Imagination is an integral part of every person’s life. But do we all imagine what imagination really is? In psychology, this word describes the process of creating in one's mind an image of an object. Moreover, this item will not always correspond to its real prototype. In some cases, the pictures created in our minds are not at all correlated with reality; this image is called fantasy.
It is important to remember that imagination is firmly connected with two more psychological processes: memory and thinking. Each of them manifests itself to different degrees at different times.
The functions of the imagination are as follows: representation of reality, the formation of an action plan, regulation of the emotional state and cognitive processes.
The psychology of imagination, like most of the psychological processes, has not yet been fully studied. However, scientists still managed to find out something. Of greatest interest to the average person may be a description of the various types of this process.
Imagination in psychology is divided into several types according to two principles. The first principle is the degree of awareness of the process. It is easy to understand that in this case the imagination is divided into conscious and unconscious. The second principle of division, according to the task performed, is characteristic only for conscious imagination: creative, recreating and dreaming.
It’s worth starting with the simplest, namely the unconscious imagination. In this case, the will of the person does not at all take part in the process. It is most characteristic of young children. Adults meet him mainly in a dream or half asleep. Some mental disorders are also characterized by unconscious imagination. In psychology, in this case they talk about hallucinations: a person subconsciously creates an image of an object or creature and puts it in the real world.
Recreating imagination is most closely associated with memory, since its task is to accurately reproduce objects and paintings from the past, that is, what a person has already seen. For example, when a student on a control board is trying hard to remember what was written on the board when they went through this topic, he may try to mentally reproduce this very board in front of him.
This also includes a person’s attempts to imagine from the description that which he had never seen in his life. For example, a person reading about the sea may try to imagine it on the basis of his past experiences and artistic descriptions.
What does psychology say about creative imagination? Imagination of this type is simply necessary for people of art: writers, artists, sculptors ... It can also be divided into several types: agglutination - when an image is created by combining different parts and qualities, emphasis - when it is built around one feature or detail, and the most difficult is typification - creating a collective, averaged image. For creative imagination, thinking is most important, although memory, of course, plays an important role.
Do not forget that scientific activity is largely based not only on experiments and calculations. Before transgressing towards them, one must imagine something new, unknown or rejected by science. Think about what imagination you need to possess in order to imagine that the Earth actually revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa. Of course, now this is a well-known fact, and before it was obvious to everyone that the Earth is the center of the universe.
Dreams are an imagination directed to the future when a person imagines what he wants to have in a day or a year, what he wants to do.
In general, the imagination in psychology is a rather complicated topic, requiring a comprehensive and detailed consideration. However, not every person needs to know all the details. But to have a general idea is still useful.