It is good to see that research is being done on the imagination. However, as with so much research, the expectations and methods tend to bring results that stay within a rational framework. I doubt that such research will learn much about the arational aspects of the imagination.
Picture yourself winning the lottery. A telltale pattern of brain activity can be seen on an MRI machine.
— Read on www.inquirer.com/science/mri-imagination-depression-alzheimers-joseph-kable-20210601.html
Daydreaming, Imagination, & Visualization
April 13, 2021
This article from the New York Times explains in a somewhat superficial way how daydreaming has gotten a bad reputation. While imagination is mentioned, no clear distinction is made between it, visualization, and daydreaming. I bekieve that these three activities are similar enough to be considered synonyms with, perhaps, minor distinctions.
Although I am now retired, I have used a free-form imagery process, Interactive Guided Imagery, extensively in my art therapy/professional counseling practice to great effect to help clients to access deep self awareness, personal growth, and healing.
As expressed in this article, daydreaming can be a mere escape when used in an unstructured and unintentional way. But it can also enable one to allow information from the non-linear, arational mind to manifest which, along with the structure of the linear, rational mind, can synthesize new integrated awareness.
I have found in my own life that accessing imagination in a process that might look like daydreaming can help me to better awareness of possibilities for creativity, awareness of interconnectedness that wasn’t previously obvious to me, and have deeper and more profound spiritual experience.
Perhaps researchers using rational methods miss the arational potential of these processes. But from the therapists view and the personal process view I must support the positive regard for daydreaming/imagination/visualization
Here are some links to further explore this subject. this subject is addressed frequently in this blog so explore further here as well.
Internal Links: Role of Imagination, Imagination in Counseling and Psychotherapy, Visualization vs Imagination
External Links: Academy for Guided Imagery, Interactive Guided Imagerysm
Why Does Art Matter? (Sonny Rollins)
May 22, 2020
Music and art as an “accumulation of wisdom, the context art gives us that puts life into perspective, (Sonny Rollins) and transcends politics. From an article in the New York Times, May 18, 2020, as told to Ian Carlino.
Knowing Imagination 