Imagination is the mental capacity to represent the images of real or ideal things. It is also an image created by fantasy. Sometimes this term is used to talk about an idea or suspicion that has no foundation, especially when used in the plural. It also means facility to create, devise or project new things. It comes from the Latin imaginatĭo, -ōnis.

Imagination and creativity

In Psychology, the imagination and creative processes of the human mind are studied. These capacities are especially valued in the artistic field but also in other fields, since imagination and creative capacity allow us to obtain new solutions, provide different points of view and relationships with concepts and ideas in an innovative way. These characteristics suppose a positive element whenever they have an adaptive element, it is not a simple invention. All human beings have imagination and creativity, since it is an innate capacity. Despite this, some people are often considered to be more imaginative and creative. This ability can be trained and improved through stimulation.

Types of Imagination

Imagination can be divided into two types based on the type of images it uses. The reproductive imagination uses images perceived through the senses. So it uses memory. Depending on the stimulus, one can speak, in turn, of visual, auditory or motor imagination. The creative imagination uses non-perceived images, being these real or unreal. This type of imagination does not create or elaborate new images. Depending on the images used, in turn, the creative imagination can be plastic (more concrete) or difluent (more abstract and subjective). When the task of the creative imagination is oriented to activities related to art, it is called artistic imagination. One speaks of scientific imagination when the objective of this process has a practical utility.

The sociological imagination

The sociological imagination is the title of a book by the American sociologist Charles Wright Mills published in 1959. This term used could be defined as the mental quality of the human being that helps to use information to understand the biography from the knowledge of what happens in the world. It consists of understanding the historical scenario in a broad way in terms of its meaning for the inner life of the human being and its outer trajectory. It allows them to locate themselves in their time and to know their possibilities in life in relation to the understanding of those of the individuals who find themselves in their same circumstances. With his biography, the human being contributes to shaping society and the course of its history, and he himself is formed by it and its historical impulse.