As children, our whole world view, our view of ourselves and of others is powered by our imagination.
We imagine we are superheroes, secret agents, doctor and, nurses, princesses and animals....
Our whole development revolves around play and our imagination and creativity.
Sadly, as we get older and enter the school system, this is diminished and replaced with the monotony and banality of academia.
We are told we must colour within the lines, get the right answer, get to school on time, don’t talk, don’t answer back, do as we’re told and put our hand up only when asked to...
We are told we must 'grow up' and to 'stop being silly, childish, and immature'.
But what all of this is doing is stifling any free and creative thought we have. It’s programming us to believe that we don’t have free will and that we don’t have real power for change.
It pushes our imagination down into the back of our minds and there it stays, unused, undervalued and untapped, and replaced in importance by logic, rote learning and received institutional 'wisdom'.
Sometimes it can remain in this dark corner of our mind for years or even the rest of our lives, as we grow attached to our distractions. Distracted by work, TV, media, games, the internet, news and the relentless push of propaganda.
After all, a free thinking creatively imaginative mind is a dangerous thing to those who seek to rule us. We can’t have too much free thinking out there - it’s not good for business!
But within the world of magick, witchcraft, spellcasting and many other spiritual practices, visualisation and imagination plays a huge part.
In fact, spellcasting is based around creative and imaginative practice.
You see when we use our imagination and visualise something, it actively makes our brains more flexible, more plastic and malleable.
Our imagination is like a muscle - the more we use it, the stronger and more powerful it becomes.
When we use our powers of imagination often, when we take it out of that dusty corner and blow the cobwebs off, we create new neural pathways that can be used to affect real and significant changes in our lives.
Our thoughts are our real power!
We can quite literally think ourselves well and happy, think into existence how we want our life to be...
This might sound like fantasy but there have been numerous scientific studies done that prove how powerful our imagination really is.
In one recent study - which appeared in The Journal of Neurophysiology - a piano was placed in front of a participant and they were asked to play it. Then the person's brain patterns and neuroplasticity was measured.
Another participant was then asked to merely imagine they were playing the piano without actually touching it, and again the brain activity was measured.
Results showed that merely imagining playing the piano was about 50% as effective in re-wiring the brain as actually playing the piano physically.
Just the mere thought and imagination that they were playing the piano rewired their brain in the same way as if they were actually playing it! It's arguable proof that imagination and creative visualisation can physiologically alter our physical and mental state.
By imagining something our brain thinks it’s real and it doesn’t distinguish between imaginary and physical as much as we might presume.
When we tap into our subconscious and conscious mind, we are able to influence and manifest how our life looks - whether we are happy, healthy, abundant... or not.
Now this doesn’t mean we can all do this instantly - it takes time and lots of practice.
But the more practice we get the more powerful our mind can become, enabling us to bend the universe to our will.
Here are some tips for using your imagination to help manifest your dream life:
1.Never underestimate the power of your own imagination.
Thoughts are our method of interacting with the quantum field, and by extension the universal energies.
2. Using visualisation can direct your imagination to physiologically change your brain.
This can be done through meditation or by practicing visualising something happening.
3. Focus on the future you want, not the present you have.
If we work on the notion that there are infinite parallel universes (also recently studied and found to be highly likely) then our future timeline already exists where we already have everything
we ever wanted - we just have to tune in to it and bring it in to being in this reality.
4. See your imagination as a dial on a radio, that can be used to tune in to your new reality.
Practice turning it with your mind until it lands on a 'station' of the reality you’d like to have.
According to quantum physics, the 'wave particle duality' states that everything that exists in the known universe already exists in the quantum field.
Quite literally the atoms that make up us, plus everything we can see, hear, touch, smell, taste and feel - and all the stuff we can’t - are all made up of atoms that aren’t solid.
They are vibrating to appear solid, but they can be altered within the quantum field, which we can do that with our mind. They literally change as we think about them.
The way to truly look at all of this is to imagine that reality is a story book and that your physical circumstances are the script.
All you have to do is rewrite the script using your imagination.
Be the hero of your own story!
For more musings, why not join our Facebook group 'Beneath the Canopy'?