Knowing Imagination

A recent post on the NPR web site about a study concerning the placebo effect got my attention. The placebo effect is defined as “a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.” (dictionary.com) In this study, as reported by NPR, a Harvard researcher, Ellen Langer, studied whether our perception of how much exercise we are getting has any effect on how our bodies actually look. She took two groups of hotel maids- who are moving and lifting constantly at work and actually exceeding the U.S. surgeon general’s recommendation for daily exercise- and told one group that the activity they performed at work constituted valid, beneficial exercise, and another group was told nothing of this. Both groups were measured according to body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, weight and body mass index. It was found that all of these indicators matched the maids’ perceived amount of exercise, rather than their actual amount of exercise.

One month later, Langer and her team returned to take physical measurements of the women that were coached and found that in the group that had been educated, there was a decrease in their systolic blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio — and a 10 percent drop in blood pressure. This, even though there was no change in activity. There was found to be no significant change in the group that was given no information.

It can be argued that the information given to the test group resulted in a change of behavior but this study repeats what has been found in previous studies of placebo- that a belief in the efficacy of the placebo results in a positive outcome.

This phenomenon is very similar to the use of guided imagery, prayer, and positive visualization. Athletes use positive visualization to enhance their performance and surgery patients use
guided imagery to control blood flow and speed recovery. This is the use of the imagination as a way of knowing reality differently that an objective, rational knowing can supply.  Rational knowing assumes the immutability of separate, objective reality.  The use of the imagination as a way of knowing subjectivizes reality. Although the use of the imagination as a way of knowing is often demeaned as unreliable and insubstantial, it is clear from the placebo effect that the imagination does, indeed, affect reality.

What do you think?

The video below is of Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay, talking on TED.com about making positive change in the world. Skoll discusses how he is doing it and shows some others who have done so. He is an example of a number of individuals, often founders and owners of very successful businesses like, of course, Bill Gates, who have used their resources to encourage and support change.

Imagine an economy where the common good is as important as is making a profit.

http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf

Imagination as computer controller! In an experiment performed by a fourteen year-old boy and a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, the teenager was able to control a cursor to play the game Space Aliens- with just his imagination! I guess we’ve all played games in our imagination but in this case, after the installation of sensors on top of his brain, the boy actually played the game on the computer by imagining the movement of the cursor. The story on the web site, dated October 9, 2006, has a short video that clearly shows this and you can see that he is playing it pretty well, too. He had the sensors installed for medical reasons, not for game playing, but the researchers and the boy decided to take the opportunity to try this out.

I have often thought that the control of computers could well move in this direction. In another example, a computer game named Journey to the Wild Devine uses a biofeedback device connected to the computer by USB and senses changes in physiology to enable control various events in the game. One must learn to relax in one instance or become excited in other to progress through the game. This provides a fun way to learn to control one’s self. I like this game so much that I own it, use it, and recommend it to my friends and clients. (I also affiliate with the sellers and have a link to purchase it on this blog at the lower right column.)

Is it a stretch to think that as both computer and neurological technology continue to develop it will become more likely that at least some functions of a computer, if not most, will be controllable through biofeedback, including thoughts and imagination. What would games of the future be like with this capability? How might the interface with a personal computer be affected? What about computer assisted machines like the automobile, planes, trains, televisions and DVRs?

Could there be a relationship between the quality of a person’s imagination and their need for social interaction? If one has an active and rich imagination would that reduce their need for social interaction and encourage them to stay alone to engage their imagination? Or might having a rich and active imagination require more time alone in order not to be distracted? Do those less fortunate types who have less imagination need more social interaction for stimulation? Thus does Scott Adams at dilbertblog speculate- and generate a good number of responses.

I think that external stimulation, social or tv for example, can be a great distractor and reduce the quality and amount of imagination for me. However, it may depend on how you engage with those activities. External experiences like social interaction and even tv can also serve as a stimulant or a catalyst, helping me to give rise to new ideas or syntheses. It may depend on what one brings to the experience in terms of expectations or habits.

What do you think?  Give us a response or take a look at dilbertblog and respond there and then come back and let us know what you think.

Ever wonder what to put on your business card? Some folks have taken that question a great deal farther in to the form and design of the card itself.

I my persistent search for the imagination in both explanation and product I happened upon the kottke.org blog which in this edition calls our attention to some very imaginative business cards. First is Creative Bits where you can witness the imagination at work in what is so often so mundane. You’ll find those Creative Bits business cards at Flickr.

Imagination can take us anywhere and its results may have no bounds.

Must we interpret our imagery? In a comment posted about last week’s post one person asked why we must interpret our imagery. It’s not only a good question, but it is an important one. To understand our images best we must know them through the process of the imagination, itself. To try to understand the imagination through means other than the image is to filter it, leaving out some of the most unique aspects of this way of knowing. The intellect, which is the main filter we use to analyze and interpret, employs a form of logic quite different from the imagination. So, while interpreting and analyzing are fine ways of knowing, it must be understood that what can be known through these methods will always produce results from a logical system that doesn’t necessarily fit other ways of knowing, like imagery. If you want to understand your imagination, your imagery, you must first do so through the use of imagery, itself. Only then can you employ interpretation to further understand without destroying the logic of the image.
Having said all this, in agreement with the commenter, I must also say that this should not prevent me from being able to analyze imagery, images, or the process of creating them. I must take care to do so without compromising this precious, delicate, and “wonderful gift”.

Could imagination be considered another form of reality?  I’ve often had the feeling that imagination was something that to be valued needed to be brought into reality by making use of it, perhaps by using it to stimulate creative work. But another view might be that the experiences of the imagination could be considered just as real as those of our ordinary reality.
Carlos Casteneda in his exploration about the sorcerers of the Yaqui Indians in Mexico, described the imaginal domain in which his teacher, Don Juan, was adept at traveling. Black Elk in “Black Elk Speaks” described his experience of a vision quest in which the visions were a powerful connection to a domain beyond ordinary reality. Carl Jung in his many writings described the power and meaning of images that can be accessed through the use of active imagination, dreams, art, and meditation. Tibetan Tantra practices evoke images of beings who inhabit domains beyond ordinary reality and who can protect and transform practitioners. In the many religions images are used as powerful ways to support devotion and practice. Some even say that the imaginal domain is actually more real than ordinary reality- that ordinary reality itself is illusion.

An interesting thing often happens when we do imagery as a group. After engaging in an imagery session done in silence in the group setting, it is not uncommon for the individuals in the group to discover during the following sharing that other members of the group have had imagery that is similar to each other in some way. This has happened in groups that are meeting for the first time and groups that have met together before. It seems to happen more frequently for people who have experience in the process, not so much for first time practitioners. For groups that have met over a long period of time with experienced practitioners the frequency and depth of the similarity increases.
I am not sure why this is so, but it is clear that it happens, to the delight and amazement of those involved. My guess is that since the domain of the imagination is not limited to the limitations of space and time that we are accustomed to, the supportive and safe environment of the group practice allows the practitioner to both relax their boundaries and to be aware of subtle connections between people that may be present all the time but are not ordinarily perceived. It is always exciting to be come aware of those kind of connections.
Does anyone have any other ideas how or why this might happen? Any similar experiences with the imagination to share?

I was recently planning a project and realized that I had been visualizing various steps that needed to be taken and how I would do this. I had a specific image in my mind of the project and how each choice I made would move the project farther along.

I realized today that this might have been what Geoff was referring to in his comment (Role of Imagination, 11/14/06 ) when he questioned if it were possible have a rational imaginative process. I think what I was doing fits this description. Each stage followed the previous in proper developmental sequence, based on prior knowledge of similar tasks. Each step was visualized as a test to see, and therefore anticipate, what problem might arise. And choices were made to move the task along to the next step and to solve problems. This process, though using the imagination, is almost entirely a rational one.

For this to move beyond a rational process one approach could have been that I might have asked for a guide to arise in my imagination with whom I could interact in dialogue and who could show me what I need to know about the issue at hand or allowed the images I was visualizing to take on a life of their own to guide me. This would have moved the process to the mythic domain where all objects can be experienced as alive, aware, and often interactive. This is what I refer to when I discuss the use of the imagination in learning, growing, and healing.

Using visualization to remember the route to a destination, to remind yourself where you left your keys, or to work through multiple or complex steps of a task versus dynamic interaction with objects that arise from your unconscious are two different sorts of the use of imagery. 

Imagination plays such a large role in our lives. The idea that the knowledge we access through the imagination might be important is often overlooked in favor of more rational ways of knowing. In most cases, we are encouraged throughout our childhood schooling to emphasize the development of rational processing and that is as it should be, for such processing is surely important in how we make sense of the world and share that knowledge. However, the emphasis on the rational may be overemphasized at the expense of subtler, intuitive knowing such as mental imagery, sensing, and feeling. I do not mean this to be an anti-rational polemic. I do hope to be able to express ideas that support the balance of knowing through the various ways of which we are capable.
The great Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, wrote that there are four functions of consciousness- thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. While the definitions of the first three are pretty straightforward and mean pretty much what you might think, the fourth, intuiting, seems to be based mostly, if not entirely, in the domain of the imaginal, according to my reading of his description. This suggests that, ideally, knowing can be understood as a balance of the four. My interest is in finding ways to develop and increase our access to knowing using the imagination and to understand applications for that process.
Through the use of guided imagery, active imagination, dream work, meditation, creative activity of various kinds, and dialoguing with inner parts and guides we can develop the ability to use the information from the domain of the imagination in together with the information and organizing ability of the domain of thinking, the intellect. The use of these two domains together, in dynamic balance, can provide a context for a synthesis of the two into a more comprehensive kind of knowing.
I hope these thoughts will begin to generate some comments by you, the readers so that we can begin a conversation that will gather momentum and influence later entries to these posts.

Hello everyone and welcome to the start of Knowing Imagination, a blog intended to provide a forum for discussion about the role of imagery and the imagination in knowing. I have lots of ideas about this and have developed methods to use these ideas to help people in their personal development; support growing and healing; and expanding notions of the self.
I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Registered, Board Certified Art Therapist who has been practicing for over 35 years and in private practice for over 25 years. My approach to helping people who come to me is primarily based in the use of the imagination as a way of knowing. My development has come through psychology, philosophy, second-order cybernetics, spirituality and religion, shamanism, psychotherapy, meditation, and Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Buddhism. All of these and more have had an impact on me and my view of people and reality in general. You can find out more about me and what I do at www.theinwardeye.com or email me at imaginal@theinwardeye.com. I intend this blog to be less about me and more about ideas.
The premise on which I am writing is that, in some large part,  the way we know what we know happens outside of our rational minds, including sensing, feeling and the imagination. I have become increasingly interested lately in the depth and breadth of the knowing that is available through attention to the imagination.
So this discussion will start here and expand to who knows where. Hopefully, there are a number of you reading this who will be interested in keeping track of what is written here and will also contribute to the conversation. I’ll try to post often, at least once a week, so check back in soon.