Imagination is an integral part of human activity, which distinguishes us from animals. A person is able to perceive the world, reflect it in his mind, give it a personal assessment, change it in his imagination, and then draw up a plan for the implementation of the transformation outside of himself, thanks to the imagination and its constructive levers.
Imagination is a mental process in the human brain that occurs only on the basis of deep knowledge, perception of the environment and its further transformation (taking into account personal characteristics) into images with a partially changed structure, properties or completely new ones. The human mind perceives the world, applies it to its receptors, makes changes and transforms based on them.
Functions
| Name | Description |
| Cognitive | Reality in the brain creates images that are stored in memory. With the help of thinking, a person is able to process them, even when the object of perception disappears from the field of view. Memory preserves the image, and imagination, with the use of thinking, constructively works on its content. |
| Goal setting and planning to achieve it | A person, using the ability to imagine, is able to build in his head the desired model of anything. Having formed a desire, the subject is able to plan the step-by-step steps to achieve it. |
| Adjustment of the emotional and mental state | A person, faced with difficulties, with tedious work, with illnesses of relatives, experiences a lot of emotional experiences. He is able to withstand strong physical and emotional pressure thanks to his imagination. Knowing that there is a reward for work ahead, or happiness from the work done, recovery, he regulates his mental state and moves on in life. |
| Solving complex problems by manipulating the created images in the mind | Images can be obtained from personal perception, created according to the knowledge gained about them, or born from someone's fiction. |
Main types
involuntary
These are all images that suddenly appear in the head, and are not related to the setting of tasks and plans.
They appear and disappear. For example, a girl, seeing a couple who is getting married, for a moment imagines herself in the place of the bride. Such images do not carry any information or a message to action. This is passive imagination. Another example is the birth of images in a dream.
Arbitrary
A person consciously recreates the images, sees the goal and, manipulating them, plans actions to achieve, strives for desired result. Such imagination is divided into two subspecies:
- Recreative or reproductive;
- creative.
The essence of reproductive thinking is to use ready-made data, acquired knowledge about existing moments stored in memory.
Creativity is a psychological process, which is characterized by the creation of completely new forms of vision, the creation of original objects that have not yet been.
dreaming
A more passionate mental process to create the desired images. A dream turns into an unrealistic form if it is divorced from reality and there are no plans to achieve it. An impossible dream is called a dream.
Fantasy is called images composed by consciousness that never existed. Finds applications in myths, fairy tales and fables.
Forms
- Agglutination
An image is created in the imagination, consisting of parts of different objects that are impossible in reality. Example: centaur - half man, half horse.
- hyperbole
Exaggeration of the subject, object, its exaggeration. Often used in art and literature.
- accentuation
stands out certain property, trait to attract attention.
- Typing
Repetition of something, highlighting the same type in many ways.
- Schematization
Highlighting differences and similarities.
- Aggravation
Increased attention to something, deliberate exaggeration for the sharpness of perception.
- Feature transfer
The features of one object are transferred to a completely different one, which in real life this is unusual.
Significance for a person
Thanks to thinking, a person reflects the objectivity of what is happening and the surrounding objects. Having studied the qualities of objects, their characteristics, possibilities, and having kept this in memory, he can manipulate knowledge in various ways in his imagination: transfer it in time, connect it with other objects, model it, change it, etc. The imagination is actualized at those moments when it is necessary to jump over the edge of the real limitation of something (paths, forms, actions) and present the final result. Anticipatory imagination helps to work. Only a person is given an idea of what can be obtained as a result. The processes of creating final images launch any undertaking: an architect sees the design of a future house, an artist sees a finished landscape before starting work on it, a mother sends her son to school, foreseeing his future.
Imagination, together with perception, memory and thinking, gives a person the opportunity to take care of himself, his life “now” and “later”.
The child has
The child has two types of imagination:
- cognitive;
- affective.
The first helps to perceive the world around and modify it in your mind. Interesting games, activities, creativity lessons in many ways help to develop the imagination, which “takes care” of the development of the baby and helps to establish a connection between “child and reality”. In games, the kid imagines himself a hero, strong and brave, like a perceived favorite character from a movie, or plays what he knows well.
Affective imagination - the subconscious fears of the baby. He may be afraid of what is not, what he does not know about. A coat hanging on a hook in the dark may seem like a monster, or, remembering the pain of broken knees, a child will cry for fear of stairs.
Cognitive imagination needs to be supported and developed, directing it to a reproducing one, when the kid, using past knowledge, can come up with something and do it himself: build a house out of cubes, draw an outlandish animal or come up with a game plot.
Creation
These are two inseparable concepts. To create something new, you need to accumulate a large number of perceptions. Store them in memory, and then, disassembled into molecules, assemble something original from them.
There is a concept in philosophy that everything we create did not come from nowhere. This is already existing knowledge. But the fragmented words and molecules that had once gathered in someone's mind were mixed up and loosely combined into completely new forms.
It's like the law of energy in physics: nothing is taken from nowhere, if it arrives in one, it will surely decrease in the other. There is nothing coming, but through the imagination, the new is modeled from the old.
A person with an absence - what is he?
It is said that the imaginative man was kissed by God himself. Such a person, being literate, well-read, educated and comprehensively developed, brings tremendous benefits to society. In any field, imagination will lead such a person to an important discovery, the creation of interesting projects, innovative finds.
A person with no imagination, even with a lot of knowledge, will not be able to create anything new. You can rarely call him active. A person with a weak imagination or with a complete lack of it is only capable of automatically performing actions according to a learned scheme. Spatial thinking is unusual for him. This type of person does not become a good doctor, famous surgeon or writer.
In adults
He who sees, knows, absorbs and perceives much is capable of imagination. Your own fantasy is the transformation of what you remember, saw or read. Imagination is given by nature, and it is worth developing it on your own.
Active pastime, traveling, reading books, studying culture, getting to know the achievements of science and technology, communicating with interesting people from different spheres - categories that provide a sea of information for perception.
Our memory tends to retain a huge amount of knowledge, even small details do not pass without a trace. We can forget a lot, but the fragments of what we see, disassembled into small particles, will one day be used to create something new.
In young years
The method of developing the imagination of children according to L.S. Vygotsky is aimed primarily at the development of speech. A professor of psychology, studying children with hearing and speech disorders, according to the results of the study, found that there is a big difference between the ability to imagine healthy children and children without hearing. Children deprived of hearing and speech have poor imagination. They don't know how to manipulate images.
The child, not having a sufficient vocabulary, is not able to think in the mind. Speech and imagination are closely related and interdependent concepts.
Painstaking work on the mental analysis of objects and their properties, combinations with others without converting feelings from perception into words is impossible. Various mechanisms for the development of speech should be involved:
- Active communication with the child;
- learning new words;
- memorization of poems, proverbs, songs;
- reading of books.
The child has a special kind of perception of the world. To accelerate the development of thinking, memory and imagination, it is necessary to conduct many educational games. It is through the game that the baby learns to think, identify himself with the world and imagine himself and his behavior in different situations.
Our imagination can help improve our lives and achieve our goals. With the help of special techniques, it can be developed and used for your own well-being.
Everyone can use imagination. This exceptional ability is directly related to many aspects of life. With the help of imagination, each person will be able to translate their fantasies into reality, sending an impulse to the brain for action.
Why Imagination Is Necessary
Using the principle of realism, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to fantasize, thereby closing the path of development in many areas. There are several reasons that will help you realize the need to develop the imagination.
1. The development of fantasy contributes to the training of the brain, the development of the flexibility of the mind and makes thinking more productive. With the help of the development of the imagination, you become smarter, build logical chains faster and solve multi-way tasks.
2. Imagination contributes to the extraction of knowledge from the subconscious. With the help of fantasies, a person accumulates his own energy, directing an impulse to the brain to realize creative ideas and ideas. Imagination builds the power for a successful and productive life through extraordinary solutions to the challenges you face.
3. With the help of imagination, you can reach much higher heights in your career, because thinking that can generate ideas gives you an advantage in development. own business manifestations of creative inclinations. A person with a good imagination is capable of creative fresh solutions and ideas that help quality work.
How to develop imagination
Psychologists are seriously concerned that today's children have practically no imagination and a poorly developed fantasy. In many ways, they see the fault of television programs and gadgets that do not provide an opportunity to develop the flexibility of the mind. The method of presenting simple information does not give food for thought, and this leads to the impoverishment of knowledge, making it impossible to use those parts of the brain that are responsible for creativity. The same problems are observed in adults who, for the sake of modern videos, have stopped using literature and straining their memory and brain to solve problems on their own.
In order to activate brain activity, follow simple rules, and soon you will notice positive changes that will improve your memory and intellectual capabilities.
1. One of the daily rules is the mental simulation of life situations. Imagine the plots in all the smallest details, add new details. For example, imagine you are in a certain place. Imagine quiet musical accompaniment, the aromas of dishes, the noise of the city or the sounds of nature. Such exercises will allow you to easily reproduce in your imagination many scenarios.
2. Don't forget to read. Reading develops your imagination, enriches your vocabulary. Common literary devices that provoke you to read between the lines load the brain, allowing it to analyze the proposed text, see the heroes of the work, imagine them in the proposed situation. The brain is a muscle, and the more you use it, the more productive your life becomes.
3. Get yourself a diary in which you will write down your thoughts, emotions and experiences. Thoughts expressed on paper make the brain work with a vengeance, looking for the right words to describe what happened to you. This method will also help you increase your vocabulary and teach you how to express thoughts correctly.
4. Chat with people who are literally burning with a lot of ideas. Their rich imagination and energy will be transferred to you. Having plunged into the world of fantasies and new ideas, you simply cannot refuse this exciting activity.
Imagination- this is the property of the psyche to create images in the mind. All processes that take place in images are called imaginations. Imagination as a mental process constitutes visual-figurative thinking, thanks to which a person can navigate, look for a solution to problems without the direct intervention of practical actions. This process is very essential, especially in cases where it is impossible or difficult to carry out the necessary practical action, or it is simply inappropriate.
This process reflects the surrounding world of a person at the highest mental levels. The most popular definition of imagination is a mental process, the essence of which is the creation of new unique images, through the processing of the perceived material of representations that came with previous experience. It is also considered as a phenomenon, as an ability and as a specific activity of the subject. This process has a complex functional structure, so Vygotsky defined it as a psychological system.
The function of imagination is peculiar only to man and has a certain meaning in a specific professional activity person. Before starting to perform a certain activity, he imagines what kind of this object will be and mentally creates an algorithm of actions. Thus, a person constructs in advance the image of a future object or the final result of an activity. Developed creative performance plays great role in creative professions. Thanks to their developed creativity people make big money.
There are several types of imagination: active (voluntary), passive (involuntary), recreative, creative.
Imagination in psychology
Imagination is a process of cognition of the surrounding world. The outside world seems to be imprinted in the subconscious of a person. Thanks to this, a person is able to remember old and recent events, to program, to imagine the future. Often this process is called the ability to imagine missing objects in one's thoughts, to keep their image, to manipulate it in consciousness. Sometimes it is confused with, but really these are two different mental processes.
The imagination tends to create images based on memory, not information. outside world. It is less real because it has a component of fantasy and dreams. Even the most pragmatic, skeptical, boring people have imagination. It is impossible to attach a person who has completely lost such a function. The behavior of these people is governed by their principles, logic, facts, they always do everything according to the rules. But to say that they completely lack creative thinking or that they never dream is very wrong. It's just that this is the type of people in whom these processes are not sufficiently developed or they do not use them, or do not know how to use them. Often such people have a monotonous typical life that repeats the same every day and they act according to a certain algorithm, believing that they have no time for more. In fact, it is a pity for such people, because their life is boring, they do not use the abilities that are given to them by nature. Creative imagination makes people individual, non-repeating personalities.
Imagination as a mental process has certain functions that help a person become special.
cognitive function is contained in expanding the horizons of a person, gaining knowledge, constructing a person’s behavior in an uncertain situation, guided by conjectures and considerations.
Prediction Function suggests that the properties of the imagination help a person to imagine the end result of an unfinished action. It is this function that contributes to the formation of dreams and dreams in people.
Understanding function is displayed in a person’s ability to assume what a person is now experiencing, what emotions he is overwhelmed with, what feelings he is experiencing. Similar to this function is the state of empathy, when a person is able to penetrate the world of another and understand what worries him.
The protection function assumes that by predicting future events, by thinking about the course of actions and the consequences of these actions, a person can prevent troubles, protect himself from possible problems.
Self-development function is displayed in a person's ability to fantasize, invent and create.
Memory function It is expressed in the ability of a person to remember past events, to recreate frames of the past in his head. It is stored in the form of images and representations.
The above functions are not always fully expressed in all people. Each personality is dominated by a certain function, which often determines the character and behavior of a person. To understand how images and representations are created, it is necessary to follow the main ways of their creation. Each path is a complex multi-level mental process.
Agglutination is the creation of unreal, completely new, fabulous objects or phenomena that appear under the influence of properties and appearance some existing object, evaluating and analyzing the properties of which a person creates an object similar to him. That is, there is an original object on the basis of which a prototype is formed. This technique is very popular in creating fairy tales or myths.
Emphasizing is the process of fixing on one dominant characteristic highlighted in some object (person, object, activity, phenomenon) and its hyperbolization. Emphasis is often used in their work by artists in the creation of cartoons and caricatures.
Typification is the process of highlighting the main characteristics in several objects, and creating an image from them, completely new, but containing a piece of each of them. With the help of this technique, literary heroes and characters are created.
All of the above methods of imagination are actively used in psychology, creativity, even scientific activity. For example, in medicine, new drugs are created based on existing ones. Also, modern technology, electronics, gadgets, inventions were developed on the basis of previously existing knowledge, schemes, theories and skills. Having collected from them the most important information, having processed it, scientists receive a completely new product. If people had no imagination, humanity would not be able to progress in all spheres and activities.
Imagination as a mental process involves the creation of new images based on existing experience. The ideas that appear in the images in the human head have not yet begun to be realized do not exist, but there is a possibility that in the future they can be brought to life. This process is based on the reformulation of information and impressions of the subject. The more the situation seems incomprehensible and complex, the more the imagination process is involved. This process is of great importance in the professional activity of a person. It also greatly influences feelings and emotions, and plays a large role in the development of personality.
In the creative and working process, imagination enables the individual to regulate and manage her activities, as well as control her speech, emotions, attention and memory. Helps to create and use images of reality. It improves the psychological state of a person, prevents stress and depression. With the help of imagination, he is able to plan his future activities in his mind, manipulating images. Imagination and individuality are the criteria in assessing the talent and abilities of a person, which is important in labor activity.
A person reflects the surrounding reality mainly in a figurative way. The image is a non-static phenomenon, it tends to change constantly. This process has a dynamic connection with the objects of the surrounding reality. Consequently, imagination is not some kind of abstraction, but a specific process associated with the real mental activity of the subject. This activity is also dynamic in nature.
Imagination is a process of self-knowledge of a person, disclosure of his abilities, other people and the world around him, the events taking place. This is a special form of the human psyche, occupying a place between perception, memory and thought processes. Visual-figurative thinking and imagination complement each other, imagination is its basis and makes it possible to show resourcefulness in an unfamiliar situation, to find a solution to a problem without applying any actions.
Types of imagination
This process, as a complex mental process, can also be of several types. Regarding the features of the process, they distinguish: involuntary, arbitrary, recreating, creative, and dreams.
involuntary imagination also called passive. This is the simplest type and it consists in creating and combining representations, their components into a new image, when a person does not have a direct intention to do this, when consciousness is weak, and there is little control over the flow of representations.
passive imagination occurs in children younger age. It manifests itself most often when a person is in a drowsy, half-asleep state, then the images arise on their own (therefore arbitrary), one changes to another, they combine, take on the most unrealistic forms and types.
Not only in the drowsy state does such imagination operate, it also manifests itself in the waking state. New ideas do not always appear when a person purposefully directs his consciousness to creation. A feature of the created images is their variability as a result of the instability of trace excitations of the brain and the ease of their relationship with the processes of excitations in adjacent brain centers. Since the trajectory of arousal is not fixed, this makes imagination so easy. It is especially easy in children, in which, moreover, there is no critical thinking, which acts as a filtering mechanism in adults, so the child sometimes gives out the most unrealistic fantasized images. Only by acquiring life experience and forming a critical attitude, such unintentional imagination is gradually put in order and guides consciousness, therefore a deliberate active representation is formed.
Arbitrary imagination, also called active, is the deliberate construction of representations of the corresponding task in a certain activity. Active imagination develops when children begin to play roles (doctor, salesman, teacher). When they try to portray their role, they have to strain their brains as accurately as possible, thus using their imagination. Further development of this process takes place when a person begins to act independently, shows initiative and creative efforts in the process of labor, requiring clear and accurate representations of the subject, which will be created from operations and which must be performed.
active imagination most of all manifested in the creative activity of man. In this process, a person sets himself a task, which is the starting point for the development of the imagination process. Since the products of this activity are objects of art, the imagination is governed by the demands that follow from the specific features of art.
The recreative aspect of this process is contained in the fact that a person must create an image of an object that he has never seen, based on certain descriptions.
Recreating imagination according to the psychological structure, it is the translation of the second-signal stimulus into the second-signal image.
The re-creative imagination embraces what is created, what already exists, and how it exists. It is not separate from reality, and if we move away from it a little, then the imagination will not correspond to the goals of cognition - to expand the field of human knowledge, reducing descriptions to visual images.
The recreating imagination helps a person to be transported to other countries, to space, to see historical events and objects that he has never seen before in his life, but after recreating he can imagine. This process allows people who read works of art recreate pictures, events and characters in your head.
creative imagination also referred to as active imagination, it is involved in the formation of new images in creative activity, art, science, technical activity. Composers, writers, artists resort to such a process in order to display life in images in their art. They create artistic images through which they reflect life as truthfully as possible, and not photographically copy the events of life. These images also reflect individuality. creative personality, his approach to life, artistic style.
Creative imagination is also used in scientific activities, which cannot be interpreted as ordinary mechanical knowledge of phenomena. The construction of hypotheses is a creative process, which is then confirmed by practice.
There is another peculiar kind of this process - it is a dream, as a representation of what is desired in the future. It is created meaningfully, as opposed to unintentional dreams. A person consciously directs his thoughts to the formation of desired goals, planning strategies to achieve these goals and translating them into real life.
Dreaming can be helpful, but it can also be harmful. When a dream is transcendent, unreal, not connected with life, it relaxes the will of a person, reduces his activity and slows down psychological development. Such dreams are empty, meaningless, they are called dreams. When a dream is connected with reality, and potentially real, it helps a person to mobilize, to combine efforts and resources to achieve the goal. Such a dream is an incentive for active action and the rapid development of the most best qualities individual.
Imagination and creativity
Creativity is the process of creating fundamentally new or improved methods for solving tasks and problems. It becomes obvious that imagination and the creative process are very interconnected.
Imagination is defined here as the transformation of ideas about reality and the creation of new images on this basis. It works every time a person thinks about some object or phenomenon, without even coming into direct contact with it. Thanks to the creative imagination, this representation is transformed.
Creative thinking and imagination have their own specific features. Through this process, it is possible to create completely new unique representations based on the subject's own ideas and thoughts, in which the individuality of the creator is expressed. It can be arbitrary and involuntary. To a large extent, creative imagination or a tendency towards it is conditioned from birth, but it can also be developed.
The development of creative imagination occurs in three stages. The first is a creative idea. At first, a fuzzy image appears in the mind of the creator, the initial idea, which can be created arbitrarily, without purposeful comprehension of the idea. The second stage involves nurturing the idea. A person thinks about strategies for translating an idea into reality, mentally improves it. The third stage completes the nurturing of the idea and brings it to life.
The development of creative imagination is carried out in the process of transition from involuntary to arbitrary, from recreative to creative. During childhood and adolescence, creative imagination has characteristic features, it is special for its magic, fantastic judgments about the world and the absence of a critical component of thinking and rationality. During adolescence, complex changes occur in the body, respectively, in the mind as well. Objectivity is developed, perception becomes more critical. Rationality of perception appears a little later, when a person becomes an adult. Adult reason begins to control the imagination, often too much criticality and practicality weakens the processes of fantasizing, overflowing them with meaning, loading them with some kind of unnecessary, in fact, information.
There are certain methods for developing creative thinking. by the most practical method is reading literature and watching scientific films, expanding the circle of one's knowledge, drawing knowledge from different areas of life, memorizing and analyzing information. In this case, a large number of materials for creative processes appear.
Imagine imaginary objects, punch through various manipulations with them. For example, imagine the sea, hear the sound of breaking waves, feel the breath of sea freshness, imagine entering the water, feel its temperature, and so on. Or another example, imagine a pear. Imagine its shape, size, color. Engage tactile perception, imagine it when it is in your hand, feel its surface, aroma. You can mentally bite off a piece of it, imagine the taste.
For the imagination to be arbitrary, it is necessary to work on it, regularly conducting training. To make the effect even greater, you need to look for sources of inspiration, ask friends for help, ask about their ideas. Try group work on creating ideas, sometimes the results are very unique, and a person becomes more active if the imagination process takes place in a circle of other creative individuals.
Development of the imagination
The development of thinking is a purposeful process, the main task of which is the development of brilliance and showiness, originality and depth, as well as the productivity of imaginary images. In its development, imagination as a mental process is subject to the same laws as other ontogenetic transformations of mental processes.
The imagination of a preschooler develops very quickly, it is presented in two forms: the generation of an idea and the strategy for its implementation. Also, the preschooler's imagination performs, in addition to the cognitive-intellectual function, also an affective-protective one, which is expressed in protecting the child's weak personality from too difficult emotional experiences. The cognitive function helps to better recognize the world, interact with it, and solve tasks.
Development of imagination in children has a dependence on the process of objectification of the image by the action. During this process, the child tries to manage the images he created, change them, improve them, that is, take control. But he is not yet able to plan his imagination, a similar ability is developed by the age of four or five.
The affective development of the imagination in children occurs at the age of 2.5 - 4 or 5 years. The negative experiences of children are symbolically displayed in the characters, as a result of which the child begins to imagine situations in which the threat is removed. After that, the ability to relieve emotional stress appears, using the projection mechanism, when negative qualities, which are really in the child, begin to be attributed to other objects.
The development of imagination in children of six or seven years old reaches a level at which many children have already learned to imagine themselves and imagine life in their own world.
The development of the imagination takes place in the process of human ontogenesis, under the influence of life experience, which stores the accumulated stock of representations as material for creating new images. The development of this process is closely related to the individuality of the individual, his upbringing and other mental processes, and the degree of their development (thinking, memory, will). It is very difficult to determine the age limits that characterize the dynamics of the development of the imagination. History knows cases of early development of the imagination. Mozart composed his first music when he was four years old. But there is a downside to this development. Even if the development of the imagination is belated, this does not mean that in mature years it will not be sufficiently developed. A well-known example of such a development is that of Einstein, who, as a child, did not have a highly developed imagination, but over time he developed it and became a genius recognized throughout the world.
In the formation of the imagination, certain patterns are distinguished, although it is difficult to determine the stages of its development themselves. Because it can happen to each person individually. The first manifestations of the imagination process are very connected with the processes of perception. It is good to give examples on children, because in them the development process takes place more actively and brighter. Children who are one and a half years old do not know how to concentrate their attention on a fairy tale or simple stories, when adults read to them, they are constantly distracted, fall asleep, switch to other activities, but love to hear long stories about themselves. The child loves to listen to stories about himself, his experiences, because he can clearly imagine what the story is about. The relationship of perception and imagination is also observed at the next levels of development. This is noticeable when the child processes his impressions in the game, changing in his imagination objects that were previously perceived. For example, a box in a game becomes a house, a table becomes a cave. The first images of a child always have a connection with his activity. The child embodies the created and processed image into activity, even if this activity is a game.
The development of this process also has a connection with the age of the child, in which he masters speech. With the help of a new education, the child is able to include in the imagination, both concrete images and more abstract ideas. Speech enables the child to switch from presenting images to activities and expressing these images through speech.
When a child masters speech, his practical experience expands, attention develops more, this, in turn, gives the child the opportunity to single out with less zeal individual elements of objects that the child perceives as independent and it is with them that he operates most often in his imagination. Synthesis occurs with significant distortions of reality. Not having the necessary experience and enough advanced level critical thinking, the child is still not able to create such an image that would be close enough to reality. The involuntary emergence of images and ideas appears in the child. Such images are more often formed according to the situation in which he is.
At the next stage, the imagination is supplemented by active forms and becomes arbitrary. Such active forms of this process arose in connection with the active initiative of all adults involved in the development of the child. For example, if adults (parents, educators, teachers) ask a child to do some action, draw, add, depict something, they encourage him to take a specific action, thereby activating his imagination. To do what the adult asked, the child first needs to create in his imagination an image of what should come out in the end. This process is already arbitrary, because the child is able to control it. A little later, he begins to use arbitrary imagination without the participation of adults. Such a breakthrough in the development of the imagination lies in the very nature of the child's play, which becomes more purposeful and plot-driven. The objects that surround the child become for him not only stimuli for objective activity, but become material in the embodiment of images of the imagination.
When a child is closer to five years old, he begins to build, draw, combine things in accordance with his plan. Another striking shift in the process of forming the imagination is manifested at school age. This is facilitated by perceived information, the need to assimilate educational material. In order to keep up with classmates, the child has to activate his imagination, which, in turn, contributes to the progress of the development of abilities in processing the perceived images into images of the imagination.
(3 votes: 5.0 out of 5)First, let's look at what imagination and fantasy are? These are types of thinking, this is the ability to mentally represent what is not, from what is in memory. In other words, imagination is an active creative process of creating new knowledge (new ideas) from old knowledge. What is the difference between fantasy and imagination? If imagination is the ability to mentally create new ideas and images of possible and impossible objects based on real knowledge, then fantasy is the creation of new, but unreal, fabulous, yet impossible situations and objects, say, but also on based on real knowledge. For example: the winged horse Pegasus, the Dead Head in Pushkin's fairy tale "Ruslan and Lyudmila", the fables of Baron Munchausen, Pinocchio, the Steadfast Tin Soldier - these are fantastic images.
There are several types of imagination:
1. Recreating is the representation of images according to a predetermined description, for example, when reading books, poems, notes, drawings, mathematical signs. Otherwise, this type of imagination is called reproductive, reproducing, remembering.
2. Creative is the independent creation of new images according to one's own design. Children call it "from the head." It is this kind of imagination that will be the subject of our study and development in children.
3. The unmanageable is what is called "violent fantasy", an absurdity, a set of unrelated absurdities.
How is fantasy and imagination different from serious problem solving?
When fantasizing, the child himself creates any kind of plot, including a fairy tale one, any situation he wants, any task he wants, and he solves it in any way he likes. Any solution is acceptable. And when solving real problems, the child is not looking for any, but a real, “adult”, serious, feasible solution. In both cases, he creates, but when fantasizing there is more freedom, since there are no prohibitions on the part of physical laws and no great knowledge is required. That is why it is better to start the development of children's thinking with the development of fantasy.
What is the difference between fantasy and stupidity?
When fantasy is harmful, it becomes stupidity. Stupidity is a stupid, absurd, unnecessary, unreasonable, wrong, harmful, inappropriate act or statement that does not honor the one who committed it. Of course, one must take into account the age of the person, the conditions and goals of the act.
Is all fantasy good? There is a general criterion for assessing the quality of all affairs on Earth - this is an increase in goodness in the world.
The classic carrier of fantasy is a fairy tale.
How is fairy tale different from science fiction? In science fiction, technically feasible situations, elements or processes are considered, and in a fairy tale any. It should be noted that there is no sharp boundary between fantastic and real solutions either. For example, what was considered a fantasy in the time of Jules Verne is now an everyday reality. G. A. Altshuller calculated that out of 108 (!) ideas-forecasts of J. Verne, 99 (90%) were implemented. H.G. Wells has 77 out of 86, Alexander Belyaev has 47 out of 50.
When a child selflessly tells fables with his participation, he does not lie, in our usual sense, he composes. He doesn't care if it's real or not real. And this should not be important to us, what is important is that the child's brain works, generates ideas. However, you should still pay attention to what the child dreams of. If he talks all the time about his non-existent friends, about tender parents or about toys, then maybe he suffers, dreams about it and thus pours out his soul? Help him immediately.
Why develop fantasy and imagination?
They say: "Without imagination, there is no consideration." A. Einstein considered the ability to imagine higher than knowledge, because he believed that without imagination it is impossible to make discoveries. K. E. Tsiolkovsky believed that a cold mathematical calculation is always preceded by imagination.
Sometimes in everyday life fantasy and imagination are understood as something empty, unnecessary, lightweight, having no practical application. In fact, as practice has shown, a well-developed, bold, controlled imagination is an invaluable property of original non-standard thinking.
It is difficult for children to think "according to the laws", but if they are taught to fantasize and not be criticized for it, then children fantasize easily and with pleasure, especially if they are also praised.
Apparently, this is how children subconsciously learn to think - in the game. This should be used and developed imagination and fantasy from early childhood. Let the children "reinvent their own bicycles". Who did not invent bicycles in childhood, he will not be able to invent anything at all.
How to develop fantasy and imagination in children?
There are three laws for the development of creative imagination:
1. Creative activity imagination is in direct proportion to the richness and diversity of a person's previous personal experience.
Indeed, every imagination is built from real elements; the richer the experience, the richer the imagination. Hence the consequence: we must help the child to accumulate experience, images and knowledge (erudition), if we want him to be a creative person.
2. You can imagine what you yourself have not seen, but what you have heard or read about, that is, you can fantasize based on someone else's experience. For example, you can imagine an earthquake or a tsunami, although you have never seen it. Without training, it is difficult, but possible.
Ways to develop fantasy and imagination
We list the main ways to develop fantasy and imagination, and then consider the methods for developing creative imagination. Ideally, if the child himself wants and will develop his imagination and imagination. How to achieve this?
1. Generate motivation!
2. Convince that fantasizing is not shameful, but very prestigious and useful for the child personally. They don't understand this yet. Need a game and vivid emotions. The logic of children is not yet strong.
3. Fantasizing should be interesting. Then, having fun, the child will quickly master the ability to fantasize, and then the ability to imagine, and then to think rationally. Preschoolers are not interested in reasoning, but in events.
4. Make children fall in love with you (attraction). On this “wave of love”, they trust you more and are more willing to obey.
5. By your own example. In early childhood, kids copy the behavior of adults, it’s a sin not to take advantage of this. You are an authority for a child.
- at a tender age (2-6 years) - fairy tales, fantastic stories;
- in adolescence (7-14) - adventure fantasy novels (Jules Verne, Belyaev, Conan Doyle, Wells);
- in youth and in adulthood - solid science fiction literature (Efremov, Strugatsky, Azimov, etc.).
Teach children to admire a good fantasy.
7. Stimulate fantasy with questions. For example: “What happens if you grow wings. Where would you fly?
8. Put children in difficult situations. Let them think and find a way out. Here, for example, is a classic task: children ended up on a desert island, how to survive?
9. Throw interesting stories to children and ask them to make stories, fairy tales, stories based on them.
10. Teach the following techniques for developing imagination and fantasizing.
Using the techniques below does not eliminate the need to think. Techniques “not instead of”, but “to help” fantasy, techniques indicate the direction of thinking. Knowledge of fantasy techniques leads children to mastering "adult" methods of resolving contradictions and solving inventive problems.
Techniques for the development of fantasy and imagination
Children know quite a lot of phenomena and laws of nature (for example, that all objects fall down, that heavy objects sink, liquids spill and do not have their own shape, water freezes, wood, paper, a candle burn). This knowledge is quite enough to fruitfully fantasize, but children do not know how to fantasize, that is, they do not know the techniques of fantasizing.
Most of the techniques of fantasizing are associated with changing the laws or natural phenomena. Everything can be changed: any law is alive and inanimate nature, any social law, the law can act in reverse, completely new laws can be invented, some existing laws can be excluded, laws can be forced to act or not act at will, temporarily, periodically or unpredictably; you can change any living creature: people (all people have become honest!), animals, plants.
Below are 35 fantasy techniques:
1. Increase - decrease.
This is the simplest technique, it is widely used in fairy tales, epics, and fantasy. For example, Thumbelina, Thumb Boy, Gulliver, Lilliputians, Gargantua and Pantagruel. You can increase and decrease almost everything: geometric dimensions, weight, height, volume, wealth, distances, speeds.
It can be increased indefinitely from actual sizes to infinitely large and can be reduced from real to zero, that is, until complete destruction.
Here are conversation games for mastering the "increase - decrease" technique.
1.1. They say to the child: “Here is a magic wand for you, it can increase or decrease whatever you want. What would you like to increase and what would you like to decrease?
- I would like to reduce vocal lessons, and increase my free time.
I would like to reduce my homework.
I want to enlarge the candy to the size of a refrigerator so that I can cut off pieces with a knife.
— I want to increase the raindrops to the size of a watermelon.
1.2. Complicate this game with additional questions: “And what will come of this? Where it leads? Why do you want to increase or decrease?”
- Let your arms become so long for a while that you can get an apple from a branch, or say hello through the window, or get a ball from the roof, or, without getting up from the table, turn off the TV.
- If the trees in the forest are reduced to the size of grass, and the grass to the size of a match, then it will be easy to look for mushrooms.
- If it is difficult for a child to fantasize independently, offer to fantasize together, ask him auxiliary questions.
1.3. What will happen if our nose lengthens for a while?
- It will be possible to smell the flowers in the flower bed without leaving the house; it will be possible to determine what delicious dishes the neighbors are preparing;
"That's good, but what's wrong with that?"
- There will be nowhere to put such a long nose, it will interfere with walking, riding in transport, it will even be uncomfortable to sleep, and in winter it will freeze. No, I don't need that nose.
Invite the child to say what is good and what is bad if we increase or decrease something. Who will be good and who will be bad? This is a moral analysis of the situation.
1.4. Tell me, what will be good and what will be bad for you personally and others if the magician enlarges you 10 times? If the child finds it difficult to guess, help him with additional questions.
What size will you be then?
- How many kilograms will you weigh?
What will happen if your height decreases by 10 times?
- Agree, it would be great if you could change your height at will. For example, you are late for school: you increased the length of your legs or the frequency of your steps and quickly reached school, and then made your legs of normal length. Or another case. We have to cross the river, but there is no bridge nearby. No problem!
- I will be 15 m high! This is the height of a five-story building!
Regarding weight, this is a tricky question. Usually answer: 10 times more. In fact, if you keep all the proportions of the body, then the weight will increase 1000 times! If a person weighed 50 kg, he would weigh 50 tons! I will run faster than a car. I will be strong, and no one will dare to offend me, and I will be able to protect anyone. I can carry huge weights. I wonder what? Usually a person can lift half their weight. Then I can lift 25 tons! This is good. What will be bad?
I won't fit in the class. You will have to sew huge clothes and shoes. It will be very difficult to feed me. If we assume that a person eats 2% of his weight per day, then I need food weighing 1 ton. I won't fit on any bus. Even down the street I have to walk, bending under the wires. I will have nowhere to live.
2. Adding one or more fantastic properties to one person or many people (as fragments or blanks of future fantastic works).
The technique of this kind of fantasizing is similar to the method of focal objects:
a) select several arbitrary objects of animate and/or inanimate nature;
b) formulate their properties, qualities, features or character traits. You can come up with new properties "from the head";
c) the formulated properties and qualities endow a person.
For example, an eagle was chosen as an object (“property donor”). Eagle qualities: flies, excellent eyesight, feeds on rodents, lives in the mountains.
- Man can fly like an eagle. It can be added: it can fly in the stratosphere, in near and far space.
- A person has super-acute eagle vision, for example, he sees cells of living tissues without a microscope, crystal lattices of metals, even atoms, he sees without a telescope and better than through a telescope, the surface of stars and planets. He sees through walls, walks down the street and sees what is happening in the houses, and even penetrates through the walls himself, like an X-ray.
- Man eats eagle food - rodents, birds.
— The man is covered with feathers.
Continue fantasizing with this method, taking as an initial object: a light bulb, a fish (remember an amphibian man), a watch, glasses, a match, suspended animation (a sharp slowdown in life processes is very convenient: there is no money for food or nowhere to live - you fall into suspended animation) or the reverse of hibernation (a sharp increase in vital processes, a person does not know fatigue, moves with incredible speed, such a person will make a wonderful illusionist, or a runner, or an invincible fighter).
2.1. Come up with sense organs that a person does not have, but could be.
For example, it would not be bad to feel the presence of radiation in order to protect yourself from it. Generally speaking, we feel it if we suffer from radiation sickness.
It would not be bad to feel nitrides and nitrates and other contaminants. There is a wonderful and rare feeling - this is a sense of proportion, not everyone has it.
It would not be bad to feel when you make a mistake and when danger is approaching (figuratively speaking, the red light would light up in this case).
2.2. The time will come when it will be possible to change internal organs. What would it look like?
2.3. Make a “markup” of people with color according to their moral qualities. For example, all honest people turned pink, all dishonest people turned purple, and evil people turned blue. The more a person has done meanness, the darker the color. Describe what will happen to the world? Many people probably wouldn't leave the house.
3. Animated drawing.
You have received a wonderful gift, everything you draw comes to life! What would you draw?
Great people? Endangered animals?
New animals and plants?
4. Exclusion of some human qualities.
List the properties and qualities of a person, and then exclude one or two properties and see what happens.
The man is not sleeping.
The person does not feel pain.
- The person lost weight, sense of smell.
Name at least 10 vital qualities and properties of a person and think about the consequences of their loss.
5. Turning a person into any object.
A person turns into another person, into animals (birds, animals, insects, fish), into plants (into oak, rose, baobab), into objects of inanimate nature (stone, wind, pencil). This is the richest material for new fairy tales.
But the most important thing in this technique is the cultivation of empathy - the ability to transform into a different image and look at the world through his eyes.
Suggest at least 10 examples of human transformation, for example in fairy tales.
6. Anthropomorphism.
Anthropomorphism is the assimilation of a person, endowing with human properties (speech, thinking, the ability to feel) any objects - animate and inanimate: animals, plants, celestial bodies, mythical creatures.
Have you seen anywhere in the world
Are you a young princess?
I am her fiancé. - my brother,
- The clear moon answers, -
I did not see the red maiden ...
Here Pushkin endowed the month with the ability to see, recognize, condole and speak.
Recall 10 examples of anthropomorphism from fairy tales, myths and fables that you know and come up with at least 10 examples of possible anthropomorphism yourself.
7. Giving objects of inanimate nature the abilities and qualities of living beings.
Namely: the ability to move, think, feel, breathe, grow, rejoice, multiply, joke, smile.
The boy sits astride a stick and imagines her as a horse and himself as a rider.
- In which creature would you turn a balloon?
Think of at least 10 examples of such transformations.
8. Giving extraordinary properties to objects of inanimate nature.
For example, stone. It glows, always warm (never cools down!), you can warm your hands in the cold, makes the water sweet and healing, but does not dissolve itself.
Contemplation of the stone inspires to write poetry and draw, etc.
Here is a good game for the development of fantasy. Children (or adults) stand in a circle. One is given a soft toy or a ball in his hands and is asked to throw it to someone with warm words: “I give you a hare”, or “Yurochka, I give you a goat, his horns have not yet grown”, or “Hold, Masha, a large candy”, or “I give you a piece of my heart”, “I give you a squirrel”, “This is a glass ball, do not break it”, “This is a cactus, do not prick.”
9. Revival of dead people, animals, plants.
For instance:
What would happen if brontosaurs were resurrected?
What else would Pushkin have created if he had not passed away so early?
You can "revive" all kinds of extinct animals and people!
Suggest 10 options for such a game.
10. Revival of dead heroes of literary works, in particular, heroes of fairy tales.
- Did the character of the fairy tale die? It doesn't matter, you need to draw it and it will come to life.
Come up with continuations of fairy tales, provided that the heroes of the fairy tale did not die. The fox did not eat the kolobok, Ruslan did not cut off Chernomor's beard, Tin soldier did not melt, Onegin did not kill Lensky.
Suggest 10 options for such a game.
11. Revival of the heroes of art paintings and sculptures.
The characters of paintings by famous artists came to life - barge haulers, hunters, Cossacks, archers.
Name 10 paintings by famous artists and suggest a continuation of the plot, provided that the characters come to life.
12. Change in the usual relationship between the heroes of fairy tales.
Recall the following situations: a pike sings a lullaby (“Pike opens his mouth”); "The Gray Wolf serves her faithfully"; Brave Bunny; cowardly lion.
Come up with a fairy tale with such an incredible plot: the Fox has become the most rustic in the forest, and all the animals deceive her.
13. Metaphor.
Metaphor is the transfer of the properties of one object (phenomenon) to another on the basis of a feature common to both objects. For example, “talking waves”, “cold look”. Here is an excerpt composed of some metaphors:
On the thread of idle fun
He lowered with a cunning hand
Transparent flattery necklace
And the golden rosary of wisdom.
A. S. Pushkin
Name the metaphors and ask the children to explain which properties are transferred and to whom.
Soft character. Cheeks are burning. Drowned in twos. Keep in tight grip. Turned green with anger. Steel muscles. iron character. bronze body.
14. Give a new name to the painting.
The child is shown a lot of plot pictures, postcards or reproductions of famous artists and is asked to give them new names. Compare who named better: a child or an artist. The basis for the name can be a plot, mood, deep meaning, etc.
Give 10 new names of old famous paintings.
15. Fantastic association.
A fantastic, that is, an incredible idea, can be obtained by combining the properties or parts of two or three objects. For example, fish + man = mermaid, horse + man = centaur. Who are the sirens? The same pair of objects can give different ideas depending on the combined qualities.
Give 10 examples of combinations of unexpected qualities of various real creatures.
16. Fantastic crushing.
Remember the plot of the wonderful novel "The Twelve Chairs" or the plot of Svetlov's fairy tale about a man named Rubl, who fell from the fifteenth floor and broke into ten kopecks. Each penny has its own destiny. One hryvnia was exchanged for kopecks, another became a big boss and looked more important than the ruble, the third began to multiply.
Come up with a fairy tale on a similar plot. For example, an orange shattered into slices, a pomegranate crumbled into 365 seeds (exactly 365 seeds in any pomegranate, check), the fate of the pea sisters from one pod.
17. "How lucky I am."
How lucky I am, says the sunflower, I look like the sun.
How lucky I am, says the potato, I feed people.
How lucky I am, - says the birch, - they make fragrant brooms out of me.
Come up with 10 options for such a game.
18. Reception acceleration - deceleration.
You can speed up or slow down the speed of any process. To direct the fantasy in this direction, ask questions like: “What will happen if”, “What will happen if”.
- What will happen if the Earth begins to rotate 24 times faster? The day will last 1 hour. For 1 hour you need to have time to sleep, have breakfast, go to school (for 15 minutes), have lunch, do homework (for 3-4 minutes), take a walk, have dinner.
What will happen if the seasons last 100 years? (Then people who were born at the beginning of winter would never see green grass, flowers, river floods) Task. Suggest three or four plots related to the indicated technique.
19. Acceleration and deceleration of time.
Themes of fantasy stories.
Situation 1. You have invented a chronodyne - a device with which you can change the speed of time and the speed of processes in time at will. You can speed up any processes or slow them down.
Situation 2. It was not you who invented the chronodyne, but someone else, and this other, unexpectedly for you, at will, changes the speed of the processes in which you participate.
The lesson lasts either 40 minutes, or 4 minutes, or 4 hours, and all this is unpredictable for the teacher and students. Started eating cake, and time sped up 1000 times! It's a shame! How to live in such a world?
Situation 3. You have invented a chrono tour (a tour is a movement in a circle) - a device with which you can repeat events, rejuvenate and age many times people, animals, objects, machines.
Who would you rejuvenate and by how many years?
What period of your life would you like to live again?
Exercise. Suggest some stories using the given techniques.
20. Time machine.
You have a time machine! You get into it and you can travel to the near and far past of any country, to the near and far future of any country, and be there at any time. But you can't change anything there, you can only look. While you are in the past or in the future, life on Earth proceeds according to its usual laws.
“Home option”: sitting at home, you look into the “Mirror of Time” or mentally take pictures with the “Camera of Time” or “Cinema Camera of Time” or “Magic Eye”. Name the place and time and, please, the image is ready.
What would you like to see in the past?
- What were your mother and grandmother like when they were the same age as I am now?
How did dinosaurs live?
- I would like to meet and talk with Pushkin, with Napoleon, with Socrates, with Magellan.
- What would you like to see in the future?
— Who will I be? How many children will I have?
- Talk to your future son.
Here is an incredible situation. A message was sent from Earth to a distant star. Intelligent beings live on this star, they have a time machine. They sent a reply, but they made a mistake, and the reply came to Earth before the message was sent.
Exercise. Suggest 10 stories related to the time machine effect.
21. Chronoclasm.
This is a paradox caused by intervention in previous life. Someone moved into the past and changed something there, and then returned, but on Earth everything is different. To encourage fantasizing in this direction, questions such as:
What would happen now if something had happened differently in the past, or if something had not happened at all?
- What would have to be changed in the past so that what happened did not happen?
For instance:
- I lost my keys. It doesn't matter, I return to the past and do not take the keys with me.
- What would have happened if there had not been a coup in 1917?
What can be changed in the past? Everything can be changed in the past! The actions of people, the phenomena of animate and inanimate nature, the surroundings.
Chronoclasm, time machine, chrono-tour, chronodyne are wonderful devices for fantasizing, they provide an inexhaustible number of plots.
Exercise. Suggest some crazy stories for these techniques.
(I went to look for a bride in the past. I found out why the brontosaurs became extinct.)
22. The method of L. N. Tolstoy.
They write that L. N. Tolstoy regularly used the following method every morning as morning exercises of the mind.
Take the most common object: a chair, a table, a pillow, a book. Describe this object in the words of a person who has never seen it before and does not know what it is and why.
For example, what would an Australian native say about watches?
Exercise. Write some item descriptions for the Aboriginal.
23. Free fantasy.
Children are offered to fantasize uncontrollably on a given topic, using any fantasy techniques and any combination of them. Unlike solving some serious problem, you can offer any ideas, even the most crazy ones.
Come up with a fantastic plant.
- All known fruits grow simultaneously on one plant: apples, pears, oranges, avocados, pineapples, mangoes, coconuts.
- All known fruits and vegetables grow on one plant (tomatoes and potatoes, tobacco can be made from leaves, painkillers and “beauty products” can be obtained. In principle, this is possible, since tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, belladonna (in Italian - "beautiful lady") belong to the same family - nightshade.
— Known and unknown fruits, vegetables and nuts grow on the same plant.
- Amazing watermelon: marmalade inside, and instead of seeds - candy. This is also possible, only you need to water it with sweet water and honey.
- Objects of animate and inanimate nature grow on the same tree.
The flower is made of chocolate and never fades no matter how much you eat it.
24. Come up with a fantastic building.
The building of the future: everything is visible from the inside to the outside, but nothing is visible from the outside to the inside. A creature (a person, a dog ..) with intentions harmful to the owner of the house cannot enter the building.
What qualities should a house have if the weight and size of the owner changes 10 times every hour?
25. Come up with a new mode of transport.
Invention Ideas:
- A meson-gravitational-electromagnetic beam is directed at a person, which splits a person into atoms, remember their mutual position, transfer it by atom to the right place and collect it there in the same order. (Think about the situation: the program for assembling a person went bad, but they didn’t notice it! How did they assemble a person? And what if they mixed up the atoms of several people?)
- Synthetic transport, combining the advantages of all known modes of transport: the speed of a rocket, the luxury of a high-class cabin of an ocean liner, the all-weather aircraft for lightning research, the uselessness of helicopter landing and take-off areas, the healthfulness of horse transport.
- The road surface is wavy or triangular in shape. Invent a wheel so that it does not shake on such a road. It will also be an invention!
26. Come up with a new holiday or contest.
- Festival of flowers. All have flowers painted on their cheeks. On this day, you can only speak Chinese colors.
- The festival of the arrival of swallows.
- Feast of the first mosquito.
Fantasy Contest. Two teams are participating. Each team offers different tasks to the other team: a) a topic for a humorous story of 5 phrases; b) an object for composing a riddle (table, fork, TV); c) the beginning of the story. For instance. "My friend Keith invited me to trip around the world»; d) some method of fantasizing is offered. It is necessary, using this technique, to come up with an incredible story.
27. Come up with a dramatic plot.
- Mom spoiled her daughter beyond measure. What happened to mother and daughter?
- A man got lost, accidentally found a house abandoned by hunters and lived there for 7 years. How did he live there? What did he eat, what did he wear? .. (After five years, he forgot how to speak, etc.)
28. Come up with a new fantasy game.
To come up with a new unprecedented game, you need to come up with incredible conditions and rules for this game.
— Chess pieces are made of chocolate; won an opponent's piece and you can immediately eat it.
- The game "Edible Checkers". They do become edible, but only after they have been fairly won. Think about what special properties a won king and a locked checker will have?
— Cylindrical drafts and chess. The board is folded into a cylinder so that the fields a1, a2, a3, etc. are next to the fields h1, h2, h3, respectively. The verticals become the generators of the cylinder.
- Checkers Lobachevsky. The board is mentally folded into a fantastic figure - at the same time, both the sides and the sides facing the players are closed. The generators are verticals and horizontals at the same time.
- Super chess. Instead of chess pieces - cubes. On the faces of each die there are images of six figures, except for the king. Once per game, you can change the status of the piece (turn the die), unexpectedly for the opponent.
29. Magical fulfillment of one's own desires and materialization of thoughts.
You have become a powerful wizard. It is enough to think - and any, but only good, your desire is fulfilled. You, for example, can make anyone happy. But if you have planned something bad for another, then it will happen to you.
Here's a goodwill test.
Tell the children that for an hour they can do anything, good or bad, to people. Check out what the kids want to do? Good or evil?
The robbers caught a worthy man and want to kill him. Suggest at least 10 ways to save him (make him invisible, freeze robbers).
30. You began to have the gift of telepathy.
Telepathy is the transmission of thoughts and feelings over a distance without the mediation of the senses. You can even not only read the thoughts of other people, but also mentally force people to do what you want. How are you using this gift?
31. Method of Nadya Rusheva.
Here is another wonderful way to develop imagination and drawing skills. It's widely known universal way owned by the brilliant girl Nadya Rusheva.
By the age of 16, she had read with a felt-tip pen or a pen in her hand the books of more than fifty writers, from ancient to modern: Homer, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Exupery, Bulgakov and painted, painted, painted. Reading, fantasizing and drawing. This helped her to achieve lightness, sophistication and "soaring" lines in her drawings. During her seventeen-year life, she created ten thousand wonderful drawings! Being engaged in ballet as a child, she knew how much work this “lightness of soaring” is achieved. This wonderful, but not popular way is called: diligence and perseverance!
32. Method "RVS".
RVS is an abbreviation of three words: size, weight, cost.
It should be noted that the RVS method is special case more general method“decrease - increase”, when any characteristics of the system can be changed from zero to infinity, and not just dimensions, weight or cost. For example, speed, quantity, quality, force of friction, force of thinking, force of memory, firm profit, number, salaries. Such thought experiments “blur” the usual idea of the system being improved, make it “soft”, changeable, and provide an opportunity to look at the problem from an unusual angle.
The RVS method is based on the dialectical principle of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones. This method is also called the “monster test method”, or the “limiting transition method”, or the “contradiction amplification method”.
The RVS method develops fantasy and imagination very well, and also allows you to overcome the mental inertia of thinking. It must be remembered that we are conducting a thought experiment, where everything is possible, and not a practical one, when the inexorable laws of nature operate.
There is also the “super-RVS” method, when limit transitions of several characteristics are viewed simultaneously. Such "hit on the subcortex" can carve something non-standard. For example, what will happen to the system if the system has the minimum cost, but the maximum size and weight, etc. Of course, the use of the RVS method must be learned.
33. Method of transferring properties.
Let us consider a very cheerful, mischievous and very simple (for those who know how to fantasize) method of endowing ordinary objects with properties that are completely unusual for them, taken, however, from ordinary objects. In science, this method is called the method of focal objects.
The algorithm is very simple.
The first step: some object is selected that they want to improve or give it completely unusual properties. For children, it can be a toy, a doll, a ball, a notebook, a textbook, a class magazine, an animal, a plant, or a person. This will be the so-called focal object. For example, let's choose a Barbie doll as the focal object. It seems that she is already the limit of fiction in the class of dolls. Let's see what happens.
Second step: choose some random objects. For example: an electric light bulb, a balloon, a TV set.
The third step: for these random objects, a list of their characteristic properties, functions and features is compiled.
Light bulb - glows, warm, transparent, burns out, turns on the power grid.
Balloon - flies, inflates, does not sink, bounces.
TV - shows, speaks, sings, has control knobs.
Fourth step: the formulated properties are transferred to the focal object.
So what will happen? Let's fantasize and especially not care about the real possibility of realizing what we have imagined. Go:
The doll glows from the inside with a matte milky pink light. The room is dark, but it glows. It's good: you won't lose it and you can even read it!
The doll is always pleasantly warm, as if alive. You can take it outside and warm your hands. You can put bird eggs next to a warm doll and chicks or chickens will hatch from them. You can lean against the aquarium - and the doll will heat the water for the fish.
She is transparent. You can see how her heart beats, blood flows through the vessels, you can study anatomy.
Burns out. Clearly, she needs to have spare parts: a set of arms, legs, heads, dresses. Doll constructor.
Now let's see what ideas the balloon will give us.
Flying doll. Angel doll with wings. A swan doll, a dragonfly, a paratrooper, a flying squirrel or a bat, she has beautiful transparent membranes from her fingertips to her toes.
Inflatable doll. You can make a slim or fat Barbie, you can make a flat one for carrying. When the head is inflated separately, the facial expression changes. With an inflated doll, you can play in the bath, learn to swim.
What does the comparison with the TV give.
Let the doll show morning exercises, aerobics, yoga asanas every morning.
Let her scream indignantly when they begin to break her or quarrel in front of her.
You can use a combination of properties. As a rule, among the absurdities come across original ideas that trial and error will not give.
The Focal Object Method is an excellent method for developing imagination, associative thinking, and serious invention.
Proposals developing the method.
Children really like it when they put themselves in focus. It is a lot of fun to improve clothes, such as stockings, tights, boots.
You can pre-define the feature class in the second step.
The method can be used to come up with the design of shops, exhibitions, gifts.
Before starting the idea generation session, you can think with the children what is good and bad for the chosen focal object, who is good and who is bad, why it is good and why it is bad, etc. And then start fantasizing.
The best ideas are to be commended.
34. A combination of techniques.
The "aerobatics" of fantasizing is the use of many techniques simultaneously or sequentially. They used one technique and to what happened, they add a new technique. This leads very far from the initial object and where it will lead is completely unknown. Very interesting, try it. But this is only possible for a boldly thinking person.
Exercise. Take some fabulous object (Pinocchio, Kolobok) and apply 5-10 fantasy tricks to it in sequence. What will happen?
35. Beautiful ancient fantasies with transformations.
As examples of magnificent fantasy, let us recall the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans, in which people turn into plants.
The beautiful young man Cypress accidentally killed his pet deer. He begged the silver-bowed Apollo to let him be sad forever, and Apollo turned him into a slender cypress tree. Since then, cypress has been considered a sad grave tree.
Another beautiful young man, Narcissus, had a different fate. According to one version, Narcissus saw his reflection in the river, fell in love with him and died of self-love. The gods turned it into a fragrant flower. According to another version, Narcissus dared not to return the love of a woman, and, at the request of other women rejected by men, he was turned into a flower. According to another version of this myth, Narcissus had a dearly beloved twin sister. The sister died unexpectedly. The yearning Narcissus saw his reflection in the stream, thought that it was his sister, looked at his reflection for a long time and died of grief. According to the fourth version, seeing his reflection in the river and falling in love with him, Narcissus realized the hopelessness of this love and stabbed himself. From the drops of Narcissus' blood grew flowers named after him.
Great examples of fantasy. One version is prettier than the other. Try and you offer your no less dramatic or touching versions of Narcissus.
Legend of Daphne. Pursued by Apollo in love with her, the young nymph Daphne prayed for help to the gods and was turned into a laurel, which became the sacred tree of Apollo. Since then, the winners of musical (musical) competitions in honor of Apollo have been awarded a laurel wreath. In ancient art, Daphne (Daphnia) was depicted at the moment when, overtaken by Apollo, she turns (sprouts) into a laurel.
The desperate young man Phaeton was unable to cope with the horses of the solar team of his father, the sun god Helios, for which he was struck by Zeus's lightning. The Heliades, Phaethon's sisters, mourned the death of their brother so bitterly that the gods turned them into poplars, whose leaves always make a sad noise. Heliad's tears became amber.
You know what imagination does real world more interesting. But when they say to you: “Imagine it!”, you fail. Of course, imagination cannot be turned on with the help of a button, but it can and should be developed. Is it hard to imagine? And you try. With our help.
Responsibilities of the Left Hemisphere
It is responsible for logical thinking, education and analysis. Also for verbal information processing and language abilities. Controls speech functions, as well as reading and writing, plus remembers facts, names, dates and their spelling (and is able to connect them by analyzing).
The left hemisphere helps us understand the literal meaning of words. As for the processing of information, it performs this task sequentially, in stages. Numbers and symbols are also recognized by it, it is also responsible for mathematical abilities. In addition, the left hemisphere controls movement right half body.
Responsibilities of the right hemisphere
Firstly, it is responsible for intuition and imaginative thinking. Secondly, for the processing of non-verbal information (expressed not in words, but in symbols and images). Moreover, unlike the left hemisphere (which analyzes information only in a clear sequence), the right one is able to simultaneously process different data. Thirdly, it helps a person to consider the problem as a whole. Thanks to him, we can understand not only the literal meaning of what we hear or read. And if someone says: “He hangs on my tail,” the right hemisphere will tell you what was meant.
Also, the right hemisphere recognizes faces, and we can perceive a set of features as a whole. With its help, we understand metaphors and the result of the work of someone else's imagination. It is also responsible for spatial orientation, gives us the opportunity to dream and fantasize. Making and making plans, asking “what if?” - that's what it asks.
Separately, we note creative abilities (musical and artistic). Here we will also write emotions, and religiosity, and faith in something.
The right hemisphere also controls the movements of the left half of the body.
If we compare all the pieces of information stored in our brain with the elements of a constructor, then a person with a developed imagination can put together more figures from the same elements than someone who lacks imagination.
FIRST STEPS
Well, let's get down to the exercises to develop the imagination? The author's method of psychologist Andrey Rodionov (www.rodionov.by) will help us with this. Don't worry, all tasks are easy to complete. By the way, you can connect a friend or loved one to the "training" - and have fun and spend time with benefit.
imprinting
Look closely at any item. Now close your eyes and try to keep it in your memory for as long as possible. Present the subject as a whole and in parts. Now open your eyes and look at the object again. Maybe you missed some details?
Repeat these steps several times until the subject comes to mind in full detail. Strive for the maximum identity of the physical and the imaginary. As you progress in the lessons, choose more and more complex subjects for analysis.
Cinema without sound
This is a fun exercise. Choose an unfamiliar movie on TV. Watch the beginning of it and then turn off the sound. Try to understand the meaning of what is happening on the screen without words. We warn you right away: it will be uncomfortable, you will want to turn on the sound. Be patient! After a while, you will be surprised to realize that much is clear.
unreal things
Try to imagine things that are not (and never were) in reality. What would they look like? What sounds did they make? Imagine a butterfly the size of an airplane, a book with 50,000 pages, an inhabitant of a distant planet, a talking ant...
Familiar melodies
Pick up (or rather, drink!) Several different melodies known to you:
- from classical music;
- film music;
- pop music;
- rock music;
- some folk song.
Fruits vegetables
Using all your senses, imagine an orange, a banana, a grape, a pear, a melon, a blackberry, a cabbage, a lemon, a carrot, a pepper, a tomato, a radish, a plum, a date, an apple. Try to imagine them clearly and realistically so that you can see (and sniff out!) All the nuances.
GAME MASTER
These exercises will require more time and effort from you than the previous ones. But the result is worth it. All of them contribute to the development of concentration, expansion of the scope of perception, improvement of memory and, of course, stimulate the imagination!
I think and see
Choose an object at eye level at a distance of 1-3 meters. The subject to begin with should be simple: a book, a pen, a folder. Close your eyes and imagine a white, empty glowing space. Mentally hold this image for 3-5 minutes. Open your eyes and contemplate the chosen object for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, do not think about it, look through it (as if you are looking into the distance). Now close your eyes and imagine the object, placing it in a white luminous space for 3-5 minutes.
Exercise should be done 5 times, perform it calmly, without effort.
rainbow world
Imagine a small red square, fix it in your mind. Now imagine that the square increases in size, diverges with faces to infinity. Now there is only red space in front of you, contemplate it.
The next day, do the same experiment with the orange space. Then with yellow, green, blue, blue and purple. Having learned this, move on to more complex things. Imagine first a red color, smoothly turning into orange, orange turning into yellow, and so on until purple. Then from purple you need to go back.
The third level of difficulty: imagine red-skinned people walking through a green forest. The skin of people gradually becomes orange, yellow - and so on to purple. Then scroll through the color scheme in reverse order (the skin should turn red again).
Eh, apple!
Sit in a chair or lie down on a bed. Close your eyes. Imagine an apple. Start rotating it in space clockwise. Now let it “fly out” of your head. Place the apple against the bridge of your nose, look at it. Carefully mentally enter it, feel yourself inside the fruit (do not forget about its shape and size!).
Then imagine that part of you remains in the apple, lift the fruit one meter above you. Try to see yourself from above. Inspect at the same time the walls of the room, the furniture, the close ceiling.
P.S. YOUR BUTTON
Since ancient times, people have believed that creative inspiration comes from above. He was equated either with a gift or with a punishment. And even now, talent is often tried to be explained genetically or mystically. But thanks to scientific research, work on psychoanalysis and psychology, trainings on the development of creativity, it can already be said that a person’s creative potential does not always depend on a windy muse. But it is often associated with the capabilities of the right hemisphere of the brain. Isn't it time to stop ignoring the dormant powers of your imagination and find out what it is capable of?!
FROM WORDS TO DEED!
Surely soon one of your loved ones will have a holiday. Do not limit yourself this time to a standard greeting card, with a printed template poem inside, but come up with a rhyme yourself (even the simplest one!) And write a message with your own hand. Or draw (glue, decorate) greeting card. The recipient, believe me, will appreciate your efforts!
READING YOURSELF
- Marilee Zdenek Right Brain Development
- Andrey Rodionov "Development of the intellect"
- Anna Wise "Inspiration by order"
- I.A. Beskova “How is creative thinking possible?”
- Cleg Brian "Intensive course on the development of creative thinking"
- I.Yu. Matyugin "Methods for the development of memory, imaginative thinking, imagination"
- Alexey Turchin "Active Imagination Tutorial"
Some of the books on this list are available for download online.
Anna Serikova
Photo: CORBIS/FOTOSA.RU
We thank Andrey Rodionov, an expert in intellectual and communication technologies, for his help in preparing the article.