Imagination

Imagination is the representation of sensations or physical objects in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Often described as forming pictures in the mind, it is commonly equated with mental imagery, though imaginary experiences do not have to be purely visual, and can include other sensory experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Imaginings can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with or without changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastical scenes. Imagination helps apply knowledge to solve problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process.

Imagination is the process of developing theories and ideas based on the functioning of the mind through a creative division. Drawing from actual perceptions, imagination employs intricate conditional processes that engage both semantic and episodic memory to generate new or refined ideas. This part of the mind helps develop better and easier ways to accomplish tasks, whether old or new.

A way to train imagination is by listening to and practicing storytelling (narrative), wherein imagination is expressed through stories and writings such as fairy tales, fantasies, and science fiction.^{[citation needed]} When children develop their imagination, they often exercise it through pretend play ("make believe"). They use role-playing to act out what they have imagined, and followingly, they play on by acting as if their make-believe scenarios are actual reality.

The English word "imagination" originates from the Latin term "imaginatio," which is the standard Latin translation of the Greek term "φᾰντᾰσῐ́ᾱ" (phantasía). The Latin term also translates to "mental image" or "fancy." The use of the word "imagination" in English can be traced back to the mid-14th century, referring to a faculty of the mind that forms and manipulates images.

In modern philosophical understanding, imagination is commonly seen as a faculty for creating mental images and for making non-rational, associative transitions among these images.

One view of imagination links it to cognition, suggesting that imagination is a cognitive process in mental functioning. It is also associated with rational thinking in a way that both imaginative and rational thoughts involve the cognitive process that "underpins thinking about possibilities". However, imagination is not considered to be purely a cognitive activity because it is also linked to the body and place. It involves setting up relationships with materials and people, precluding the notion that imagination is confined to the mind.

The psychological view of imagination relates this concept to a cognate term, "mental imagery," which denotes the process of reviving in the mind recollections of objects previously given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists prefer to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Constructive imagination is further divided into voluntary imagination driven by the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), such as mental rotation, and involuntary imagination (LPFC-independent), such as REM sleep dreaming, daydreaming, hallucinations, and spontaneous insight. In clinical settings, clinicians nowadays increasingly make use of visual imagery for psychological treatment of anxiety disorders, depression, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease.

Ancient Greek philosophers conceived imagination, or "phantasia," as working with "pictures" in the sense of mental images. Aristotle, in his work De Anima, identified imagination as a faculty that enables an image to occur within us, a definition associating imagination with a broad range of activities involved in thoughts, dreams, and memories.