Photo: an installation by Haus-Rucker-Co.

S+ Stimulant: Imagination

 

When was the last time you really thought about what imagination is?

Here’s a definition adapted from Wikipedia:

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other physical senses. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world, and it also plays a key role in the learning process.

The common use of the term is for the process of forming new images in the mind that have not been physically experienced.

The world as we experience it is simply an interpretation of data arriving to the brain from the senses; yet it is perceived as real by contrast to most thoughts and imaginings. But some cultures, Australian Aborigines for example, with their concept of Dreamtime, accept the imagined and dreamed realms as equal in validity to the apparently ‘real’ world…

Which leads us to question the true nature of ‘reality.’ Create your own reality. Dream. Imagine.