I have a pretty vivid imagination, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. I love it when it helps me to create new stories or songs, or when I can daydream about fun times ahead. But it can also lead to fear or worry, like when I imagine something terrible befalling the people or places I love.

Is there some way to nurture the positive aspects of imagination while minimizing the problematic? According to Cassandra Vieten, director of research at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, there is. In her new book, Imagine That, she explains imagination’s importance in our everyday lives—a way to understand our past, navigate the present, and explore future possibilities. If we learn more about its inner workings, she argues, we can use it more consciously and deliberately to create the kind of life we want.

“Imagination is something we all possess, something we can all practice, for free and with equal opportunity,” says Vieten. “When someone develops this capacity, they gain something almost magical: the ability to see multiple futures simultaneously and navigate toward the preferred ones.”

Imagination as part of everyday life

Many of us tend to conflate imagination with creativity, thinking that being able to imagine new ideas is the same as bringing them to fruition. While the two may indeed be related, this is far too limited a view of what imagination can be, writes Vieten.

“Imagination is an essential, foundational capacity that allows us to simulate reality and transcend it to explore possibilities beyond the known,” she says.

In our everyday lives, imagination is what helps us make predictions as well as come up with novel (or creative) ideas. For example, we might imagine how stopping for a coffee on our way to work will help us focus (simulation imagination, based on past experience). But we might also use our imagination to transcend what’s known and come up with a totally new innovation or product idea once we arrive at the office (generative imagination).

“Imagination weaves throughout the fabric of our cognitive, sensory, and relational lives—you are constantly speculating, visualizing, rehearsing, wondering,” she writes.

These types of imagination show up differently in the brain, writes Vieten. Simulation is primarily centered in the default mode network (DMN), a part of the brain that remains active when we aren’t engaging in a specific task. The DMN is where we tend to mull over future interactions, plans, or options, often subconsciously (or even unconsciously).

Generative imagination, on the other hand, comes by freeing ourselves from the DMN’s limitations (or, some would say, tyranny). If we can get out of the everyday chatter and let our minds truly wander freely around disparate parts of the brain, making new neural connections, we have a better chance of generating something truly unique.

“Rather than simulating or iterating, comparing and contrasting, generative imagination is focused on combining, reconfiguring, or transcending existing knowledge to generate novel outputs,” writes Vieten.

Either way, imagination isn’t frivolous, she writes; it’s important for our everyday functioning as well as creative self-expression. It helps us solve problems, while also expanding possibilities of what could be, giving us “the gift of wonder, whimsy, and surprise, the whoas and the wows of our lives,” she writes.

Imagination’s darker side

Imagination can sometimes be problematic, though. For example, we might imagine that our spouse is mad at us and worry about what might happen when she gets home from work when, actually, she’s not mad at all. This can cause us needless worry, not to mention potentially trigger a fight.

We can also imagine that other people are unpleasant or even dangerous based on untested biases. These can be formed in part via our imagination, which tries to prepare us for unknown encounters, often behind the scenes at an unconscious level.

“We regularly imagine entire narratives, scenes, and interactions without intending to or even knowing we’re doing it,” writes Vieten.

Our imagination is often busy filling in the missing parts of our memories and perceptions, which are by nature incomplete. Memories, rather than being etched in our minds, are recreated (and often changed) each time they’re recalled. Similarly, we can’t perceive everything at once, so our imagination completes the picture for us, adding interpretations, too. This means it’s easy to corrupt memories or miss details of a situation—which can sometimes lead to problems (think eyewitness accounts of crimes, for example).

Understanding these darker sides of imagination can help us tame them somewhat, says Vieten. “You can practice bringing greater attention to what you are imagining, recognize it as imagination, and decide whether it holds useful information, is irrelevant, or is actually causing harm.”

How to increase your imaginative capabilities

While the book covers the neuroscience behind imagination, it’s also about how to harness our imagination more effectively. Your personal imagination style may depend, in part, on your genetics (such as neurodiversity), culture, and life experiences. Understanding this can help you figure out where you might want to try moving the needle one way or the other.

To assess your own imaginative strengths and weaknesses, here are some key imagination modes Vieten outlines in her book.

  1. Receptiveness. “How willing you are to imagine—and how receptive you are to whatever bubbles up.” If you are high in receptivity, you may find it easy to do guided visualizations, for example; if low in receptivity, you may be less willing to imagine unknown scenarios.

  2. Presence. How much do you embody your imagined experiences? If you tend to be absorbed, immersed, and emotionally involved in imagined scenarios, you’re high in presence; if you tend to observe these imaginings from a distance, you’re less so.

  3. Embellishment. “How vivid, detailed, and elaborate people make their imaginings.” Those high in embellishment can imagine intricate scenarios with much more detail, clarity, nuance, and complexity. Those low in embellishment might be more “big picture” folks, who may not be able to conjure up details as much.

  4. Originality. How much your imagination is fueled by what is or could be, based on reality, versus how much it veers from that and is based more on fantasy and novelty.

  5. Temporality. How much your imagination is associated with time (in other words, assessing the past or projecting into the future) versus how much it is agnostic around time (not based on any particular time). (Vieten admits the science on this mode is not completely settled, but says there appear to be some differences in how people engage with time while imagining.)

Each of these modes has pros and cons, she argues. For example, being high in receptivity may mean you’re more cognitively flexible and open to new experiences, but can also mean you’re overly compliant and easily manipulated. Similarly, the upside of being high in originality is that it can fuel advancements in art and science, though it can lead to boredom with everyday life.

Considering my own strengths and weaknesses, I noticed that I seem to be high in receptivity and embodiment, but low in embellishment and originality (and mixed when it comes to temporality). Recognizing this makes me think about paying more attention to details in my environment and playing around with more fantastical ideas, especially if I’m wanting to fuel my creativity.

To that end, Vieten provides avenues for stretching our imagination in different ways. Some ideas for accessing different aspects of imagination deliberately include rehearsing something before doing it, brainstorming ideas, engaging all of our senses when imagining something, reframing an idea from a different perspective, and freewriting.

Vieten also suggests creating environments conducive to being more spontaneously creative. Setting time aside to daydream, being in solitude where your mind can wander, taking walks in the woods to de-stress, or, possibly, taking psychedelic drugs (in a safe, controlled environment) can all help us disengage our DMN and allow creative thoughts to enter more freely.

“One of the key ways to make imagination welcome is to remove the practical pressures of the world,” she writes.

Beyond self-help

Imagine That is full of suggestions for unleashing your imagination, all based on the emerging science of imagination that Vieten and her colleagues (and others) are exploring.

But while the book reads mostly as a self-help guide, there’s also an important message about why using our imagination is beneficial to society as a whole. Too many of us are experiencing the hopelessness and despair that come with being alive right now, writes Vieten. It’s too easy to get lost in the negative news cycles and focus on all of the problems in the world, making it more difficult to imagine anything better for our collective future.

Learning how to engage our imagination more readily can create a sense of hope in our current situation. Not only can it bring more joy and aliveness to our individual lives, countering malaise, it can also lead to new ways of collaborating with others and innovating to solve societal problems, thereby providing a better life for everyone.

“So many of the issues facing us locally and globally are rooted in our collective inability to imagine new solutions, alternative futures, creative pathways forward that could build a world that promotes thriving for all,” writes Vieten. “My deepest hope is that [you] take a deeper dive into the science, the practice, and the magic of imagination and [see] how it can re-enchant your life and our world.”