Heroes Not Zombies

I like this photo of a forest at night, lit just by moonlight. There’s something gently beautiful about moonlight. It stimulates the imagination.

Imagination must be one of our most remarkable powers. We use to see into the future, even the immediate future as we find our way from one place to another.

We use our imagination to make maps. Dan Seigel, the psychiatrist and neuroscientist who coined the term “Mindsight” said that we use the very front part of the brain to make three kinds of maps – a me map, a you map and a we map. These are special kinds of maps or patterns that we imagine to enable us to know ourselves and others.

We use our imagination to put ourselves in the shoes of others, to feel empathy and compassion.

We use our imagination to express ourselves creatively. It seems we are the most creative of all the species, painting, singing, dancing and telling stories.

We are essentially story tellers, which would be impossible without imagination.

We use imagination to solve problems, to create solutions and find ways out of difficult places.

However imagination does something else too….it shows us possible futures including the one where we don’t exist any more. It could be that we humans are the only creatures able to imagine our own deaths. We know we are mortal and that can be difficult to bear.

Fear would be impossible without imagination, and existential fear, the fear of death, is thought to be at the root of all fear. After all people don’t really fear flying in a plane. They fear crashing in a plane and dying.

Imagination stirs our curiosity too, though. When we think about the future we don’t fear it all the time. Rather we wonder about it, anticipate it, can feel excited about it, the way children look forward to Christmas.

I think imagination is something we all have. But we all use it differently.

How about you? What are you going to use your imagination for today?