imagination and reality

Are you good at anything you choose to do? As most ofyou have
speaking classes, can you be brilliantly eloquent?If your answer is
no..no way..get real or any variation of these words, I have good news
for you. A lthough yourpresent reality may indicate that the answers are “no”,
you CAN do all of these in your imagination! And imagination not only
shapes our minds but also weaves the fabric of reality itself. Since I have
learned phycology for several years, I have done lotsof research on relationships
between imagination and reality. Then what is imagination? And how does
imagination shape our reality?
According to a peer-reviewed academic article—imagery and imagination, imagination is the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses. For example, if I say: a rainbow unicorn rides a purple bicycle with a coconut smoothie in his hand… did an image appear in your mind? Of course it did—and it was delightful. Imagination provides us with lifelike experiences and gives us a powerful opportunity to develop empathy and compassion. It can literally reshape and retain our brains.
In a New York Times article titled “Your Brain on Fiction,” it is written that 90%actions we do
the same brain areas that process real-life experiences. Other researchers like V. S, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, states that the same cells in the brain light up whether we perform an action ourselves or watch someone else do it. The effect occurs when we simply imagine ourselves performing the action.
Recent advances in neuroscience have added more support to the conviction that our imagination and sense of reality are closely intertwined. In some ways this is obvious. The sociologist D.S. Thomas conceived of what is known as the Thomas theory, which states “if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Let me put it in this way. If we believe that wolves are hiding themselves in the woods and we change our route to avoid them, then our imagination has affected our experience.
Imagining something has the potential to bring that into reality. In this sense, imagination is the power to “make happen,” to create reality.
Steve jobs didn’t doubt it. He imagines a world where every person has the same computing power that only large organizations had at that po int. And he made it. JK Rowling didn’t doubt it. She imagined creating a world that can inspire millions of young people to read again at a time when everyone thought that only video games could attract them. And she made it.
What we are really fighting for is our imagination—the right to imagine a life, relationships and a social world that are happier, more harmonious and more just. We have to fight for our ability to imagine the world we want. Do you still remember when you were a kid, how much fun you could have imagining yourself to be a super hero—you could fly; you could stop a speeding bullet; you could leap over tall buildings. And then, you grew up. You dreamed less and less. You gradually lose your imagination, not knowing that it is one of the greatest powers in you to affect your reality.
By bridging between ourselves and things of the world, imagination creates meanings. A finely turned imagination is informed by the physical world, drawing from the past and present, and from the edges of our consciousness. The edgeis where our known experience becomes flavored with the unknown, where imagination steps forward into the realm of possibility.
In conclusion, Imagination is not necessarily unreal, as is often assumed. Rather, imagination is a mode of consciousness, a unique capacity of the mind, shimmering behind everything we see and do. Our mind can run away with us, leading us to act through suspicion on fear, and we use our imagination as a tool to change our lives. Our whole experience of life is filtered through our minds, and we continually project our own sense of meaning onto people and things. Our imagination is not an alternative to reality. It IS our reality.
Can you imagine life without imagination?
Picasso said Everything you can imagine is real.。