The purpose of your imagination?

Question

is it to retreat when life gets to hard? to create your own world, where you can change yourself [be different from the real world]? or change the people around you? Do you think that our imagination is a defense mechanism to raw reality that is life?

Answer 1

Imagination is a profoundly powerful survival tool.

It allows humans to run scenarios.   We can literally plan for events that haven't happened by saying "What if?"

It's not really an escape mechanism, more like a mechanism to plan your escape.  Or for that matter, to plan your victory.

That said you can certainly use Imagination like a drug to alter your emotional state without any real world effort.  You can be a Rock Star without a single music lesson.

So yes, you can use it to evade 'raw reality'  but you can also use it to believe in a reality that's worse than it is.  It's not unusual to come home to a gf/bf that 'imagines' you've misbehavied far more than you have.   There are people who live in abject fear of Global Warming without any real world observation to imply impending disaster.  There's always some emo kid that thinks their cozy middle class life is somehow the 'pit of h**l'.

Answer 2

Our imagination is not designed to help us survive.  Evidence for this is that animals have survival instinct and absolutely no imaginative skills, AND they survive.

Our imagination was designed to give us an access to create our world and to choose our relationship to what we've created.  

Answer 3

The purpose of an imagination is to be creative to write music, cook, Bake write a novel build a monument, start an intuition all these things are creative. Imagination is to create and to relax

Answer 4

I think the purpose of our imagination is to be able to imagine ourselves as better people and then strive to achieve that goal.  It also helps us to cope with life when we fail and lift us up when we are feeling down.  It allows us to escape to better times, places and situations even if we haven't experienced them yet.

Answer 5

No, the purpose is not primarily fantasy and recreation. It's so we can think of new ideas and make our world a better place for us.  Adapt, survive and thrive.

Answer 6

Every thought is a force. Since the trap of so many unpleasant ones  is constantly present, the only tool we have in order to construct a better world is our optimism.

Imagination is a combination of force (thoughts) and optimism (dreamy quality). I don't think it's a defense mechanism...In contrast, I believe it can be rather aggressive, especially when combined with hope.

Act like it and it will happen.

Answer 7

i think our imagination is a part of our knowledge and its purpose parallels to the purpose of the knowledge we have

Answer 8

Our imagination is the basis of our creativity.  Think where man would be if we didn't imagine something better or different and then start the process of creating it.

Answer 9

It is a thought process. Some people have better imaginations than other people. A person can learn to escape reality by using their imagination through daydreaming, meditating or hypnosis.  I am an artist, so I use my imagination to visualize a final outcome of a project.

Jeff (weseye) Wesley

Answer 10

Technically speaking: No. Our imagination is something that was originally to allow us to survive, to adapt to situations, and be able to cope.

Personally speaking: I don't think so. But it is nice to imagine yourself as something other than what you are, to create another universe where you don't have troubles, worries or anything like that.

Answer 11

To integrate my mind with God's mind, the one that created and is the Universe.

Answer 12

You have hit the nail on the head!

May be I will change the word , imagination , with escapism but it means the same thing.

Yes. When life gets harder( and it does all the time)  we look for escape routes to get out of the misery or pain. It is at those times that we 'imagine' the impossibles coming to our help.. We expect the opponents to collapse and die .We expect  the impossibles to happen . They are , certainly, our defence mechanisms  and we do know that these will not happen. Still these kindle our hopes .

Answer 13

Even if so a defense mechanism to raw reality. It is still the haven of our very own creations. The primary purpose of our imagination is probably to keep us alive. But when it runs out of any beneficial purpose it could become a delusion.

Answer 14

technically, no. I think that it's a way to cope with others and life. Not really as a retreat from reality. Also to imagine ourselves better to achieve and astrive to our goals.

Answer 15

Yes.

Answer 16

To run away from the reality.

Answer 17

Most certainly NOT!   Though, I am sure that many desperate suffering souls have used it for this purpose, seeing no other way out.

In a spiritual sense, attaining The Philosopher’s Stone is a metaphor for ones’ personal evolution toward perfection of the soul. It is the prize for achieving spiritual enlightenment. It’s the ‘coming forth as gold’; the ’pearl of great price’; being one with Cosmic Consciousness; having undeniable personal experience of God.

For good stuff follow web site hereunder:

http://partnersinpurpose.blogspot.com/20...

Answer 18

Imagination helps us escape difficult situations, discover inventions that prosper mankind, create beautiful art,etc.etc. So it can be more than a defense mechanism to the raw reality that is life.(as you put it)

Answer 19

The purpose of imagination is to bridge the world of man from the possible to the impossible.  In imagination Jules Verne took man to the moon and back.  And under the water and through the center of the earth.  In imagination Cervantes while he was in prison and from his experiences before his capture formed a story called the Man from LaMancha.  Below because of the imagination a song writer wrote a song called the Impossible Dream based on that book.

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To dream the impossible dream,

To fight the unbeatable foe,

To bear with unbearable sorrow,

To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,

To love pure and chaste from afar,

To try when your arms are too weary,

To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,

To follow that star --

No matter how hopeless,

No matter how far.

To fight for the right

Without question or pause,

To be willing to march

Into h**l for a heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will be peaceful and calm

when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,

that one man scorned and covered with scars

still strove with his last ounce of courage.

To reach the unreachable star.

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong

To be better far than you are

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest, to follow that star,

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To be willing to give when there's no more to give

To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live

And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star.

In imagination POWs survive being in prison and remain unbroken in spirit.

Yes in imagination you can escape reality if it serves to make you stronger and enables you to be creative and make you stronger than the person or circumstance in life that seeks to crush you.