Creative Imagination - What Causes It?
Have you ever used creative imagination to write a novel to be published? Write a piece of music that has been performed? Draw, paint or sculpt a purchased visual art work? Of course, you don't have to be a musician to listen to a musician to imagine an original tune or color and form in your head. Perhaps you had creative moments like a great solo run on the playground, a penetrating pass, or a great shot at goal from an impossible-to-see angle.
Creative imagination is a tricky phenomenon where something new and somehow valuable happens. It involves looking at possibilities beyond existing constraints. This moment of clarity is often vivid, and can take the form of a grand vision, or "seeing" of something that has not been seen before. Like Archimedes' 'Eureka moment', jumping from his bath when he experienced a leap of understanding about the theory of displacement.
General experience of creative imagination
In normal life, we can unintentionally encounter alternatives to reality when we think "if only ..." and imagine something original or a new perspective emerges that sheds light on the mundane. The basic solution to any unique practical problem of daily living requires an element of creativity.
One can also be creative in what the person says in day to day conversations. To be entertaining to entertain, to say something resourceful to help someone overcome difficulty, or to be inventive to encourage interest.
Then how to calculate creative imagination? Where does it come from?
A humanist perspective on creative imagination
The contemporary concept of creativity in humans began during the Renaissance and became more pronounced as an intellectual movement at the time of enlightenment. Creation was thought to originate from the abilities of the individual and not from God the creator. Humanism became a leading intellectual movement. It was a deeply human-centered view on the world, evaluating a person's intelligence and achievement. A natural way of thinking with the development of science.
Natural brain processes
Scientists often believe that creative imagination is the same thing, which is different thinking. Convergent thinking involves the goal of a single, correct solution to a problem, while divergent thinking involves the creation of multiple answers for a set problem.
According to the current science of cognitive psychology, divergent thinking is a process of creative imagination involving the natural processes of the brain. They use functions like memory, logic, visualization, association, etc. They run in the background of our conscious mind.
Scientists generally believe that only brain activity leads to illumination or insight. Creative thought moves from its pre-conscious processing to conscious awareness.
Search for cake
Thus, many scientists today think of creative imagination as a result of interactions only between one's current knowledge and information obtained from the world.
An example, purported to illustrate this idea of creative imagination, is the flash of cake light about the ring structure of the benzene molecule. The discovery made the chemistry of aromatic compounds possible. When he imagined rows of atoms moving in motion like a snake, the banana was a dozen. One of the snakes chased his tail and thus formed a pattern by holding the catch.
Materialist commentators looked for other experiences that may play a role. Prior to being a chemist, Kekele trained his visual perception in the field of architecture. He admitted that he must have been at the zoo in the morning and could see some dance performances in the afternoon. It is the experience of these coincidental coincidences that he thinks contributed to his novel insights.
A transparent view on creative imagination
An alternative perspective is that creativity, moreover, comes from the unseen beyond the individual. To inspire is to breathe in the life it gives. We often find ourselves agitated and moved. But we do not know where inspiration comes from. I think I know the reason for this. When people focus on worldly things, they do not believe in any flood from the higher realm.
The ancient Greeks often accepted Moses as drawing inspiration from the gods. Later, the Greeks and Romans invoked the concept of an external creative "daemon" or "genius", associated with the sacred or divine.
Effort and creative imagination
"My creative process involves that old saying: It's 90% sweat and only 10% inspiration." (Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor at Harvard Business School)
While motivation is not the same as effort, striving for motivation is an essential condition, preparing the mind for an inspirational experience. In addition, research suggests that creative imagination leads to new experiences with an open mind.
This raises the question of whether creativity involves personal motivation that is open to both and functions in a world of new possibility. Of course, if we fill good things in bottles that are flowing from us, we cannot expect to get more; First good needs to flow within us. The more you put in something, the more you get out of it. This motivation is different from pursuing your own agenda and achieving your own way or jumping to conclusions based on your own prejudices. Thus barriers to creativity include making decisions and striving for self-benefit.
Spiritual world
According to the mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, we believe that each of us is the originator of our thoughts and desires. However, he said that a flow of thoughts and impulses comes to our mind, which he calls the 'spiritual world', which consists of various communities of souls of survivors of physical death. His presence inspires thoughts and images in our subjective consciousness.
How open are you to experiencing creative imagination? Can inspiration come from a transcendent dimension? And if so, what are the consequences of this understanding for you personally?
As a clinical psychologist, Stephen Russell-Lassie has specialized in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, working with distressed and disturbed adults for many years.
