Imagination - Preview of Life's Coming Attractions

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions."  ~Albert Einstein

I came across this quote this morning and it made me smile and laugh cause everyone knows how wild and crazy my imagination is and how it is open 24/7 in my mind. I could never decide whether an imagination like my own was healthy or not.  I'm not sure that's gonna come across correctly.  What I mean is, I spend much of my day in my daydreams, in my imagination and how much of that is unhealthy in terms of not living in reality?  I mean, don't get me wrong, I do spend a whole lot of time in my reality.  I have to.  There's no way to avoid it.  I'm a burn survivor and a particularly hard to heal burn survivor and I'm reminded of that every minute, every hour, every day.  But even spending those times in reality, I'm always living in my imagination seems like.  It's almost like part of my brain is living in reality while at the same time I'm living in my imagination for a type of escape when I'm unable to escape through sleep.  It's weird. Like they're happening at the same time.  As a psychology major, I am always interested in behavior and the brain which makes my second career (if acting doesn't work out) in the BAU unit in the FBI a very good choice.  So I wondered, what part of the brain is imagination responsible for since I'm all over the place with it in terms of, I'm always high on imagination, kinda like Jack White is high on awesome (inside joke between Mike Leventhal and I :) Right Mikey?).

So I did some research and it of course, as I suspected, we can't really tell yet.  What we can speculate on though, is that many different parts of the brain are involved in imagination because of the different types and aspects of our imaginings.  All we can really say is that a lot of the work of most sorts of imagination is involved in perception, which is a very large part of the brain.  However, there is one thing scientists have found in their research and that is when one is using their visual imagination (also known as "seeing things in their mind's eye") the occipital cortex, which is responsible for the information coming from our eyes, works particularly hard leading scientists to believe that this is where most of the visual imagination takes place.  Makes sense.  But makes me ask, isn't all imagination visual?  In other words, when we use our imagination, aren't we always using visual imagery?  What other kind of imagery is there?  Physical imagery?  But I would venture to think that even physical imagery is accompanied by visual imagery.  That visual imagery is like the favorite call girl to the high paying client (sorry to use such a crude reference but it's quite true).  But research has shown that is not necessarily so.  All they can really say is that when doing research on people who are using their imagination, most all of the brain is at work.

So back to Albert Einstein saying that imagination is the preview of life's coming attractions, that it is "everything."  I honestly don't know what to think about Einstein's idea of imagination here.  I mean I really want to say that I totally agree, cause really, Ok, I do.  I'm a huge on imagination.  I think it's highly important for a lot of things from our work to our play.  I think it should be highly valued and as children we are encouraged to use it, but unfortunately as we grow older, it is discouraged and only used for games and in the arts (artists/actors/cinematographers/directors/etc).  And I find that discouragement of imagination and the encouragement of "living in the real world" as we become adults sad.  Of course, we have to face reality but having an imagination is important to our lives, too.  I have a little over-board imagination that gets a little, ok, a lot, crazy and wild sometimes but as I've posted before, sometimes it's these daydreams, these fantasies, these imaginings that perk up my day just thinking that they could possibly be.  They give me a smile thinking about them.

I'd love to think that Einstein is right, that imagination is the preview of life's coming attractions cause man, my life would be FANTASTIC! Absolutely KILLER!!  So, for today, I'm gonna let my imagination go and believe that Einstein is right and that my imaginings of marrying Jack White, having a little Isabeau Georgia White and Willem (or Jagger) Jack White and maybe even more, taking care of my family as they took care of me, and having my dream acting career, winning at least one Oscar and and at least one Golden Globe and living a healthy happy life with the man of my dreams, the family of my dreams, and the career of my dreams is the preview of my life's coming attractions.  Aaahhh....there goes my imagination as I just typed all that down and as I'm typing now, there's a smile on my face just imagining those things that could be.  That could be.