Games and exercises for developing the imagination of preschool children
We develop the imagination of preschoolers.
We all, of course, know how important the mental process is imagination. Without a developed ability to imagine, there can be no real creativity. It follows that imagination needs to be developed. The most optimal period, the peak of imagination development, is the senior preschool age, although in later age periods there are opportunities for its improvement and development.
"Squiggles."
We draw arbitrary squiggles for each other, and then exchange leaves. Whoever turns the squiggle into a meaningful drawing will win.
"Blot".
Blots are drawn on sheets of paper. Children must figure out what the blot looks like and finish drawing it. The one who names the most items wins.
"Draw the mood."
And this game can be used if the child is in a sad mood or, conversely, very cheerful, and also some other, the main thing is that he is in some kind of mood. The child is asked to draw his mood, depict it on paper in any way. The best way to do this is to paint with watercolors.
« What does it look like?
This game works well when there is nothing else to do, such as when a parent and child are waiting for the bus and it still doesn't arrive. You have to look at something and say what the images you see remind you of, what they look like. For example,clouds in the sky, tree branches, shadows on the ground, frosty patterns on glass, a drop of candle wax etc.
"A box with fairy tales."
Target : development of imagination, thinking, speech, ability to work in a team.
Equipment: a box containing circles of different colors.
Progress of the game:
The players sit in a circle. In the center of the circle there is a “box with fairy tales”. The adult turns to the children: “Now we will all compose a fairy tale together. And the magic box will help us.”
He takes one of the circles out of the box, for example, green, shows it to the children and asks them to name green objects. (Children's answers). Then the adult says:
“I got a green circle, so a green object or character should appear in the fairy tale. Attention, I'm starting a fairy tale.
Once upon a time there lived a green grasshopper. One day he went on a journey..."
The adult says two sentences and invites the player sitting next to him to randomly take out a circle and continue the story. The next player takes out a circle, for example, blue and comes up with a continuation of the fairy tale:
-...The grasshopper happily jumped along the path until he reached the blue river.How to cross the river?..
Players take turns taking mugs out of the box and, according to their color, select characters or objects and continue the fairy tale.
The child who, in the opinion of the majority of children, has composed the most consistent and interesting continuation wins.
The adult makes sure that the characters and objects introduced into the fairy tale are not repeated.
"Unfinished Drawings"
Target : development of imagination, imaginative thinking, graphic skills.
Equipment: cards with unfinished outline images of objects (according to the number of children);
A simple pencil, an eraser, a set of colored pencils or markers (for each child).
Progress of the game
An adult hands out cards for the game to the children and says: “Look at the pictures, guess what is shown on them, fill in the missing lines (details) and color the pictures.”
The child who most accurately recreates the image wins.
"Dot, dot."
Place a lot of dots on a piece of paper and ask your child to connect them with lines to make a picture. This game is quite difficult, so help your child. When he gets older, the game can be modified by putting numbers next to the dots.
« Continued drawings »
Place a red dot in the center of the sheet of paper. We invite the next child to continue the drawing. Discuss what happened.
"Fairy Tale Confusion"
First, children are asked to unravel the tangle of fairy tales: “Once upon a time there was a grandfather and a woman. They had chicken turnip. Grandfather ate, ate, did not eat. Baba ate, ate, did not eat. The turnip rolled on. It rolls, and towards it is a hut on chicken legs. “Hut, hut, who lives in the mansion? Look out the window - I’ll give you a trough...”, etc. After the children complete the task, they are asked to come up with a fairy tale of their own composition.
You can set any theme of the fairy tale. If desired, children can illustrate the content of an invented fairy tale using drawings. The most interesting stories can be played out with the help of dolls or roles.
" Simple drawings"
Such drawings consist of the contours of geometric shapes, arcs and straight lines. When they are created, they do not have any specific meaning. Simple drawings need to be solved, that is, to find meaning in them, to answer the question “What is this?”
The rules of the game are simple: you need to say what kind of object is shown in the picture. The more solutions, the better. The only limitation: you don't need to rotate the pictures. The activity is very exciting! Imagine, it seems to you that all the options have already been listed, when suddenly another one is discovered! Such moments bring especially great pleasure.
Options simple drawings adults can come up with their own ideas.
Give as many possible solutions as you can. If you run out of thoughts about one drawing, move on to the second, and after a while return to the first drawing.
We also recommend doing this: come up with as many answers as possible to one drawing and write them down together with adults. Then invite your friends, relatives, and acquaintances to solve the same drawing. After that, compare the answers. Did they match? No?! Great - there is an opportunity to compare their quality and originality. Remember that the originality of the solution is most important in this game.
Who had more solutions? Not at your place? Don't be discouraged: a little training and you will overtake everyone. You can come up with as many simple drawings as you like and solve them. However, we want to warn you against one common mistake: when creating a new drawing, do not put any meaning into it in advance. This can greatly interfere with future solving. There are no other restrictions.
The funny ones.
The presenter throws the ball and names some object. For example, a saucepan. We need to quickly come up with a funny name for it. For example,brewer The game develops imagination and puts you in a good mood.
Tales.
Come up with and draw, together with your child or each individually, an animal, mechanism, plant or object that does not actually exist, and tell about its properties and purpose.
Good luck to you, dear adults!
Speech therapist teacher: Misineva L.N.
Imagination is a unique ability of human consciousness to create images, ideas, new ideas and objects from objects that are in real world are not perceived by him as a single whole (they do not exist or are incompatible).
Imagination is a form of mental reflection of the world, the basis of visual-figurative thinking, which allows a person to solve the tasks assigned to him without resorting to practical actions. Consciousness allows you not only to transform familiar things, but also to use them for your own purposes. It allows a person to plan, model, create, play and remember.
Important! Imagination develops in childhood and improves in adulthood, but only with constant training.
Without knowing how to develop fantasy and imagination, you need to pay attention to the exercises described below and reading good books.
How to develop imagination (training exercises) for adults
Many adults suffer from a lack of imagination. They cannot write a children's story, come up with a good joke, create a painting, or sew a carnival costume.
The reason for this is seen as a lack of talent, but in reality it is all a matter of lack of imagination. To develop it, there are special exercises, the consistent implementation of which will help cope with the lack of imagination.
Training the rhythm of attention
To perform this exercise, you need to relax and focus all your attention on your hands. The head should be freed from any thoughts. Every day you need to exercise for at least 5-10 minutes. In this case, you can change your body position and viewing angle.
The main thing is full concentration of attention on the object under study in the absence of any extraneous thoughts. It is allowed to blink, it is not advisable to look away, you need to look at your hands all the time.
The exercise is considered completed if, during the entire allotted time, you can pay attention exclusively to your hands, without turning your gaze to other objects in the room. With the help of this exercise we develop imagination in adults quite quickly.
Imprint of erasure
You need to find an eye-catching object in the room and concentrate your attention on it for 5 seconds, trying to mentally photograph it. Closing your eyes and holding your breath, you need to reproduce the object from memory. As you exhale, you need to free your consciousness from the imprinted image, erasing it.
The exercise is performed repeatedly; at least 50 imprints and erases must be made per day. In this case, the time for the exercise is chosen arbitrarily; it should not be determined in advance. This kind of imagination training takes no more than 10-15 minutes a day. Each time you can choose different objects to study.
Hold Imprints
They look at the object for 3-10 minutes, after which, with their eyes closed, they restore its image in their consciousness. You need to imagine the object in color. One approach – imprinting and holding – takes from 5 to 15 minutes.
The main goal of the exercise is to learn to feel parts of the body and surrounding objects. They move on to the next exercise if a person clearly imagines an imaginary object with his eyes closed.
As soon as this is achieved, you should transfer the image to a white sheet of paper, learn to memorize pictures, book pages, and works. Training allows you to reach level 6 of imagination development.
Stop for a moment
Choose a specific picture, quickly look at it, close your eyes, and reproduce individual details from memory. It will be difficult, but by training up to 15 times a day, you can increase the time you hold a picture in your memory to 5 minutes. You cannot think while doing this; the consciousness must be freed from any thoughts for at least 15 seconds.
Instant photo
Select an object or a passerby on the street, close your eyes and imagine it exactly the same as in reality. Repeated training will allow you to imagine the remembered object against a different background, but with your eyes open.
Live photography
Select a passerby, glance at him, close your eyes, mentally imagine, and then try to revive the resulting mental snapshot, forcing him to continue moving.
At first, this may not work, but after 2-3 weeks of training, the photograph will be able to be revived in your imagination. You can avoid mistakes by comparing the imaginary image with the real actions of the object.
Photo manipulation
Having imagined a specific object in your imagination, you need to try to change its position in space, shape and size. Several objects can be combined into one and vice versa, the whole picture can be broken down into separate fragments.
Figures
We ask someone to place matches on the table and cover them with paper. For one moment, the sheet of paper rises and the practitioner remembers the resulting figure. He closes his eyes and mentally imagines what he saw, trying not only to place the matches in their places, but also to count them.
As soon as this is completed in the imagination, you need to take more matches and lay out the figure on a separate sheet, then lift the first sheet and compare the original with what happened. The exercise is performed until the two figures completely coincide. At the same time, in the process of studying them, attention is paid to the color, quantity and quality of matches.
The training for the imagination is considered complete if the location of at least 10 matches in a row is retained in consciousness.
The ability to see the main thing and features
You need 200-300 matches. The assistant dictates various words, and the practitioner lays out the corresponding associations from matches. Words are dictated at intervals of 1 minute, but as the result improves, this time is reduced to 30 seconds.
The exercise is considered completed if it is possible to reproduce at least 50 words, and not only make associations, but also reproduce the resulting words out loud after completing the dictation.
Important! A developed imagination makes life brighter. The ability to create images, think outside the box, draw parallels and associations helps in work and personal life.
With the help of the exercises described above, you can achieve significant success in developing imagination even in those people who were not aware of such an ability.
Techniques for creating images of the imagination
To create an image of an object in the imagination, use the following techniques for creating imagination images:
- Combination. Individual objects or elements are rearranged in such a way that the result is a new unusual combination. This technique is used when writing paintings, books, poems, and making innovative discoveries. To combine objects, do not use a simple mechanical combination of individual sides of the object. A new image is obtained as a result of complex analytical and synthetic activity, transforming elements beyond recognition. It is this method that artists and writers use, adjusting individual elements to an existing idea.
- Agglutination. A special case of combination, the essence of which comes down to obtaining a new image by gluing individual ideas into one. An example is the combination of human and animal body parts in a fairy-tale hero. In technology, agglutination found application in the creation of a trolleybus (“gluing” a bus and a tram).
- Accenting. When creating a new image, some parts of the old are omitted, while others are highlighted. By focusing on color but omitting the size of the item, you can create a completely new item.
- Sharpening. A special case of accentuation. Attention is focused on the height, weight, size of the character or object. As an example, we can use the gigantic growth of giants and the insignificant size of Thumbelina.
- Schematization. When examining objects, differences are erased, individual ideas are smoothed out, and common features are put on display. Used in the creation of scientific and technical objects.
- Typing. In the process of typing, essential and repeating elements are projected onto a separate complete new image. Synthesis of individual images occurs. This technique is used in the literature.
The use of the above techniques significantly facilitates the task of developing imagination in adults.
Development of creative imagination
Creative imagination is a type of creative activity of consciousness, during which the formation of completely new images and ideas occurs. In this case, existing ones can be taken as a basis.
Important! The development of imagination is impossible without reading books, replenishing one’s vocabulary, holding associations.
If you don’t have time for this, you can do the following exercises to develop your imagination:
- Letters. They choose any letter from the alphabet, after which they name all the objects in the room that begin with this letter. By exercising regularly, you can not only develop attention and memory, but also imagination and thinking. The missing items can be imagined.
- Name and describe. Choose any picture you like and try to name and describe it yourself. The same exercise can be applied to people and objects. It allows you to develop not only creative abilities, but also the basics of creative thinking.
- Geometry. Find geometric drawings and try to name the objects that they are trying to depict with their help.
By training for at least 10-20 minutes a day, you can significantly improve your natural creativity abilities, become intellectually enriched, and develop memory. Development creative imagination– a long but interesting process.
Books that develop imagination
Many rationally thinking people refuse to read books written in the genre of science fiction and fantasy, and do not read fairy tales and stories where the author deliberately lies. They believe that such reading is intended for children and adolescents and is unworthy of an adult. In reality this is not the case.
Fairy tales and interesting fantasy stories help develop imagination not only in children, but also in adults. If reading something like this is not interesting, you can study one of the following educational books:
- "Six Thinking Hats" (Edward de Bono);
- "A Beautiful Mind" (Michael Michalko);
- “Methods for the development of memory, imaginative imagination, thinking” (Igor Matyugin).
Interesting, but far from scientific works that allow you to significantly expand the limits of the reasonable, are books for the development of imagination by the following authors:
- Stephen King;
- JK Rowling;
- Michael Crichton;
- Patrick Suskind;
- Mikhail Bulgakov.
It is worth emphasizing once again that reading fiction helps develop imagination to unprecedented proportions. This is why small children so easily create funny stories about their toys, parents, and friends, while adults find it difficult to do this. In childhood, everyone fantasized, but as they grew up, they forgot about this ability.
A person may well exist without imagination, but the ability to recreate new images and ideas is never superfluous.
We live in a time of rapidly developing technologies that require special concentration, flexibility of thinking and quick adaptation from us and our children. Such a world needs non-standard solutions and creative approaches to solving various problems. Therefore, it is important to develop imagination in children and adults.
We are not born with the ability to create object images in our minds. This ability comes to us at an early age, and fairy tales and poems, drawing and modeling, dancing and music contribute to this. The first ways of thinking in children appear at the age of two years, and by the age of three, with the development of speech, the imagination becomes richer.
But until the age of five, they cannot fantasize and not act on it - each of their fantasies is embodied in a game or story. And only in the eldest preschool age children begin to create objects of thought in their minds.
It is very important to support the development of imagination in preschoolers, to help them fantasize, for example, in the process of reading fairy tales and playing. They provide the necessary basis for the formation of imagination, teach them to make decisions and bear responsibility for them.
Here, control over games and imaginary plots is necessary, since it is difficult for children to separate the imaginary from the real. And the main task of parents is to distinguish between fantasy and childish pranks and stupidity, which carries negativity and harm, and be prepared for the manifestation of childish aggressiveness. You should also help create positive objects of imagination that will help set the child up for positive things, and also help solve this or that problem.
We help develop imagination in preschoolers and schoolchildren
A child cannot develop objective thinking at the proper level on his own, and parents must help in this process.
Presentation: "Developing imagination and attention"
- The breadth of fantasies depends on the richness of life experience, so it is necessary to broaden the horizons of children, help them form an idea of the world and events around them. It is on the basis of existing knowledge that imagination develops, especially in younger schoolchildren. It's no secret that an erudite child is able to create a more vivid imaginary world.
- Imagination can develop in preschoolers and on the basis of other people's experience. For example, it may be based on a story told by parents or a fairy tale read. Of course, this will have to be learned and developed;
- Remember that fantasies and emotional states go hand in hand. Depending on the mood, imaginary objects are endowed with different properties, which is why it is so important to create a positive emotional background in children.
But it happens that a child has enough knowledge and a lot of bright impressions in life, but he does not want to fantasize and dream . Here you need to help - to gently push him towards this:
- give various motivations, for example, together figure out how you will spend the weekend and, based on this, write a story, and then bring this story to life;
- Explain that there is nothing shameful in made-up stories, whatever they may be, but on the contrary, they are fun and interesting. A child who likes to invent different adventures for his favorite characters copes with any life situations more easily;
- for the development of imagination in preschoolers, it is important to trust their parents, because they teach them to fantasize and dream;
- if you want your child to develop his creative potential, start telling him invented fairy tales, make some fakes. After all, children love to copy the behavior of adults.
Presentation: "Development and correction of imagination in children"
Helping children discover their creativity
Children in preschool age can be helped to develop their imagination with the following exercises:
- read books to your children, look at pictures with them, go to the theater and on excursions;
- offer to draw what he saw in the play, tell what he did during the day;
- sculpt and draw various scenes that can be discussed in advance and help the child see what should happen;
- praise for any stories, poems, songs written;
- preschoolers should spend time playing games, but their choice is your responsibility; surround your child with construction toys and puzzles according to age, use ready-made educational games and exercises.
If it seems to you that it is more difficult for younger schoolchildren to develop their imagination, then this is a mistaken opinion.
They have more knowledge and life experience, and therefore more material for fantasies and imaginations, but it may be more difficult to find an approach, the right game or exercise to develop this skill. Alternatively, ask to imagine and describe some plot from a book you read, suggest making some changes to the development of events in your favorite fairy tale or cartoon. Remember that drawing, modeling, origami and various handmade crafts, as well as various vivid impressions that you want to tell everyone, are excellent tools for developing the imagination of schoolchildren and preschoolers.
Presentation: "Development of creative imagination"
We develop through play
Here are several options for games and exercises that stimulate the development of imagination in children of senior preschool age:
- an effective exercise - invite your child to trace his palms with a pencil or paints and let him tell you what they look like and draw a picture based on them, for example, a bird, and the hand is its wing or a bouquet, where the brush will be branches of flowers;
- to develop artistic skills, let the child choose any three colors of paint and paint the entire sheet of paper with them, and then tell what it looks like;
- A great game for imagination - place a large blot of paint in the middle of a sheet of paper, bend it in half and open it. Offer to tell what or who the blot looks like;
- many of us are familiar with a simple game when we are given unfinished drawings and asked to complete them and talk about the result obtained, try this with your children;
- draw two identical silhouettes of wizards, and let the child use pencils to create one good and another evil character, and then tell him what the bad one did and how the good one defeated him. Such an exercise not only develops imagination, but helps to distinguish between good and evil;
- Dance exercises are also very effective. Offer to dance joy or delight, a fox or a newly blooming flower;
- cut out various circles and strips of different sizes from paper, let the child tell you what they look like - this game allows you to create new images;
- Offer the children an exercise in which they need to change the ending of a fairy tale they know;
- Another exercise is to tell a fairy tale, and then together separate fantastic events from those that can happen in real life, so you will have two stories - one with real events, the other completely fantastic.
Presentation: "Development of intellectual abilities of preschool children through the use of gaming technologies"
We help you fantasize
Several exercises that stimulate imagination in children:
- Increase and decrease. Tell him that the child has a magic wand with which he can change the size of anything, let him tell you what he has reduced and what he has enlarged and what this will lead to;
- Adding fictitious properties to people. Offer to endow a person with new skills and organs, thus creating a fantastic hero and building a plot around him;
- Bring your drawing to life. Tell your child that everything he draws can come to life, let him come up with and sketch who and why he wants to revive;
- Transformation into any object. Let the child imagine what object he could turn into, and let him show what he would look like then;
- Give items unusual skills and properties. For example, trees learned to talk and what came of it. Or imagine that a stick is like a horse can gallop;
- Endowing inanimate objects with new properties. Let's say water that cures all ailments or makes you speak only the truth;
- Reviving dead animals, people, fairy tale heroes and imagining how events would develop further;
- Changing the usual relationships between fairy-tale characters;
- Offer to come up with names for various drawings and paintings by famous artists;
- Combine several objects into one and, on the contrary, imagine what could happen if some object were divided into several parts, each of which came to life;
- Games with time. This exercise allows you to imagine that time has accelerated and days fly by in 5 hours, or vice versa, summer lasts not three months, but six months, and perhaps a time machine was invented;
- Offer to come up with some kind of house or gadget of the future;
- Come up with new holidays, competitions and themes for matinees.
By developing children, we develop ourselves.
Constantly inventing new games and activities for the child, parents also fantasize and imagine, thereby developing these qualities in themselves. And often, without noticing it, they begin to generate creative ideas simple solutions. This manifests itself in answers to unexpected questions from children, in a new arrangement of furniture, and even in preparing ordinary dishes in a new way.
By playing seemingly simple games to develop imagination with a child, we also begin to imagine and fantasize, helping to create an exciting story.
But you can begin to develop in this direction long before children appear. There are a lot of exercises that are designed specifically for adults and are aimed at revealing and developing flexibility of thinking. Of course, some of them may seem ridiculous or difficult at first, but you shouldn’t be afraid of difficulties. Without such mental training, it is difficult for us to perceive changes and move forward; we begin to think in stereotypes.
Target: determine the level of development of nonverbal imagination.
Material: for each child 10 sheets of paper (the size of half a printed sheet), on each of which a small (about 1 x 2 cm) figure of an indeterminate shape is drawn. The bottom of an equivalent set of such figures has been developed (see Fig. 1 and 2). During one examination, children are offered one set (any), consisting of 10 figures, and a simple pencil.
2. Game: “Different Pictures” –
Target: develop imagination and perception.
Material: pictures depicting objects or scenes, and the same pictures, but cut into several parts.
Methodology: children are asked to look at the whole picture, and then from memory assemble the picture from the parts. (Figure 3)
3. Exercise: “Guess who I am?”
Target: develop imagination.
Progress of the exercise: an adult uses gestures, facial expressions, and sounds to depict a well-known object: a samovar or a teapot.
Methodology: children are asked to guess the depicted object and tell how they guessed it.
4. Game "Transformations"
Target: develop the child’s ingenuity, that is, imagination combined with creative thinking. Expand the child’s understanding of the world around him.
Material: any simple object (chair, scarf, pencil, etc.).
Methodology: Children are given any simple object. And the first child is offered, with the help of facial expressions, pantomimes, and imitation of movements, to “transform” him (in the imagination) into any other object. For example, a glass in a vase of flowers. After it becomes clear what the item being used will turn into, another child takes it and “transforms” it into something else. The game continues until everyone has “transformed” the item.
Target: Development of imagination
Look carefully, what does each figure look like? (Figure 4). Name several options, and then you can complete it the way you imagine it.
6.Exercise: “Magic Forest”
Celb: Development of imagination
Complete the lines and shapes to create a magical forest with its inhabitants. (Figure 5)
7.Exercise: “Gifts for Friends”
Target: Development of imagination
Think about how you can turn these figures into gifts for your friends. Try to finish drawing. (Figure 6)
8.Exercise: “Blob”
Target: Development of imagination
Look carefully at each blot and think about what it looks like. Try to finish drawing. (Figure 7)
9.Exercise: “Painting”
Target: Development of imagination
Draw these circles so that they make a picture. You can combine several circles into one picture. (Fig. 8)
10.Exercise: “Connect the dots”
Target: development of imagination
See how you can make a drawing by connecting the dots. Try to draw something yourself by connecting the dots. (Figure 9)
Application (imagination)
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
After the lateral break was made, we had many mostly illogical (lateral) judgments. Now we have to take a step aimed at eliminating the resulting pattern gap. The upcoming stage is associated with work on the development of creative imagination to search and create full-fledged creative ideas from the metamorphoses obtained in the previous stages. In other words, in this class you will learn how to learn how to most effectively repair a lateral tear. This lesson describes the methods, principles and features of developing creative imagination, and also contains useful techniques, exercises and games.
What is creative imagination
Creative imagination- this is a type of imagination during which a person independently creates new images and ideas that are of a certain value. These ideas can be translated into specific products of creative activity.
Also close to creative imagination and useful in the process of creative thinking is reconstructive imagination. Recreating Imagination This is the creation of images of objects that were not previously perceived by a person in a complete form, although he was already familiar with similar objects or their individual elements. In this case, the knowledge that a person already has about these objects is used, which determines the predominantly reproductive nature created images. At the same time, these images are distinguished from memory representations by a great diversity, flexibility and dynamism of elements. Simply put, the reconstructive imagination, unlike the creative imagination, is more consciously based on previous experience.
The peculiarity of imagination in the creative process is that it is imagination that is difficult to control when creating something new. If at the previous stages it was possible to describe an almost exact algorithm of actions, then last stage should rely specifically on a person’s ability for creative imagination and associative thinking, you can read about the latter in a special lesson on memory development.
Ability to find solutions to problems
Before moving on to tools for developing productive imagination, it is important to note that everyone has the ability to imagine creatively. The human mind has important property, which consists in the presence of an incentive to eliminate logical contradictions.
For example, many smokers, knowing about the serious harm of smoking, always know how to explain to themselves and the people around them the reason why they do not give up this harmful habit. It turns out that smokers are faced with an internal contradiction “smoking is good - smoking is bad”, which in psychology is called cognitive dissonance (). This contradiction causes psychological discomfort, and people are forced to come up with all possible ways to eliminate this contradiction, and some of them reflect the high creative abilities of a person: smoking can be harmful, but pleasant, smoking helps creativity, puts you in the right mood, helps train breathing, reduces weight etc. Almost every smoker has his own excuse, which was caused by a logical contradiction.
It turns out that a person is initially programmed to struggle with contradictions and look for a way out of the current difficult situation. In the previous lesson, we had many modified judgments regarding the object in the selected focus. At the stage of breaking the pattern, we violated logic and came to dissonance, which will have to be corrected with the help of our imagination, life experience and natural predisposition to a certain type of thinking. Moreover, the ability of people to effectively search for solutions to logical contradictions is stronger, the more experience a person has, ideas about various models of behavior and other knowledge about the world around him.
To understand how this mechanism works for you personally, and also to train your imagination, we suggest you complete an exercise called “Jumbled Letters in Words”
Exercise "Jumbled letters in words"
This exercise does a great job of showing that our brains can find and understand the meaning of words, even if they are deliberately trying to confuse it. This happens because we do not read letters and syllables, but words as a whole, and in addition, we understand the meaning of words thanks to neighboring words and phrases that our brain has encountered before.
Tools for developing imagination
One of the main ways to develop imagination is to gain multifaceted life experiences. The more we communicate with different people, we participate in various events, do different things, the more sensory, emotional and intellectual experience we get. As a result, all this experience is involved in eliminating logical dissonances that arise during lateral thinking. Naturally, there are no universal recommendations for gaining life experience, but you can pay attention to such things as expanding your models of the world and reading.
Expanding the number of world models. The term "model of the world", as well as framing, which was discussed in the second lesson, is a popular one in neuro-linguistic programming to describe the different approaches people take to interpreting reality.
The diversity of models of the world comes from the fact that reality is perceived by people differently, and no one is able to be an objective interpreter of reality. To understand the essence of the process of creating something new, you need to realize that all the ideas we express are perceived differently by each person. For example, some pieces of music that you like may cause negative attitudes in other people. The problem of interpreting music shows well the difference in people's ideas: what seems beautiful, original or even brilliant to some, may not seem so to others at all.
To develop creative thinking you need to use representational features various models peace. In other words, the more we communicate with different people and try to understand them, the better our creative thinking will be.
Reading. Reading books and other sources of information, including using speed reading techniques, is very effective way to develop creative imagination. While reading, active visualization of what you are reading occurs. Since you do not receive any additional information other than the letters that make up words and sentences, you inadvertently have to imagine a picture of what is happening. It is especially useful for the development of creativity to read science fiction, adventure, detective stories and, of course, poetry.
However, the effect of reading books on the ability to think creatively is not entirely clear. For example, Schopenhauer in his work “Parergaund Paralipomena” noted that excessive reading is not only useless, since the reader in the process of reading receives someone else’s thoughts ready-made and assimilates them worse than if he came to them on his own, but is also harmful to the mind, since weakens him and teaches him to look for ideas in external sources, and not from his own head. We can only add to this that although reading expands our models of the world, the habit of looking for truth in books impairs the ability to find a creative solution.
Exercises
For creative thinking, it is important to be able to find connections between already acquired experience and what we are contemplating at the moment, in other words, to build associations. The exercises below are aimed at developing imagination and associative thinking.
Exercise 1. Rotating shapes
This exercise is aimed at training the imagination. Its use in the development of imagination was proposed in the 1980s by the famous psychologist Roger Shepard. In each task, you will be shown 2 figures: some are obtained by reflecting each other, others by rotation, and others are simply similar and are not rotation and reflection of each other.
Exercise 2. Solving doodles
Exercise 3. Letter (test)
Within a minute, try to name as many things as possible that are now in the room with you and begin with the letter: “K.” The letter “P”... And the letter “B”?
Count how much you got. If you try, you can name more than 50 things, or even more than 100. To improve this exercise, think about what groups of surrounding objects you forgot to include. For example, starting with the letter “B” you can name:
- things, hanger, (items),
- screws, introduction in the book on the shelf, (details of objects),
- tungsten lamp filaments, felt, cotton wool, viscose, etc. (materials),
- pile on the carpet, wax on the parquet (coating),
- hair, eyelids, freckles, temples, etc. (body),
- imagination, delight, excitement, the ability to come up with something else (mental concepts),
- air, breeze, variants of words, yourself, everyone else (also with “v”).
Think what else can be called? Practice with other letters: “p”, “k”, “s” - easier, “d”, “a”, “t” - more difficult.
Exercise 4. Come up with a title and description
Try to come up with a title or caption for the picture, describe what is happening in it:
As you may have guessed, this is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It's called " Night fishing in Antibes." To develop your creative imagination, try to more often describe interesting things around you: paintings, photographs, music, food and much more. Try to go to museums more often and look carefully at the exhibits. The mystery of Malevich’s “Black Square,” for example, is that if you have imagination and a creative perception of the world, you can see a lot for yourself in this picture. If you don't bother with your creativity, then you will only see geometric figure black, does not represent anything. The black square is a mirror of your imagination.
There is another modification of this exercise: during a trip to public transport try to come up with a name, biography or other details for strangers who are traveling with you, based only on their appearance. If you are traveling with a friend, share yours with him, and then invite him to do the same, compare your stories.
Games to develop imagination
Imagination is the key factor in the final element of our creative thinking framework. The better developed the imagination, the broader a person’s worldview, the faster he is able to find the necessary associations in his head, the more creative his ideas.
Our imagination is constantly developing; the more we explore the world, the better our imagination is developed. However, just contemplating the world is not enough. It is important to think about what we see, to analyze what is happening.
Test your knowledge
If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. For each question, only 1 option can be correct. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on completion. Please note that the questions are different each time and the options are mixed.
