It’s a superpower, really; an existential Swiss Army knife to help you get the most out of being human.

And—built in at no extra charge—it single–handedly enables an oft–forgotten yet essential piece of what makes consciousness great in the first place.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I first experienced it long ago, when my parents sat me in front of the TV cartoons as I ate breakfast.

It began to blossom, precociously, when I started to read before I was 2.

Movies and comics and “chapter” books fed—but never satiated—its ferocious hunger.

The reactor core for my nuclear intellectual appetite, it powered me through studies in music, aviation, computer science, medicine, psychology and more.

It has been my passport to mystical, magical worlds—definitely not a part of any of my degrees—heretofore unexplored.

It has been the primary factor responsible for careers, hobbies, friendships, travel, and the best of everything else for the better part of a century.

I have endured the unendurable because it has always been there for me.

And—as if all of the preceding wasn’t enough—it can jump from me to you and infect you with its mysterious, scintillating presence.

As a matter of fact, I am using it as I write to you right now.

As you have no doubt already deduced, “it” is imagination.

The Impossible Human Ability

We can perceive something that exists.

We can remember something that once existed.

With imagination, though, we can experience something that has never existed at all.

Whip out your metacognition and think about the fact that you can think about that which is not extant.

Imagination is unique among its cognate relatives:

Perception allows you to experience what is.

Memory provides (imperfect though it may be) an experience of what was.

Only imagination can give access to what isn’t.

And here’s the crux of the whole thing; the most important part of an already indescribable, ineffable ability:

Imagination opens the door to what could be.

In this regard, imagination is necessary but not sufficient to create life change; action completes the paradigm.

If you can’t imagine it, you can’t do it.

What It Isn’t Good For (Absolutely Nothing)

Say it again…

Imagination is behind

planning,

problem solving,

creativity,

invention,

empathy,

storytelling,

meaning-making,

and prospective thought.

Beware, however, traveler of the impossible realms:

Imagination need not be tied to productivity in its every application.

Resist the near-pathological inclination to demand a ROI from everything you do.

It is already common to read because it improves your cognition, meditate because it lowers your anxiety, exercise because it increases your lifespan and the enjoyment thereof. 

All of which is, of course, commendable and highly recommended.

But imagination doesn’t have to be productive, in an immediately measurable sense, for it to be of value.

Sometimes… strike that… Frequently, you should exercise your imagination for the sheer joy of imagining something.

I told you, at the outset, that I would explain how imagination single–handedly enables an oft–forgotten yet essential piece of what makes consciousness great in the first place.

That piece is play.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Through gameplay, imagination allows us to experience identities and environments otherwise inaccessible.

Fiction—whether reading, viewing, listening to, or writing it—can temporarily take us away from our regularly scheduled programming.

As I tell my music students, we play music, we don’t work it. Playing music has been a welcome respite from—or powerful addition to—daily life for as long as there have been vocal cords.

Play can function as an escape from your situation, or a way to fundamentally change the way you view your situation, when you come back.

And you need not apologize for any of it.

Disclaimer from my clinical psychologist side: It is worth briefly mentioning that play is best used as an enhancement to your “real” life, not a way to entirely avoid it. We all “know” this, but allow me to posit a question that defines the line between healthy respite/revision and dangerous escapism:

Can you come back?

Still gotta function in the world.

But What IS It?

What, imagination?

I don’t know; no one does.

This article is a part of my Hardcore Happiness project, designed to help you (and me, if I’m being completely honest) have the fullest, most satisfying life of wellbeing that you can… well, imagine.

But not a treatise on the neuropsychological substrates of consciousness (of which imagination is a part).

We’re not sure that the brain creates imagination from nothing. We know that it can take pieces of experience and model a construct that has never existed before.

If you are so inclined, do a search (or just ask your favorite AI) for the latest peer-reviewed research into

- constructive episodic simulation,
- reconstructive memory,
- the default-mode network (DMN) and its interaction with executive systems,
- mental simulation,
- counterfactual thinking,
- predictive processing.

That will do nicely to get you started down that particular rabbit hole, but if you do, keep this in mind:

We understand something about what the brain does when we imagine. We have no idea why any of that activity should be accompanied by the subjective experience of actually visiting an imaginary world, or distant time, or speaking with an entity that never existed.

Describing the wiring is not the same as knowing the source of the energy.

Crea Tuum Mundum

Pardon my Latin. That means, “Create Your World.”

This is where it all gets (even more) interesting.

We have said that pieces of your reality fund, as it were, your imagination. That your experiences and memories play a part in the mysterious assembly of things imagined, but not real.

But here’s the mind-blower (imagine the “mind-blown” emoji here):

Imagination can also inform, transform, and fundamentally alter the course of your reality.

We can imagine something, then act on that construct to bring it into the world.

I’m not talking about “manifestation” as it is typically described, but the process of choosing to actually create an approximation of what it is you imagined.

Every novel existed in someone's imagination before the first word was typed.

Every piece of music was heard in someone’s imagination before the first sound wave was generated.

Every building was imagined before it was represented in a blueprint, later to become tangible.

Every invention of any kind—from the wheel to nuclear weapons—sprung from a human imagination: the mental experience of something that had never before existed.

Imagining something doesn't make it reality.

Imagining something makes it possible to begin bringing it into reality.

A Personal Example

I can’t begin to imagine what’s in your imagination, but I can show you an instance of what happened in mine.

Once upon a time (as all good stories start, right?), I completed graduate degrees in clinical psychology and clinical hypnosis, and then spent a few decades practicing, researching, teaching, experiencing…and imagining.

When the time came to retire from being a counselor and professor, I practiced what I preach in the Hardcore Happiness project and made a careful decision to choose a new purpose for my life.

The first part of that process was to imagine what I wanted to do, and how I might do it, and who it might benefit.

Purpose is never to be taken lightly, so I let myself brainstorm (a fancy, business-oriented word for imagination) without limitation. For a year.

Then I took the necessary step to bring imagination to actuality: I began to act on what I had imagined.

Baby steps. Trial and error (and error, and error) because what I had imagined had never before existed, at least as I imagined it. For another year.

And it gradually became clear to me that the ultimate destination of my imagination…is your imagination.

So I created the Hardcore Happiness project, a part of which you are reading at this very moment.

I publish an article—from my imagination—every week, in the hope that it will spark your imagination.

And that your imagination will lead you to action that will improve your life.

I published my first novel, The Calling, a work of fiction brought to tangible life to invite you to imagine my imaginary world in your own way, and have some fun along the way (play, right?).

And then I imagined a newsletter—called SHADOW & STAR—that could regularly communicate short bits of “behind–the–scenes” information to people who take an interest in what I do, and what I try to do for them.

Most recently, I imagined a way to discuss topics that we can’t know about completely; subjects that live on the border between what we know and what we are curious about, but don’t know with any certainty.

And I imagined this as a true discussion, different from a one-way conversation, like this article. So Borderland Radio was born; a live, streamed, broadcast show that encourages you to call in and talk with me in real–time.

In each case, I am energized by the thought that what once sprang from my imagination may now inform yours.

That you might benefit from a lifetime of my work and study and experience, in a way that makes your life better.

That the magic of imagination might leap from me to you and become reality in your world.

Imagine that.

Read my recent interview with Dr. Mehmet Yildiz here.

My novel, The Calling is available now in print and as an eBook.


Click here to subscribe to SHADOW & STAR, my free weekly newsletter.



To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, visit the Jeff W Welsh website, subscribe to my Substack or Medium accounts or visit the Hardcore Happiness article page, and follow my Instagram account for regular insights.

Borderland Radio is LIVE every Thursday night at 8 PM US Pacific Time - call in and be a part of the show!




- JWW