There are many ways to develop your imagination. To hone your creative abilities, you need to regularly engage in creative tasks, abandon stereotypes, and include a non-standard vision of the world. Einstein believed that without imagination it is impossible to make scientific discoveries, even with knowledge in this field. Without imagination, it is impossible to come up with a new way to solve a problem, a new law, object, mechanism or design.
Exercises to develop imagination.
Both children and adults can do these exercises; there are no restrictions. It is recommended to exercise every day for 30-45 minutes; if time permits, you can practice a couple of times a day.
Unusual objects and words.
Name any two words that come to your mind first. For example, a cat and a dog. Combine these words into one. We got a “cat dog”. Great, you just invented a new word! Now imagine in your head what this new word could look like, how it could be useful in life, what it is for. The exercise can be repeated 2-3 times.
Imaginary friend.
Children and adults can easily try this exercise, you just need to imagine that there is a friend next to you. Every time you need to re-invent the name, gender, age, appearance, character for your imaginary friend, and then the situations in which you found yourself with him. This exercise can be performed once a day, about 45-60 minutes.
Puppet Theatre.
You can act out existing fairy tales in a modern way; playing puppet theater is perfect for both adults and children. Moreover, some can be actors, while others can be spectators. Each time you need to choose a new performance and prepare for it by rehearsing scenes. Rehearsal time usually takes 30 minutes, and it is better to choose a production no longer than an hour.
Playing puppet theater is a great way to develop imagination.
Amazing offers.
You choose any three words at random: to do this, you can open any website and randomly point your mouse at the words. And then you need to use these three words to compose a short story of 5-7 sentences, so that all three words are used in each sentence.
Remember that exercise will not make you a fantasy genius overnight. Usually you need to exercise every day for at least three months to feel the first results.
Ways to develop speech
The verbal method of speech development is more common in schools. It involves oral retelling of stories or memorizing texts. By pronouncing a text, a person improves not only memory, but also diction, which helps improve speech skills. The verbal method also includes describing various toys or paintings without visual contact with the object being described. That is, a person must talk as colorfully as possible about a picture or toy he saw earlier.
A practical way is through intellectual games, in which there is an element of speech development. For example, these could be all kinds of quizzes, dramatizations or educational games.
Games for developing imagination and fantasy.
In addition to exercises that allow you to train your imagination, there are also a whole lot of games that develop your imagination. The games are more suitable for children, but there is nothing wrong with adults playing them.
Strange figures.
For this game you will need paper and multi-colored markers, the first participant draws any one figure, and the other participants take turns adding objects to it. You can play as long as there is space on the sheet, but each player should try to give the picture as much meaning as possible. The finished painting can be hung in a frame
A game for developing imagination is a strange figure.
Inventors.
You can take any items for this game, but the best ones are cubes, construction sets, or even dominoes. Next you need to come up with some kind of object from this and build it, for example a building. Build it, admire it, or even take a photo of it and break it! Don't skimp on your products - this is also part of creativity.
Question answer.
This game requires two people. Start by taking turns asking each other one question, and your partner should describe in detail the situation related to the question and give a colorful answer. For example, if a dog attacks you, what will you do? The answer should be 5-7 sentences.
Developing speech
Naturally, any person’s speech begins to develop from an early age, when children become familiar with their surroundings. However, it is still possible to help them. The main thing is to do it correctly so as not to harm the child.
There are three generally accepted ways of developing speech: visual, practical and verbal. In preschool organizations, a visual method is most often used, which consists in the teacher himself telling children about the world around them.
So, there is a direct version of this method, which involves visiting excursions or simply pointing at one or another object and pronouncing its name. Another option is indirect, which develops speech by describing certain images or toys. Thus, the skills of coherent speech are improved, and the vocabulary of children is consolidated.
The best thing that develops imagination is creativity.
Creativity develops imagination better than games and exercises. Look at famous writers, actors, musicians and singers - they are all people with gigantic imagination and amazing imagination. There are hundreds of creative activities at home that can not only develop your imagination, but also brighten up your time and even gain a profession. Let’s list the main activities:
- drawing;
- modeling;
- embroidery;
- beading;
- singing;
Video on how to develop imagination through drawing.
Reasons for poor imagination
A small child has an underdeveloped sense of imagination, so when we visit a kindergarten or school, teachers “force” our right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for both imagination and creativity, to work. It’s a pity, but the fact remains: it takes a lot of effort to develop imagination and most people practically do not improvise or imagine. The reason for this is:
- fear - fantasy is a journey, and what will happen in it, we will never know in advance. It is fear and uncertainty that prevent our imagination from developing;
- focus on results - improvisation and fantasy are a process that takes place here and now, and when a person wants to immediately see the result or only thinks about what will happen, he often does not bring the imaginary to its logical conclusion, and in the future does not even try to fantasize .
- negative opinion - often we simply say that we have no imagination and do not work on ourselves. And the brain, having received such a negative signal, does not even try to work in this direction, further convincing us of this.
Top 15 tips for developing imagination.
- read many, many books, more than watch TV:
- learn something new;
- visit places you have never been to before;
- look for new sources of inspiration;
- go to exhibitions;
- find a new hobby;
- try working with your other hand;
- invent fairy tales and stories;
- follow fashion and read new magazines;
- subscribe to newsletters about art;
- try dubbing fairy tales, cartoons and movies;
- make new acquaintances and friends;
- try watching a movie without sound;
We hope that the tips, games and exercises from our article will help develop your imagination; remember that you need to practice daily for at least three months!
Techniques
In addition, several methodological techniques can be distinguished. For example, verbal ones, which, in turn, have subtypes:
- Speech samples. When the teacher himself builds a speech that is accessible in form and content. For older children, a correction method is used when the teacher begins to correct the phrase said by the child.
- Repetition. In this case, words or phrases are deliberately repeated several times for memorization purposes. The main thing is to choose a form of learning that is convenient for the child. For example, choral or joint speaking.
- Explanation. This method is used in cases of explaining to a child the concept of a particular object. Also, explanation implies disclosure of the need and properties.
There are also visual techniques that teach correct sound pronunciation and articulation. And gaming ones that attract children into educational games.
Cooperative learning
How to develop creative imagination? Another good method is to come up with ideas together. For example, parents should provoke the child to create a mental image of an unrealistic situation. So, experts advise adults, for example, to find out from their baby what he would do if he had wings, what magical land the child wanted to go to, how he imagines a castle of knights or princesses. The development of fantasy consists in the child’s fascination with one or another thought and its further development.
How to develop imagination? You can ask your child to come up with a short story. Or let it be a whole fairy tale about a situation seen on the street. For example, ask your child to tell you where the cat you met on the road ran to, what she was doing or will do, whether she has kittens, and so on. Here are some tips on how to develop your imagination. Such exercises will be effective if you do them regularly.
The role of imagination in the learning and everyday life of a teenager
Many experienced psychologists and teachers believe that the imagination of adolescents helps them not only develop personally, but also move in the right direction in intellectual development. That is why, more and more often, modern teachers organize a variety of lessons-discussions, assignments-tests, aimed at improving the imaginative thinking of each child.
It has long been noted that children aged three to ten years have an almost limitless imagination. Such kids can come up with anything, often solving complex problems assigned to them using their own imagination. However, approaching adolescence, imagination begins to gradually fade, and if this problem is not dealt with, then upon reaching the age of twenty a person may completely forget how to fantasize. The lack of a vibrant imagination in adults leads to the fact that they cannot think beyond what is permitted, and this negatively affects their career prospects. An employee who is able to come up with a new strategy for the company is much more valuable to his superiors than one who cannot see beyond his own nose.
Why is it so important to develop the imagination of ordinary students, and isn’t it better to actively fight for the progress of logical thinking? Logic is, of course, good, but only imagination can push the boundaries of the possible, allowing a child to think beyond the banal. As a result, having imagination very often helps a child succeed in areas where logic is useless. For example, due to their wild imagination, children can succeed in literature, history and other humanities subjects. Children who have a rich imagination are able to establish those cause-and-effect relationships that teenagers with a normal level of imagination would never have thought of. And here the main task of the teacher is to guide the abilities of his students in the right direction.
Another important function of imagination is the mental creation of what a teenager is thinking about, what he wants to see. For example, in physics lessons, a child may be given the task of making a pendulum from scrap materials, counting the number of its vibrations per minute. To create such a design, it must be imagined in the mind, and this is where the imagination comes into play. Without it, it is impossible to think up or invent something, and even more so without imagination it is impossible to create. Along the way, imagination helps the child to draw the consequences of actions that have not yet been completed, but which he has planned.
By the way, the element of creativity very often becomes an important part of the life of any teenager. Participating in constant school competitions, creating wall newspapers and congratulations for teachers - all this requires a sufficient amount of imagination from the child. When coming up with a design for a wall newspaper or poetic lines for the head teacher, a teenager shows his own imagination in the best possible way.
Many psychologists are confident that imagination has a positive effect on analytical abilities and the development of attention. So, for example, in literature lessons, a teacher can set the task of identifying similar features of the main characters created by Fyodor Dostoevsky. By resurrecting images of heroes in his mind, comparing their characteristics and actively using his imagination, the child will be able to solve the teacher’s problem without any problems.
Imagination also has a positive effect on the development of a child’s memory. Many children manage to imagine so much in a day that they have to hold a lot of ideas and information in their heads. All this has a positive effect on memory development, which in turn affects the learning process. Often a fantasizing teenager also turns out to be very inquisitive. By reading about different cities and countries, about historical events and natural phenomena, a child not only fills his imagination with new ideas, but also increases his own intellectual basis.
Imagination helps a teenager in another important matter, namely long-term planning of his own life. Right now, the child is actively thinking about what to do in the future, where to enroll, and what talents to pay attention to. Thanks to imagination, the analysis of all future prospects can take place in just a few minutes, which in the future has a positive effect on children’s student motivation. So, for example, if a child imagines himself to be a doctor in the future, he begins to actively study biology, mathematics and even dead languages, trying to get closer to his dream. Often, it is fantasies about future successes that help a child confidently move toward his or her intended goal, despite increased school workload.
How to develop imagination?
Developing a child’s imagination and imagination is very important. But these abilities also need to be formed or consolidated in adulthood. From early childhood, a person must accumulate a visual representation of objects. When developing this ability, it is important to look at as many illustrations and objects as possible, focusing on the smallest details. Having carefully memorized an element, you need to mentally imagine it, remembering all the nuances from memory.
Also, developing imagination requires effort. For example, a person engaged in creativity often cannot finish his work, because he simply sits and waits for his imagination to work in the right direction. This way you will not be able to achieve the desired result.
Experts in this field recommend making your imagination work through effort. For example, a person who paints landscapes is advised to visit picturesque places more often, and people who study music are advised to draw their imagination from other compositions.
Only the ability of mental concentration can provoke the development of imagination, which subsequently begins to act in the right direction.
Thus, there are two main directions in the development of imagination:
- recreating, when a person restores in memory the previously seen images of heroes of books, stories and other literature;
- creative, when a person independently comes up with the appearance of the heroes of stories, novels and other things.
How to develop creativity?
Every person is endowed with some set of creative abilities at birth. In some people they are naturally more developed, in others less. In the second case, when creative abilities are poorly formed, you can try to develop them using several methods. However, parents should understand that it is recommended to do this even in preschool age. After all, it is during this period that children are most liberated.
So, we develop imagination and creativity. What do we have to do? First of all, such abilities develop well during games. Even the usual construction of a tower can contribute to this. After all, children learn to improve, which means they will begin to modify the constructed structure, adding or, conversely, removing some details.
You can also develop creative abilities through modeling, drawing, singing and other activities of this kind. In addition, attending a music school is very useful. Therefore, experts recommend sending children to such institutions from early childhood.
Awaken creativity: 19 practices and exercises for adults
I am often asked:
— How to become creative if childhood is long behind you? Everything works out so well for the little ones, but what about the adults?
Is it really “boss, everything is gone. .."?…
“No, not at all,” I answer, “I would like to work with my own creative component (which is already a requirement of the time, and not a whim), because recipes for help have been invented... wow, so many!”
So, today is a selection of exercises, games and practices that will boost your creativity. I know some of them from my own experience. Others were discovered thanks to the materials of the FFF group | Thinking | Creativity | TRIZ – where useful information is generously shared (thanks to them!!!)
Ideas receive an impulse to “awaken” thanks to both objects of the real world and images and associations born inside the head)) So there is something for almost every taste.
I’ve roughly divided everything into 3 levels according to the degree of labor involved (again, this is subjective: it will be easier for someone to meditate than to find an orange sticky note to write on))
Another important point: it all seems frivolous, as if adults are forced to play with spillikins... In fact, any “delusional generation” is a wonderful way to remove the clamps from the series “all my ideas are bad, I can’t think of anything.” When you play and fool around on purpose, the inner critic becomes silent, making way for new ideas, and that’s what we need...
I level of difficulty - can be done easily and quickly
1. Add colors.
Color is known to affect emotions and mood.
It's funny that on the Internet there is a variety of data about what color makes ideas move in your head))
I suggest taking pens, markers and colored stickers to experimentally choose the color that most stimulates creativity in you personally))
The options are as follows:
- Yellow – awakens a craving for creativity, imagination
- Orange – Unveils creativity and enthusiasm
- Red – activates inspiration
- Purple – gives birth to new ideas
- Blue and blue - help to create associations and solve mysteries
2. Change the situation.
We are often inspired by a beautiful view from a window, fresh air, or a look at a familiar room from a different angle. So feel free to move your desk, sit on a windowsill, or just take a walk—you may get new ideas in a new place.
3. Take pictures of interesting things around you (fortunately, progress has reached the point that a good camera on a phone is a companion for every homo sapiens)).
It is important to learn to constantly notice an unusual leaf, cloud, graffiti, pattern or road sign.
4. Come up with as many abbreviations as possible.
Any letters that can be used to create words in Russian will do.
For example, CAT
- Tourist Protection Committee
- Kilometers of orange trapezoids
- When will the slippers be given back?
- Whale inspecting Tahiti
- The crown was pulled away by a tapir
- Someone very creative
5. Draw a picture, say, house-tree-person , using only circles or only triangles or only squares.
6. Create a character according to the instructions:
7. Play an advanced version of association.
Its peculiarity is that to play you need to use all channels of perception. It is important to train them because the more channels of perception we activate, the more effective our interactions with people and the world around us will be.
How to play:
One participant names a word, the other responds with six nouns, each of which is associated with one of the senses:
eyes (associations by color, shape, size) ears (associations by sound) tongue (taste associations) nose (associations by smell) vestibular apparatus (associations by movement and position in space) skin (tactile associations)
The only important rule is that you need to answer immediately, without thinking, without analyzing, without going into searches for a logically justified option.
Example: apple by color - tomato (especially unripe tomatoes are similar in their red-green color) by sound - snow (the crunch of snow resembles the crunch of an apple when bitten) by taste - honey (the taste of apples often resembles the taste of honey) by smell - summer (summer often associated with the smell of apples) by movement - a ball (it also bounces elastically when falling to the ground) by sensation - a candle (its surface is smooth, waxy to the touch)
8. Find as many ways as possible to use ordinary things.
As a mental warm-up, we take the first object that catches our eye. We come up with at least 10 options for using it for other purposes. Let's say a newspaper is a very useful thing, it turns out))
And here is a clear example of the resources of a tin can.
9. Look at abstract paintings and come up with names for them.
Level II difficulty - requires a little more time and effort
10. Develop the ability to use two hands (ambidexterity).
For example:
- perform routine actions with the other hand: brushing teeth, pouring water, putting on salad, operating a smartphone - all this is a good way to get new sensations
- draw (spirals, infinity sign, symmetrical drawings) and write words with 2 hands at the same time, so that it turns out mirror-like.
11. Imagine and develop the idea that something that seems familiar and natural has disappeared from our lives.
This technique is called magical subtraction ; by the way, it is often used by science fiction writers to create new realities.
For example, what would happen if all metal objects disappeared on Earth?
While you are thinking, I will remember the outlandish continent of Arvaroch by Max Fry, there were no metals there, but instead parts of trees and skeletons of various fish were used (it’s good to be an author and invent your own universes, yes, but familiar fantasy techniques help with this!)
12. Draw, photograph, or otherwise figuratively express a character trait (your own or someone else’s, one that you want to get rid of or, on the contrary, acquire) , an aphorism or a song.
13. Select any object no larger than the palm of your hand and, after finishing drawing it, make it part of a new picture.
This is what Rafael Mantesso does.
Or Victor Nunez.
14. Come up with a mini-story.
Write 4-5 events that are not related to each other. Ask someone else to do the same. Arbitrarily pair events and come up with a short cause-and-effect relationship between them.
For example:
A yellow leaf was swinging on a branch. — There were fins in the closet.
A yellow leaf was swinging on a branch. The wind tore it off, and raindrops pinned it to the ground. The rain quickly intensified and soon the leaf was floating in a huge puddle. The puddle blocked everyone's passage to the house. It's good that there were fins in the closet!
To complicate matters, you can weave arbitrary words into the story: vegetarian, crush, Eskimo, bubble, suitcase...
15. Try sky-art.
As for me, this is a truly St. Petersburg method, invented, however, by the Frenchman Thomas Lamadieu. He was the first to add celestial “patches” of courtyard wells to photographs.
All you need is to take as a basis a photograph of the sky, outlined by the walls of houses, and turn it using a simple graphic editor (such as Paint))) into a new inhabitant of the airspace!
III level of difficulty - for creativity sensei))
16. Practice “morning pages” or freewriting.
This method is described by Mark Levy, in his opinion, this is a cornerstone method in unlocking creative reserves, especially for non-engineering minds (he, as the author, of course, has the right to think so)). The trick is to write continuously in a limited time, so that the hand writes faster than the brain can think. Thus, the intuitive has time to appear, bypassing mental blocks.
Freewriting can be a spontaneous stream of consciousness, or it can be on a given topic, when a question or thesis is a stimulus for thought.
I’ll tell you about the thematic version of “100 Questions”. The point is that you need to write down 100 questions in a row that will arise in your head without stopping. Freewriting gurus claim that after question 60 there is a breakthrough to a new level of ideas)
17. Meditate to get the impetus for non-standard problem solving.
Here's the proof from science: Scientists from Leiden University in the Netherlands found that meditation promotes creative thinking. Meditation weakens synaptic connections in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and helps it “refresh its settings.” Meditation gives impetus to new ideas and innovative solutions to complex problems.
18. Try yourself as a spy.
What to do? For example, look at a stranger in transport or a passerby and try to guess what this person does, who he works for, what character traits he has.
There is independent research evidence that such subtle observations actually awaken intuition.
19. Read science fiction as often as possible.
This advice from G.S. Altshuller gave to everyone who wanted to become an inventor.
What other ways do you know to awaken your imagination? Share!
LiveJournal
Games, creativity, Development of Creative Imagination, creativity
You may also be interested in: 25 Winter Activities for Creative Leisure
Focal object method
TRIZ games for preschoolers, part 2
19 activities for creative development
How to develop imagination?
The development of fantasy often comes with the development of imagination. Therefore, these two abilities are often improved simultaneously.
How to develop fantasy and imagination? To do this, it is recommended to read literature to the child from early childhood that helps improve these abilities. For example, children will benefit from listening to short stories at a very early age, and novels and science fiction literature as adults.
The main thing when teaching a child is to explain to him that this ability is extremely necessary. After all, it is from this that the possibility of imagination arises.
