the quote. Travel is definitely one way to broaden your horizons but there are many really.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:12 AM
I like the saying that there is less creativity in the arts than in the life itself,it is absolutely amazing show-the personal life of the individual,it is better when he is a director of the show.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Interesting Dicki, thanks for the comment. Yes, directing life is absolutely a demonstration in creativity. To each there own right.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:09 AM
I used to have a very active mind. LatelyI experience burnout due to fatgue and lack of sleep. Thanks for posting this so I can put myself back on track.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:21 PM
Very informative informative, creative site. Thanks for the super articles! As adults, we often loose fascination with our imagination because many of us are taught that imagining is a waste of time. However, without the magic of imagination, new creation would cease to be. Blessings to you and yours!