How to develop imagination and imaginative thinking. Fantasy and its functions, how to develop fantasy

At visualization his dreams when you need to very vividly imagine the moment of fulfillment of this desire, important role plays well-developed creativity. The ability to imagine your desire at the end point is an important component of the fulfillment of your desire. That's about how to develop your imagination, and will be discussed in this article.

Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds. And some even believe that this is not given to them, because they tried it once and saw nothing, they are disappointed and never return to this again good assistant upon achieving the desired. Meanwhile, it has been absolutely proven that absolutely everyone is endowed with imagination. Simply, for those who do not use imagination, this function of our body atrophies, but can be “brought back to life” again.

Developing your skill visualize, You develop yours too. You need to understand that there is no perfect way to learn to imagine something in your imagination. After all, each person is individual, so you need to choose the method that is more suitable for you and your feelings. Try the simple methods described below. It is quite possible that they will be suitable for you.

Exercises to develop imagination:

1. Relax, close your eyes, and imagine a number in front of you 1 – red, gradually it changes to digital 2 orange, after which the number 3 appears yellow color. The number 4 will be green and the number 5 will be blue, followed by the number 6, which will be blue, and the last digit 7 purple.

This arrangement of colors in numbers corresponds to the order of colors in the chakras. To make it easy to remember these colors, use a hint familiar to everyone from childhood: Every Hunter Wants to Know Where goes Fazan. This is the arrangement of colors in a rainbow.

2. Pick up some simple object. It could be a notepad, a saucer, a handkerchief, a knitting needle, plastic bottle, mobile phone etc. Look at it carefully and remember how it feels in your hands, that is, you need to remember exactly your feelings from touching this object. Now put it down and, closing your eyes, try to imagine it in your imagination as best you can. Open your eyes and look at those details of the object that you could not imagine the first time.

It often happens that we look at an object, but then we cannot describe it, because we perceive the object as a whole, without stopping at the little things. Close your eyes again and try to imagine the object with those nuances that you did not notice at first. I think the meaning of the exercise is clear to you. Do this exercise several times throughout the day with different objects. Allow 3-4 minutes for this between tasks.

3. Now let's complicate the task a little. The exercise not only develops imagination, but also memory. You need to take 2-3 simple objects, put them in front of you and remember the location. Closing your eyes, imagine these objects. When you are good at presenting these objects, you can take objects that have a lot of small details, colors or patterns.

4. This exercise is also more complex. We must imagine any geometric figure: circle, square, pentagon, just a line. When you manage to imagine this figure, try to spin it. Then stop and spin in the other direction. What is important here is not the creation of an object in your imagination, but the unwinding and stopping of a figure that already exists in your imagination.
Try to look at this figure from all sides as it spins. If you do this without much difficulty, then paint each side a certain color and rotate the figure.

5. This is a method where you come up with exercises for yourself. Suppose you are traveling on public transport. Occupy your mind development of imagination. You can imagine anything here.

You can imagine what your living room will look like if the sofa is moved to the middle of the room and the TV is raised from the bedside table to the wall. This is the room with this rearrangement that you should see. Or imagine your living room in a different color scheme.

If you are going to go somewhere, then first imagine yourself in the clothes in which you have already decided to go. And then imagine how you will look if you wear a different blouse. Once you learn how to do the first four exercises, this exercise will be easy. Moreover, the choice of clothes for going out is based on assumptions about how you will look in it, that is, the imagination is already at work.

A good imagination is one of the best tools in the world for achieving success! The most successful people, as a rule, are creative individuals and imagination plays an important role in their lives. By imagining something, a person learns to do it faster. Do you also want to develop your imagination? Then just skip to step one!

Steps

Part 1

Developing our imagination

Dream. Daydreaming is a process that helps to build various logical connections and remember information without taking a lot of time. Daydreaming is far from a meaningless activity. In fact, it promotes a state of high concentration and engagement. While you are dreaming, a completely brilliant idea may suddenly come to your mind!

• Try not to be distracted by the computer/video games/Internet/cinema, etc. If you are constantly distracted by various little things, your brain will not be able to concentrate and perceive information.
• The best times to daydream are in the morning (right before you get out of bed) and at night (before you fall asleep). A regular walk without headphones with music and other distractions is also suitable for daydreaming.

1. Look for new experiences. Be open, don't be afraid to try new things. New experience can bring a lot of emotions and become food for thought and fantasy. For example, while attending a cooking class, you already begin to dream about how you will spend your vacation visiting different cafes and eating different delicacies. New experiences always open up new possibilities and develop imagination.

   • Of course, you shouldn’t go to the other side of the world to do something and gain experience. Just the opposite! Take a closer look at your surroundings. You can always go to different lectures and clubs. Try to find a new hobby, take up gardening, or simply walk around places in your city that you have not yet visited.

2. Watch people. In a cafe, subway, or on a park bench, watch people passing by. Make up stories and stories about these people, think about what could happen to them in life, use your imagination, empathize with them or be sincerely happy. Perhaps, by observing people, you will suddenly find the answer to a question that has long interested you.

3. Make art. It doesn't matter what type of art you decide to pursue. The main thing is that you should try to express yourself in it. Don't follow templates and stereotypes, do what you like best. For example, if you are drawing, then draw the sun not yellow, as we are used to seeing it in pictures, but green. Use your imagination to make your drawings unique.

   • You can try any other type of art, for example, writing poetry, sculpting with clay. Remember that you don't have to be a master at this. The point is to develop your imagination, not to become a world-class artist or sculptor.

4. Spend as little time as possible on the media. Movies, TV shows, Internet, computer games- all this is very fun and interesting, but don’t get carried away, otherwise your creative potential will begin to noticeably decrease.

   • Nowadays, people, especially children, are turning into consumers rather than creators. They do not create anything, but only follow already invented patterns.
   • You should control yourself. For example, when you are bored, try not to turn on the computer or TV. Use this free time in order to sit in silence and calmly think and dream about something.

   Part 2

   Use your imagination

   1. Look for creative solutions! Once you have become a habit of using your imagination, it will not be difficult for you to come up with creative ways way out of any situation. This means that a good imagination will help you go beyond limits and come up with new ways to solve any problem.

      • One of the problems that most people often face is limitation. In the sense that a person who has a less developed imagination will be able to come up with fewer solutions to a given issue, focusing his attention only on the proposed subject (situation) and without going beyond. In one experiment, people were given the following task: they had to touch two opposite walls with a rope hanging from the ceiling. The only additional item in the room is pliers. Most subjects could not find a solution, which was to tie the pliers to the rope (i.e., use the pliers as a weight) and why swing it by touching opposite walls.
      • Practice coming up with creative solutions by walking around your home. When you come across some obstacles, think about how you can get around them, come up with something non-standard. Take a closer look at different objects and try to imagine what you can do with them and where you can use them. Every thing has a set of functions that it performs, but that doesn't mean it can't be used for something else!

   2. Don't be afraid of failure and failure. Sometimes your imagination cannot help you, sometimes you simply cannot use it due to fatigue or inability. But there are a couple of tricks that will help spark your imagination so that you can use it at any time.

      • Ask yourself how you would solve this problem if there were no bad solutions. Think about what you could do if you knew there would be no consequences.
      • Think about what your first step would be if you could use any resources, sources, or items to solve the problem.
      • What would you do if you could ask anyone in the world for advice?
      • By answering these questions, you clear your mind of any possibility of failure, which in turn opens you up to any possible solution to the problem. Of course, everything won’t work out right away, and you won’t be able to find a creative approach to every situation, but by following these tips, you will significantly improve your imagination.

   3. Visualize! Use your imagination to imagine different situations that may happen in your life. For example, you might imagine yourself winning a competition and receiving a reward when you are just training to compete in the competition.

(3 votes: 5 out of 5)

First, let's look at what imagination and fantasy are? These are types of thinking, this is the ability to mentally imagine what is not there from what is in memory. In other words, imagination is an active creative process of creating new knowledge (new ideas) from old knowledge. What is the difference between fantasy and imagination? If imagination is the ability to mentally create new ideas and images of possible and impossible objects based on real knowledge, then fantasy is also the creation of new, but unrealistic, fabulous, yet impossible situations and objects, say, but also on based on real knowledge. For example: the winged horse Pegasus, the Death's Head in Pushkin's fairy tale "Ruslan and Lyudmila", the fables of Baron Munchausen, Pinocchio, the Steadfast Tin Soldier - these are fantastic images.

There are several types of imagination:

1. Recreating is the representation of images according to a pre-compiled description, for example, when reading books, poems, notes, drawings, mathematical symbols. Otherwise, this type of imagination is called reproductive, reproducing, remembering.

2. Creative is self-creation new images according to our own ideas. Children call this “out of the head.” It is this type of imagination that will be the subject of our study and development in children.

3. The uncontrollable is what is called a “wild fantasy,” an absurdity, a set of unrelated absurdities.

How is fantasy and imagination different from serious problem solving?

When imagining, the child himself creates any plot he wants, including a fairy tale, any situation he wants, any problem he wants, and solves it himself in any way he wants. Any solution is acceptable. And when solving real problems, the child is looking not for any solution, but for a real, “adult”, serious, feasible solution. In both cases, he creates, but with fantasy there is more freedom, since there are no prohibitions from physical laws and much knowledge is not required. That is why it is better to begin the development of children’s thinking with the development of imagination.

What is the difference between fantasy and stupidity?

When fantasy is harmful, it becomes stupidity. Stupidity is a stupid, ridiculous, unnecessary, unreasonable, incorrect, harmful, inappropriate act or statement that does not bring honor to the one who committed it. Of course, one must take into account the person’s age, conditions and goals of the action.

Is all fantasy good? There is a general criterion for assessing the quality of all affairs on Earth - this is an increase in goodness in the world.

The classic vehicle of fantasy is the fairy tale.

What is the difference between a fairy tale and science fiction? In science fiction, technically feasible situations, elements or processes are considered, and in a fairy tale, any. It should be noted that there is also no sharp boundary between fantastic and real solutions. For example, what was considered fantasy in the time of Jules Verne is now everyday reality. G. A. Altshuller calculated that out of 108 (!) ideas and forecasts of J. Verne, 99 (90%) were implemented. Herbert Wells has 77 out of 86, Alexander Belyaev has 47 out of 50.

When a child selflessly tells fables with his own participation, he is not lying; in our usual understanding, he is composing. It doesn't matter to him whether it's real or not real. And this shouldn’t be important to us, what’s important is that the child’s brain works and generates ideas. However, you should still pay attention to what the child dreams of. If he talks all the time about his non-existent friends, about gentle parents or about toys, then maybe he suffers, dreams about it and thus pours out his soul? Help him immediately.

Why develop fantasy and imagination?

They say: “Without imagination there is no consideration.” A. Einstein considered the ability to imagine higher than knowledge, because he believed that without imagination it is impossible to make discoveries. K. E. Tsiolkovsky believed that cold mathematical calculation is always preceded by imagination.

Sometimes in everyday life fantasy and imagination are understood as something empty, unnecessary, lightweight, and not having any practical application. In fact, as practice has shown, a well-developed, bold, controlled imagination is an invaluable property of original, non-standard thinking.

It is difficult for children to think “according to the laws,” but if they are taught to fantasize and not be criticized for it, then children fantasize easily and with pleasure, especially if they are also praised.

Apparently, this is how children subconsciously learn to think - through play. We need to take advantage of this and develop imagination and imagination from early childhood. Let children “invent their own bicycles.” Anyone who did not invent bicycles as a child will not be able to invent anything at all.

How to develop fantasy and imagination in children?

There are three laws of development creative imagination:

1. The creative activity of the imagination is directly dependent on the richness and diversity of the past personal experience person.

Indeed, every imagination is built from real elements; the richer the experience, the richer the imagination. Hence the corollary: we need to help the child accumulate experience, images and knowledge (erudition) if we want him to be a creative person.

2. You can imagine something that you haven’t seen yourself, but have heard or read about, that is, you can fantasize based on someone else’s experience. For example, you can imagine an earthquake or a tsunami, although you have never seen it. Without training it is difficult, but possible.

Ways to develop fantasy and imagination

Let's list the main ways to develop fantasy and imagination, and then consider methods for developing creative imagination. It is ideal if the child himself wants and develops his fantasy and imagination. How to achieve this?

1. Create motivation!

2. Convince that fantasizing is not a shame, but is very prestigious and useful for the child personally. They don't understand this yet. You need a game and bright emotions. Children's logic is not yet strong.

3. It should be interesting to fantasize. Then, having fun, the child will quickly master the ability to fantasize, and then the ability to imagine, and then to think rationally. Preschoolers are interested not in reasoning, but in events.

4. Make children fall in love with you (attraction). On this “wave of love” they trust you more and listen more willingly.

5. By my own example. In early childhood, children copy the behavior of adults; it would be a shame not to take advantage of this. You are an authority for the child.

• at a tender age (2-6 years) - fairy tales, fantasy stories;
• in adolescence (7-14) - fantasy adventure novels (Jules Verne, Belyaev, Conan Doyle, Wells);
• in youth and in adulthood - good science fiction literature (Efremov, Strugatsky, Azimov, etc.).

Teach children to admire good imagination.

7. Stimulate imagination with questions. For example: “What happens if you grow wings. Where would you fly?

8. Putting children in difficult situations. Let them think for themselves and find a way out. Here, for example, is a classic problem: children are stranded on a desert island, how to survive?

9. “Give” children interesting plots and ask them to compose stories, fairy tales, and histories based on them.

10. Teach the following techniques for developing imagination and fantasizing.

Using the techniques below does not eliminate the need to think. Techniques “not instead of”, but “to help” fantasy, techniques indicate the directions of thinking. Knowledge of fantasy techniques leads children to mastering “adult” techniques for resolving contradictions and solving inventive problems.

Techniques for developing fantasy and imagination

Children know quite a lot of phenomena and laws of nature (for example, that all objects fall down, that heavy objects sink, liquids spill and do not have their own shape, water freezes, wood, paper, a candle burn). This knowledge is quite enough to fantasize fruitfully, but children do not know how to fantasize, that is, they do not know the techniques of fantasy.

Most fantasy techniques are associated with changes in laws or natural phenomena. Everything can be changed: any law of living and inanimate nature, any social law, the law can act the other way around, you can come up with completely new laws, you can exclude some current laws, laws can be made to act or not to act at will, temporarily, periodically or unpredictably; You can change any living creature: people (all people have become honest!), animals, plants.

Below are 35 fantasy techniques:

1. Increase - decrease.

This is the simplest technique, it is widely used in fairy tales, epics, and fantasy. For example, Thumbelina, Thumb, Gulliver, Lilliputians, Gargantua and Pantagruel. You can increase and decrease almost everything: geometric dimensions, weight, height, volume, richness, distances, speeds.

It can be increased indefinitely from actual sizes to infinitely large and can be reduced from actual to zero, that is, until complete destruction.

Here are conversation games for mastering the “increase-decrease” technique.

1.1. The child is told: “Here is a magic wand, it can increase or decrease whatever you want. What would you like to increase and what would you like to decrease?

— I would like to reduce my vocal lessons and increase my free time.
— I would like to reduce homework.
— I want to enlarge the candy to the size of a refrigerator so that I can cut off pieces with a knife.
— I want to enlarge the raindrops to the size of a watermelon.

1.2. Complicate this game with additional questions: “What will come of this? Where it leads? Why do you want to increase or decrease?”

“Let your arms temporarily become so long that you can take an apple from a branch, or say hello through a window, or get a ball from the roof, or turn off the TV without getting up from the table.”
- If the trees in the forest shrink to the size of grass, and the grass to the size of a matchstick, then it will be easy to look for mushrooms.
— If it is difficult for a child to fantasize independently, offer to fantasize together, ask him supporting questions.

1.3.What will happen if our nose lengthens for a while?

- You will be able to smell the flowers in the flowerbed without leaving your home; it will be possible to determine what delicious food your neighbors are preparing;
- That's good, but what's bad about it?
“There will be nowhere to put such a long nose, it will interfere with walking, traveling in public transport, even sleeping will be uncomfortable, and in winter it will freeze.” No, I don't need that nose.

Invite your child to say what good and what bad will happen if we increase or decrease something. Who will be good and who will be bad? This is already a moral analysis of the situation.

1.4. Tell me, what will be good and what will be bad for you personally and for others if a wizard enlarges you 10 times? If your child finds it difficult to guess, help him with additional questions.

-What size will you be then?
- How many kilograms will you weigh?

- What will happen if your height decreases by 10 times?
- Agree, it would be great if you could change your height at will. For example, you are late for school: you increased the length of your legs or the frequency of your steps and quickly got to school, and then made your legs of normal length. Or another case. We need to cross the river, but there is no bridge nearby. No problem!
- I will be 15 m tall! This is the height of a five-story building!

Regarding weight, this is tricky question. Usually the answer is: 10 times more. In fact, if you maintain all the proportions of the body, your weight will increase 1000 times! If a person weighed 50 kg, then he will weigh 50 tons! I will run faster than a car. I will be strong, and no one will dare to offend me, and I will be able to protect anyone. I will be able to bear enormous weights. I wonder which ones? Typically a person can lift half their body weight. Then I can lift 25 tons! This is good. What will be bad?

I won't fit in the class. You will have to sew huge clothes and shoes. It will be very difficult to feed me. If we assume that a person eats 2% of his body weight per day, then I will need food weighing 1 ton. I won't fit on any bus. Even on the street I will have to walk, bending under the wires. I won't have anywhere to live.

2. Adding one or more fantastic properties to one person or many people (as fragments or preparations for future fantastic works).

The technique of this type of fantasy is similar to the focal object method:

a) select several arbitrary objects of animate and/or inanimate nature;
b) formulate their properties, qualities, features or character traits. You can come up with new properties “out of your head”;
c) they endow a person with formulated properties and qualities.

For example, an eagle was chosen as an object (“property donor”). Qualities of an eagle: flies, has excellent eyesight, eats rodents, lives in the mountains.

- A man can fly like an eagle. It can be added: it can fly in the stratosphere, in near and deep space.
- A person has super-acute eagle vision, for example, he sees cells of living tissues, crystal lattices of metals, even atoms without a microscope; he sees the surface of stars and planets without a telescope and better than with a telescope. He sees through walls, walks down the street and sees what is happening in houses, and even penetrates walls himself, like an X-ray.
- Man eats eagle food - rodents, birds.
— The man is covered with feathers.

Continue fantasizing using this method, taking as the initial object: an electric light bulb, a fish (remember the amphibian man), a watch, glasses, a match, suspended animation (a sharp slowdown in life processes is very convenient: there is no money for food or nowhere to live - you fall into suspended animation) or the opposite of suspended animation (a sharp increase in life processes, a person does not know fatigue, moves with incredible speed, such a person will make a wonderful illusionist, or a runner, or an invincible fighter).

2.1. Think of sense organs that a person does not have, but could have.
For example, it would be a good idea to sense the presence of radiation in order to protect yourself from it. Generally speaking, we feel it when we suffer from radiation sickness.
It would be nice to feel nitrides and nitrates and other contaminants. There is a wonderful and rare feeling - this is a sense of proportion, not everyone has it.
It would be nice to feel when you make a mistake and when danger is approaching (figuratively speaking, the red light would light up in this case).

2.2. The time will come and it will be possible to change internal organs. What might this look like?

2.3. Color-code people according to their moral qualities. For example, all honest people turned pink, all dishonest people turned purple, and all evil people turned blue. How more people made mean, the darker the color. Describe what will happen to the world? Many probably would not have left the house.

3. An animated drawing.

You have received a wonderful gift, everything you draw comes to life! What would you draw?
Great people? Endangered animals?
New animals and plants?

4. Exclusion of certain human qualities.

List the properties and qualities of a person, and then exclude one or two properties and see what happens.

- The man is not sleeping.
— The person does not feel pain.
— The person has lost weight and sense of smell.

Name at least 10 vital qualities and properties of a person and think about the consequences of their loss.

5. Transformation of a person into any object.

A person turns into another person, into animals (birds, beasts, insects, fish), into plants (into oak, rose, baobab), into objects of inanimate nature (stone, wind, pencil). This is rich material for new fairy tales.

But the most important thing in this technique is the development of empathy - the ability to transform into another image and look at the world through his eyes.

Offer at least 10 examples of human transformation, for example in fairy tales.

6. Anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism is the assimilation of a person, the endowment of human properties (speech, thinking, the ability to feel) of any objects - animate and inanimate: animals, plants, celestial bodies, mythical creatures.

Have you seen anywhere in the world
Are you young princess?
I'm her fiancé. - My brother,
— The clear month answers, —
I have not seen the red maiden...

Here Pushkin endowed the month with the ability to see, recognize, sympathize and speak.

Remember 10 examples of anthropomorphism from fairy tales, myths and fables you know and come up with at least 10 examples of possible anthropomorphism yourself.

7. Giving inanimate objects the abilities and qualities of living beings.

Namely: the ability to move, think, feel, breathe, grow, rejoice, reproduce, joke, smile.

— The boy sits astride a stick and imagines it as a horse and himself as a rider.
- What living creature would you turn a balloon into?

Come up with at least 10 examples of such transformations.

8. Giving inanimate objects extraordinary properties.

For example, a stone. It glows, is always warm (never gets cold!), you can warm your hands in cold weather, makes the water sweet and healing, and does not dissolve.

Contemplation of the stone inspires you to write poetry and paint, etc.

Here good game for the development of imagination. Children (or adults) stand in a circle. They give it to one soft toy or a ball and ask to throw it to someone with warm words: “I’m giving you a little bunny,” or “Yurochka, I’m giving you a little goat, its horns haven’t grown yet,” or “Here, Masha, a big candy,” or “I’m giving you have a part of my heart”, “I give you a baby squirrel”, “This is a glass ball, don’t break it”, “This is a cactus, don’t get pricked”.

9. Revival of dead people, animals, plants.

For example:

- What would happen if brontosaurs were resurrected?
— What else would Pushkin have created if he had not died so early?
You can “revive” all kinds of extinct animals and people!

Offer 10 options for such a game.

10. Revival of dead heroes of literary works, in particular, heroes of fairy tales.

— Did the fairy tale character die? It doesn’t matter, you just need to draw it and it will come to life.

Come up with continuations of fairy tales, provided that the heroes of the fairy tale did not die. The fox didn’t eat the bun, Ruslan didn’t cut off Chernomor’s beard, the Tin Soldier didn’t melt, Onegin didn’t kill Lensky.

Offer 10 options for such a game.

11. Revival of heroes of artistic paintings and sculptures.

Characters from paintings by famous artists came to life - barge haulers, hunters, Cossacks, archers.

Name 10 paintings by famous artists and suggest a continuation of the plot, provided that the characters come to life.

12. Changing the usual relationships between the heroes of fairy tales.

Let us recall the following situations: a pike sings a lullaby (“The Pike opens its mouth”); “The Gray Wolf serves her faithfully”; Brave Bunny; cowardly lion

Come up with a fairy tale with such an incredible plot: The fox has become the most simple-minded in the forest, and all the animals deceive her.

13. Metaphor.

Metaphor is the transfer of the properties of one object (phenomenon) to another based on a characteristic common to both objects. For example, “talk of waves”, “cold gaze”. Here is an excerpt made up of only metaphors:

On a thread of idle fun
He nizal with a cunning hand
Transparent flattery necklace
And the rosary of golden wisdom.
A. S. Pushkin

Name the metaphors and ask the children to explain which properties are transferred to whom.
Soft character. Cheeks are burning. Drowned in twos. Keep a tight rein. Turned green with anger. Muscles of steel. Iron character. Bronze body.

14. Give a new title to the painting.

The child is shown many subject pictures, postcards or reproductions of famous artists and asked to give them new names. Compare who named it better: the child or the artist. The basis for the name can be the plot, mood, deep meaning etc.

Give 10 new titles of old famous paintings.

15. Fantastic association.

A fantastic, that is, incredible idea can be obtained by combining the properties or parts of two or three objects. For example, fish + man = mermaid, horse + man = centaur. Who are the sirens? The same pair of objects can give different ideas depending on the qualities they combine.

Offer 10 examples of combinations of unexpected qualities of various real creatures.

16. Fantastic crushing.

Remember the plot of the wonderful novel “The Twelve Chairs” or the plot of Svetlov’s fairy tale about a man named Ruble, who fell from the fifteenth floor and broke into ten kopecks. Each dime has its own destiny. One kopeck was exchanged for kopecks, another became a big boss and looked more important than a ruble, the third began to multiply.

Come up with a fairy tale with a similar plot. For example, an orange scattered into slices, a pomegranate scattered into 365 grains (exactly 365 grains in any pomegranate, check), the fate of sister peas from the same pod.

17. “How lucky I am.”

“How lucky I am,” says the sunflower, “I am like the sun.”
“How lucky I am,” says the potato, “I feed people.”
“How lucky I am,” says the birch tree, “they make fragrant brooms out of me.”

Come up with 10 variations of this game.

18. Reception acceleration - deceleration.

You can speed up or slow down the speed of any process. To direct your imagination in this direction, ask questions like: “What will happen if”, “What will happen if.”

— What will happen if the Earth begins to rotate 24 times faster? The day will last 1 hour. In 1 hour you need to have time to sleep, have breakfast, go to school (15 minutes), have lunch, do homework (3-4 minutes), take a walk, have dinner.

- What will happen if the seasons last 100 years? (Then people born at the beginning of winter would never see green grass, flowers, or flooding rivers) Assignment. Suggest three or four stories related to the specified technique.

19. Acceleration and deceleration of time.

Themes of fantasy stories.

Situations 1. You invented a chronodine - a device with which you can, at will, change the speed of time and the speed of processes in time. You can speed up any processes or slow them down.

Situations 2. It was not you who invented the chronodine, but someone else, and this someone else, unexpectedly for you, at his own request, changes the speed of the processes in which you participate.

The lesson lasts either 40 minutes, then 4 minutes, then 4 hours, and all this is unpredictable for the teacher and students. I started eating the cake, and time sped up 1000 times! It's a shame! How to live in such a world?

Situation 3. You invented a chronotour (a tour is a movement in a circle) - a device with which you can repeat events, rejuvenate and age people, animals, objects, cars many times over.

—Who would you rejuvenate and by how many years?
— What period of life would you like to live again?

Exercise. Suggest several stories using the above techniques.

20. Time machine.

You have a time machine! You sit in it and can travel to the near and distant past of any country, to the near and distant future of any country and be there at any time. But you can’t change anything there, you can only watch. While you are in the past or in the future, life on Earth proceeds according to its usual laws.

“Home option”: while sitting at home, you look into the “Mirror of Time” or mentally take pictures with the “Time Camera” or “Time Movie Camera” or “Magic Eye”. Name the place and time and, please, the image is ready.

— What would you like to see in the past?
— What were your mother and grandmother like when they were the same age as me now?
— How did dinosaurs live?
— I would like to meet and talk with Pushkin, Napoleon, Socrates, Magellan.
— What would you like to see in the future?
-Who will I be? How many children will I have?
— Talk to your future son.

This is an incredible situation. A message was sent from Earth to a distant star. Intelligent beings live on this star; they have a time machine. They sent the answer, but they made a mistake, and the answer came to Earth before the message was sent.

Exercise. Suggest 10 stories related to the time machine effect.

21. Chronoclasm.

This is a paradox caused by interference with a previous life. Someone moved into the past and changed something there, and then returned, but on Earth everything is different. To encourage imagination in this direction, questions like:

- What would happen now if something had happened differently in the past or if something had not happened at all?
— What would have to be changed in the past so that what happened would not happen?

For example:

- I lost my keys. It doesn’t matter, I go back in time and don’t take the keys with me.
— What would have happened if there had not been a coup in 1917?

- What can be changed in the past? Everything can be changed in the past! Actions of people, phenomena of living and inanimate nature, surroundings.

Chronoclasm, time machine, chronotour, chronodyne - these are wonderful fantasy techniques; they provide an inexhaustible number of plots.

Exercise. Suggest some crazy plots for these techniques.
(I went back in time to look for a bride. I found out why brontosaurs became extinct.)

22. Method of L.N. Tolstoy.

They write that L.N. Tolstoy regularly used it every morning as morning exercises mind by the following method.

Take the most ordinary object: a chair, a table, a pillow, a book. Describe this object in the words of a person who has never seen it before and does not know what it is or why.

For example, what would an Australian aborigine say about watches?

Exercise. Write down several descriptions of objects for the native.

23. Free imagination.

Children are asked to fantasize uncontrollably on a given topic, using any fantasy techniques and any combinations thereof. Unlike solving any serious problem, you can propose any ideas, even the most crazy ones.

Come up with a fantastic plant.

— All known fruits grow on one plant at the same time: apples, pears, oranges, avocados, pineapples, mangoes, coconuts.

- All known fruits and vegetables grow on one plant (tomatoes and potatoes; tobacco can be made from the leaves, a painkiller and a “beauty product” can be obtained. In principle, this is possible, since tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, belladonna (in Italian - "beautiful lady") belong to the same family - nightshade.

— Known and unknown fruits, vegetables and nuts grow on one plant.

— Amazing watermelon: inside there is marmalade, and instead of seeds there are candies. This is also possible, you just need to water it sweet water and honey.

— Objects of living and inanimate nature grow on one tree.

— The flower is made of chocolate and never fades, no matter how much you eat it.

24. Come up with a fantastic structure.

The building of the future: everything is visible from the inside to the outside, but nothing is visible from the outside to the inside. A creature (person, dog...) with harmful intentions for the owner of the house cannot enter the building.

What qualities should a house have if the weight and size of the owner changes 10 times every hour?

25. Come up with a new type of transport.

Invention ideas:

— A meson-gravitational-electromagnetic beam is directed at a person, which splits the person into atoms, their relative positions are remembered, and transmitted along the atom to Right place and there they collect in the same order. (Examine the situation: the program for assembling a person went wrong, but they didn’t notice it! How did they assemble a person? What if they mixed up the atoms of several people?)

— Synthetic transport that combines the advantages of all known species transport: the speed of a rocket, the luxury of a top-class cabin on an ocean liner, the all-weather capability of an aircraft for lightning research, the uselessness of helicopter landing and take-off pads, the usefulness of horse-drawn transport.

— The road surface is wavy or triangular shape. Invent a wheel so that it doesn’t shake on such a road. This will also be an invention!

26. Come up with a new holiday or competition.

— Flower Festival. Everyone has flowers painted on their cheeks. On this day you can only speak in Chinese colors.

— Feast of the arrival of swallows.

— Feast of the first mosquito.

Dreamers competition. Two teams are participating. Each team offers the other team various tasks: a) a topic for a humorous story of 5 phrases; b) an object for composing a riddle (table, fork, TV); c) the beginning of the story. For example. "My friend Keith invited me to trip around the world"; d) some fantasy technique is suggested. You need to use this technique to come up with an incredible story.

27. Come up with a dramatic plot.

“Mom spoiled her daughter beyond all measure. What happened to mother and daughter?

— A man got lost, accidentally found a house abandoned by hunters and lived there for 7 years. How did he live there? What did he eat, what did he wear?.. (After five years he forgot how to speak, etc.)

28. Come up with a new fantasy game.

To come up with a new unprecedented game, you need to come up with incredible conditions and rules for this game.

— Chess pieces are made of chocolate; You win an opponent's piece and you can eat it right away.

— Game “Edible Checkers”. They do become edible, but only after they are won fairly. Think about what special properties will a won king and a locked checker have?

— Cylindrical checkers and chess. The board is rolled into a cylinder so that fields a1, a2, a3, etc. are next to fields h1, h2, h3, respectively. The verticals become the generators of the cylinder.

- Lobachevsky's checkers. The board mentally folds into a fantastic figure - at the same time both the sides and the sides facing the players close together. The generators are verticals and horizontals at the same time.

- Super chess. Instead of chess pieces there are cubes. On the sides of each cube there are images of six figures, except for the king. Once per game, you can change the status of a piece (turn over the die), unexpectedly for the enemy.

29. Magical fulfillment of one’s own desires and materialization of thoughts.

You have become a powerful wizard. Just think - and any, but only good, wish will come true. For example, you can make anyone happy. But if you plan something bad for someone else, then it will happen to you.

Here's a goodwill test.

Tell the children that for an hour they can do whatever they want to people, good or bad. Check what the kids will want to do? Good or evil?

The robbers have caught a worthy man and want to kill him. Suggest at least 10 ways to save him (make him invisible, freeze the robbers).

30. You began to have the gift of telepathy.

Telepathy is the transmission of thoughts and feelings over a distance without the use of the senses. You can even not only read the thoughts of other people, but also mentally force people to do what you want. How do you use this gift?

31. Nadya Rusheva's method.

Here's another great way to develop imagination and drawing skills. It's widely known universal method, which was owned by the brilliant girl Nadya Rusheva.

By the age of 16, with a felt-tip pen or pen in hand, she had read books by more than fifty writers, from ancient to modern: Homer, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Exupery, Bulgakov, and drew, drew, drew. I read, fantasized and drew. This helped her achieve lightness, sophistication and “floating” lines in her drawings. Over her seventeen-year life, she created ten thousand wonderful drawings! Having studied ballet as a child, she knew how much effort this “lightness of soaring” is achieved. This wonderful, but not popular method is called: hard work and perseverance!

32. “RVS” method.

RVS is an abbreviation of three words: size, weight, cost.

It should be noted that the RVS method is special case more general method“reduction - increase”, when you can change any characteristics of the system from zero to infinity, and not just size, weight or cost. For example, speed, quantity, quality, friction force, thinking power, memory power, company profit, headcount, salaries. Such thought experiments “blur” the usual idea of ​​the system being improved, make it “soft”, changeable, and make it possible to look at the problem from an unusual angle.

The RVS method is based on the dialectical principle of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones. This method is also called the “method of checking for a monster”, or the “method of limiting passage”, or the “method of intensifying contradictions”.

The RVS method very well develops fantasy and imagination, and also allows you to overcome the mental inertia of thinking. We must remember that we are conducting a thought experiment, where everything is possible, and not a practical one, when the inexorable laws of nature apply.

There is also the “super-RVS” method, when the limiting transitions of several characteristics are viewed simultaneously. Such “blows to the subcortex” can carve out something non-standard. For example, what will happen to the system if the system has a minimum cost, but maximum size and weight, etc. Of course, you need to learn how to use the RVS method.

33. Property transfer method.

Let's consider a very fun, mischievous and very simple (for those who know how to fantasize) method of endowing ordinary objects with completely unusual properties for them, taken, however, from ordinary objects. In science, this method is called the method of focal objects.

The algorithm is very simple.

First step: select an item that you want to improve or give it a completely unusual properties. For children, this could be a toy, doll, ball, notebook, textbook, class magazine, animal, plant or person. This will be the so-called focal object. For example, let's choose a Barbie doll as the focal object. It seems that she is already the limit of invention in the doll class. Let's see what happens.

Second step: select several random objects. For example: light bulb, balloon, TV.

Third step: for these random objects, a list of them is compiled characteristic properties, functions and characteristics.

An electric light bulb glows, is warm, transparent, burns out, and is plugged into the power grid.
A balloon flies, inflates, does not sink, and bounces.
TV - shows, speaks, sings, has control knobs.

Fourth step: the formulated properties are transferred to the focal object.
So what happens? Let's fantasize and not particularly care about real possibility realize what was invented. Go:

The doll glows from the inside with a matte pink-milky light. The room is dark, but it glows. This is good: you won’t lose it and you can even read it!

The doll is always pleasantly warm, as if alive. You can take it outside and warm your hands. You can place bird eggs next to a warm doll and chicks or chicks will hatch from them. You can lean it against the aquarium and the doll will heat the water for the fish.

It's transparent. You can see how her heart beats, blood flows through the vessels, you can study anatomy.

Burns out. It’s clear that she needs to have spare parts: a set of arms, legs, heads, dresses. Designer doll.

Now let's see what ideas the balloon will give us.

Flying doll. Angel doll with wings. Swan doll, dragonfly, parachutist, flying squirrel or bat, she has beautiful transparent membranes from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes.

Inflatable doll. You can make a slim or fat Barbie, or you can make a flat one for carrying. When the head is inflated separately, the facial expression changes. You can play with an inflated doll in the bath and learn to swim.

What does the comparison with TV give?

Let the doll show morning exercises, aerobics, yoga asanas every morning.
Let her scream indignantly when they start breaking it or quarreling in front of it.

A combination of properties can be used. As a rule, among the absurdities one comes across original ideas, which the trial and error method will not provide.

The focal object method is an excellent method for developing imagination, associative thinking and serious invention.

Proposals developing the method.

Children really like it when they themselves are put into focus. Improving clothes, such as stockings, tights, and boots, is a lot of fun.
You can pre-define the object class in the second step.
The method can be used to come up with the design of stores, exhibitions, and gifts.

Before starting an idea generation session, you can think with the children what is good and what is bad about the selected focal object, who is good and who is bad, why it is good and why it is bad, etc. And then start fantasizing.

The best inventions should be praised.

34. Combination of techniques.

The “highest aerobatics” of fantasy is the use of many techniques simultaneously or sequentially. They used one technique and added a new technique to what happened. This leads very far from the initial object and where it will lead is completely unknown. Very interesting activity, try it. But only a bold-minded person can do this.

Exercise. Take some fairy-tale object (Pinocchio, Kolobok) and apply 5-10 fantasy techniques to it successively. What will happen?

35. Beautiful ancient fantasies with transformations.

As examples of magnificent fantasy, let us recall the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans, in which people turn into plants.

The beautiful young man Cypress accidentally killed his favorite deer. He begged silver-bowed Apollo to let him be sad forever, and Apollo turned him into a slender cypress tree. Since then, the cypress has been considered a sad burial tree.

Another beautiful young man Narcissus had a different fate. According to one version, Narcissus saw his reflection in the river, fell in love with it and died of self-love. The gods turned it into a fragrant flower. According to another version, Narcissus dared not to respond to a woman’s love, and, at the request of other women rejected by men, he was turned into a flower. According to another version of this myth, Narcissus had a dearly beloved twin sister. My sister died unexpectedly. The yearning Narcissus saw his reflection in a stream, thought it was his sister, looked at his reflection for a long time and died of grief. According to the fourth version, having seen his reflection in the river and fallen in love with it, Narcissus realized the hopelessness of this love and stabbed himself. Flowers named after him grew from drops of Narcissus's blood.

Great examples of fantasy. One version is more beautiful than the other. Try and offer your own equally dramatic or touching versions of Narcissus.

The Legend of Daphne. Pursued by Apollo, who was in love with her, the young nymph Daphne prayed for help to the gods and was turned into a laurel, which became Apollo's sacred tree. Since then, winners of musical competitions in honor of Apollo have been awarded a laurel wreath. In ancient art, Daphne (Daphnia) was depicted at the moment when, overtaken by Apollo, she turns (sprouts) into a laurel.

The desperate young man Phaeton was unable to cope with the horses of the solar team of his father, the sun god Helios, for which he was struck by the lightning of Zeus. The Heliades, sisters of Phaethon, mourned the death of their brother so sadly that the gods turned them into poplars, the leaves of which always make a sad noise. Heliad's tears became amber.

You know that the ability to imagine makes the real world more interesting. But when they tell you: “Imagine this!”, you can’t do it. Of course, imagination cannot be turned on with a button, but it can and should be developed. Is it hard to imagine? Try it. With our help.

Responsibilities of the left hemisphere

It is responsible for logical thinking, education and analysis. Also for verbal processing and language abilities. Controls speech functions, as well as reading and writing, plus remembers facts, names, dates and their spelling (and is able to connect them through analysis).

The left hemisphere helps us understand the literal meaning of words. As for information processing, it performs this task sequentially, in stages. Numbers and symbols are also recognized by it, and it is also responsible for mathematical abilities. Besides left hemisphere controls the movements of the right half of the body.

Responsibilities of the right hemisphere

Firstly, it is responsible for intuition and imaginative thinking. Secondly, for the processing of nonverbal information (expressed not in words, but in symbols and images). Moreover, unlike the left hemisphere (which analyzes information only in a clear sequence), the right hemisphere is capable of simultaneously processing different data. Thirdly, it helps a person consider the problem as a whole. Thanks to it, we can understand not only the literal meaning of what we hear or read. And if someone says, “He’s on my tail,” the right hemisphere will tell you what they meant.

Also, the right hemisphere recognizes faces, and we can perceive a collection of features as a whole. With its help, we understand metaphors and the work of other people's imagination. It is also responsible for spatial orientation and gives us the opportunity to dream and fantasize. Composing and making plans, the question “what if?” - it asks exactly.

We would like to especially mention creative abilities (musical and artistic). Here we will also write down emotions, religiosity, and belief in something.

The right hemisphere also controls the movements of the left half of the body.

If we compare all the pieces of information stored in our brain with the elements of a construction set, then a person with developed imagination can put together more figures from the same elements than someone who lacks imagination.

FIRST STEPS

Well, let's get started with exercises to develop the imagination? The author’s methodology of psychologist Andrei Rodionov (www.rodionov.by) will help us with this. Don't be alarmed, all tasks are easy to complete. By the way, you can involve a friend or loved one in the “training” - and have fun and spend your time usefully.

Imprint

Look carefully at any object. Now close your eyes and try to keep it in your memory for as long as possible. Present the subject as a whole and in parts. Now open your eyes and look at the object again. Maybe you missed some details?

Repeat these steps several times until the item comes to mind in detail. Achieve maximum identity between the physical and the imaginary. As you progress in your studies, choose increasingly complex subjects for analysis.

Cinema without sound

This is a fun exercise. Choose an unfamiliar movie on TV. Watch the beginning and then turn off the sound. Try to understand the meaning of what is happening on the screen without words. We warn you right away: it will be uncomfortable, you will want to turn on the sound. Be patient! After a while, you will be surprised to realize that much is clear.

Unreal things

Try to imagine things that don't exist (and never happened) in reality. What would they look like? What sounds did they make? Imagine a butterfly the size of an airplane, a book with 50 thousand pages, an inhabitant of a distant planet, a talking ant...

Familiar melodies

Pick (or rather, sing!) several different melodies you know:

• from classical music;
• film music;
• pop music;
• rock music;
• some folk song.

Fruits vegetables

Using all your senses, imagine an orange, banana, grape, pear, melon, blackberry, cabbage, lemon, carrot, pepper, tomato, radish, plum, date, apple. Try to imagine them clearly and realistically, so that you can see (and smell!) all the nuances.

GAME MASTER

These exercises will require more time and effort from you than the previous ones. But the result is worth it. All of them help develop concentration, expand the scope of perception, improve memory and, of course, stimulate the imagination!

I think and see

Select an object at eye level at a distance of 1-3 meters. The item should be simple to begin with: a book, a pen, a folder. Close your eyes and imagine a white, empty, glowing space. Mentally hold this image for 3-5 minutes. Open your eyes and contemplate the selected object for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, don’t think about it, look through it (as if you were looking into the distance). Now close your eyes and imagine an object, placing it in a white luminous space for 3-5 minutes.

The exercise must be done 5 times, do it calmly, without effort.

Rainbow World

Imagine a small red square, fix it in your imagination. Now imagine that the square increases in size, diverging its edges to infinity. Now there is only red space in front of you, contemplate it.

The next day, do the same experiment with the orange space. Then with yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Once you have mastered this, move on to more complex things. Imagine first the color red, smoothly turning into orange, orange turning into yellow and so on until purple. Then you need to go back from purple.

Third level of difficulty: imagine red-skinned people walking through a green forest. People's skin gradually becomes orange, yellow - and so on until purple. Then scroll color scheme in the reverse order (the skin should turn red again).

Eh, apple!

Sit in a chair or lie down on the bed. Close eyes. Imagine an apple. Start rotating it clockwise in space. Now let it “fly” out of your head. Place the apple opposite the bridge of your nose and look at it. Carefully mentally enter it, feel yourself inside the fruit (don’t forget about its shape and size!).

Then imagine that part of you remains in the apple, raise the fruit one meter above you. Try to see yourself from above. At the same time, inspect the walls of the room, the furniture, and the nearby ceiling.

P.S. YOUR BUTTON

People have long believed that creative inspiration comes from above. It was equated either with a gift or with a punishment. And even now they often try to explain talent genetically or mystically. But thanks to scientific research, work on psychoanalysis and psychology, and trainings on the development of creativity, we can already say that a person’s creative potential does not always depend on a fickle muse. But it is often associated with the capabilities of the right hemisphere of the brain. Isn't it time to stop ignoring the dormant powers of your imagination and find out what it is capable of?!

FROM WORDS TO ACTION!

Surely soon one of your loved ones will have a holiday. This time, don’t limit yourself to a standard greeting card, with a template poem printed inside, but come up with a rhyme yourself (even the simplest one!) and write the message yourself. Or draw (glue, decorate) a greeting card. The recipient, believe me, will appreciate your efforts!

READ YOURSELF

• Marilee Zdenek "Right Brain Development"
• Andrey Rodionov “Development of intelligence”
• Anna Weisz “Inspiration by order”
• I.A. Beskova “How is creative thinking possible?”
• Cleg Brian "Creative Thinking Crash Course"
• I.Yu. Matyugin “Methods for the development of memory, imaginative thinking, imagination”
• Alexey Turchin “Textbook on active imagination”

Some books from this list are available for download on the Internet.

Anna Serikova
Photo: CORBIS/FOTOSA.RU

We thank Andrey Rodionov, an expert in intellectual and communication technologies, for his assistance in preparing the article.