Definition and types of imagination (active, passive, recreational, creative). Hallucinations and dreams, dreams and fantasies as types of imagination

Imagination is a mental process of creating an image of an object, a situation by restructuring existing ideas. The images of the imagination do not always correspond to reality; they have elements of fantasy, fiction. If the imagination draws pictures to the consciousness, to which nothing or little corresponds in reality, then it is called fantasy. If the imagination is turned to the future, it is called a dream. The process of imagination always proceeds in an inextricable connection with two other mental processes - memory and thinking.

Types of imagination:

Active imagination always aimed at solving a creative or personal problem. A person operates with fragments, units of specific information in a certain area, their movement in various combinations relative to each other. In active imagination, there is little daydreaming and "baseless" fantasy. Active imagination is directed towards the future and operates with time as a well-defined category (i.e., a person does not lose his sense of reality, does not put himself outside of temporary connections and circumstances). Active imagination is directed more outside, a person is mainly busy with the environment, society, activities and less with internal subjective problems. Finally, active imagination is awakened by the task and directed by it; it is determined by volitional efforts and lends itself to volitional control.

Using this kind of imagination, a person consciously sets himself the task of inventing something and then performs it. True, a person, engaging in the process of active imagination, does not have an exact idea of what he will ultimately imagine or come up with in advance: the image of his fantasy is born in the course and as a result of the corresponding process, and his creator is not known in detail until then, until this image is created by him. Moreover, the person who creates it does not know in advance where and where his creative process will stop. This is how, for example, writers, artists, engineers, scientists, representatives of other creative professions work. This type of imagination is called active because at any moment of time, creating an appropriate image, a person can introduce something new, stop, that is, he is able to control this process or stop it at will

Passive imagination subordinated to internal, subjective factors, it is tendentious. “It reflects the fulfillment of desires and aspirations, removes obstacles and turns the impossible into the possible and real. The goal is achieved due to the fact that a path is paved for associations corresponding to the aspiration, while associations that contradict the aspiration are inhibited, i.e. thanks to a mechanism that, as we know, depends on the influence of affects ”(Bleuler). Bleuler gives the most important role in passive imagination precisely to efficiency, which acts as a trend.

Passive imagination is subject to desires, which are thought to be fulfilled in the process of fantasizing. In the images of passive imagination, the unsatisfied, mostly unconscious needs of the individual are "satisfied". Images and representations of passive imagination, as E. Bleuler emphasizes, are aimed at strengthening and preserving positively colored emotions and at displacing, reducing negative emotions and affects. In this case, a person can reckon with the requirements of reality.

Logic, reflecting the real relationships of reality, cannot serve as a guiding principle for passive imagination. In the dynamics of fantasy images, various desires and personality tendencies can coexist, regardless of whether they contradict each other or not.

If in the process of realistic thinking, Bleuler believes, in actions and statements a large number of drives, desires and needs are ignored, suppressed as undesirable in favor of what is subjectively more important, then in the images of passive imagination all this can get its vivid expression. It is unlikely that a well-mannered, reasonable and cautious person will show his disagreement with the unfair and offensive actions of the boss too aggressively. But in the mental assessment, which is drawn by the imagination "warmed up" by the desire for revenge, the same boss may be subjected to the most sarcastic destructive criticism from the subordinate. He can even be physically destroyed, trampled, crushed in the images of the fantasies of a dreamed person, and this brings him great satisfaction and compensates for the offense. The repressed desire to respond to the offender comes to the fore in the passive imagination with special force.

It is unreacted desires, the interruption of begun or still only planned actions, the inability to act due to an insurmountable obstacle, the collapse of plans - all this subjectively experienced as a state of frustration is the main activator of passive imagination. And so fantasy creates images that are substitutes for satisfaction not received in real activity. In the course of the processes of passive imagination, an unreal, imaginary satisfaction of any need or desire occurs. In this, passive imagination differs from realistic thinking, which is aimed at real, and not imaginary, satisfaction of needs. Images of imagination can be completely independent of reality, which in extreme cases leads to the creation of absolute nonsense, completely incomprehensible to others.

Passive imagination is governed by two principles.

1) each affect seeks to hold on. He paves the way for the corresponding ideas, gives them an exaggerated logical value, and also inhibits the emergence of conflicting ideas, deprives them of their inherent meaning. Thus, a cheerful person assimilates cheerful ideas much more easily than sad ones, and vice versa.

Images of active creative or practical imagination can be transmitted (crystallized) in a verbal message or in a creative work. In most cases, the products of passive imagination are images that are difficult to convey in verbal form, abstract, symbolic, accidental, incomprehensible to others and therefore unreported, according to L.S. Vygotsky.

Passive imagination can use the first material that comes across, even erroneous material, devoid of any logical connection, for example, associations by consonance, random coincidences of any images and representations, the use of one concept instead of another that has only minor common components with the first, etc.

In the process of passive imagination, temporal relationships are ignored. In fantasy images, Bleuler notes, there are aspirations that were eliminated for consciousness dozens of years ago: memories that have become inaccessible to realistic functions are used in passive imagination as recent, and they are often given preference because they run into less contradiction with actual reality. ... It is interesting that more accurate, complete and professional knowledge about the subject of dreams and dreams significantly slows down the process of fantasizing, becomes an obstacle.

Ignoring "reality" in the process of passive imagination, as E. Bleuler writes, is that logical laws are valid for the material of thoughts only insofar as they can serve the main purpose, i.e. depicting unfulfilled desires as fulfilled. Contradictions concerning the content of thoughts are even more coarse and numerous than affective contradictions.

E. Bleuler notes that the innate nature of autistic thinking is especially clearly revealed in symbolism, which is everywhere distinguished by comparative uniformity from century to century in mythology, in dreams, right up to mental illness. Indeed, a huge number of tales, myths, parables are based on a relatively limited number of motives.

Recreational imagination- one of the types of active imagination, in which the construction of new images, representations in people in accordance with the stimulation perceived from the outside in the form of verbal messages, schemes, conventional images, signs, etc. This kind of imagination is widely used in various types of human practice. The usual way of using the recreational imagination is as follows: someone tells how to find the desired house in an unfamiliar area of the city and describes in detail the difficult route to follow. When words are perceived, images and their systems appear, corresponding to the description of the street, signs, landmarks. The appearance of the described places is presented with more or less accuracy.

The degree of correspondence of the arising images to reality will depend on the accuracy and imagery of the description, as well as on the brightness and richness of the hearer's recreating imagination.

More complex types of recreational imagination, such as the imagination of drawings, geographical maps, musical notation, the perception of literary works, require special training, knowledge and skills.

Soviet psychologist O.I. Nikiforova noted that the recreational imagination in different people is not developed to the same degree (difference in learning, life experience, individual characteristics). She identified four types literary recreational imagination .

1. The weakest imagination. When reading a description of a landscape, such subjects did not at all awaken the activity of the imagination, they did not develop visual ideas about the landscape, they could retell the content of what they read only in a general form.

2. The subjects may have ideas, but they in one way or another do not correspond to the text. The complex process of recreating an artistic image is replaced by the process of concretizing their personal, individual memories, more or less similar to the image of description.

3. In these cases, it was noted, first of all, the desire to more accurately imagine the image of the landscape according to its description. Persons of this type had to analyze the text in detail. While reading, they had memories inappropriate to the text, but unlike the subjects of the second group, they always checked these memories on the basis of text analysis and tried to recreate the images as the writer had portrayed them through conscious alteration. The main quality of the subjects of this type is that they clearly identified the differences between the image of the literary description of the landscape and their memories. The subjects could recreate in their imagination the image of a landscape according to its description, even if they had never seen such or a similar landscape in their life.

4. Complete adaptation of the imagination to the originality of artistic descriptions and the complete subordination of figurative processes to a deep and accurate analysis of the text. Such readers, as O.I. Nikiforova: “Immediately together, in the course of reading, representations arise that correspond to the image of the landscape created by the writer. They did not observe any noticeable operations of the imagination, no alterations of the presentation. " The images emerged by themselves as the text was read. These subjects simply "saw" the images. The peculiarities of this type are that the images arose immediately without indirect recollection of past impressions.

But figurative recreation depends not only on the ability to recreate imagination, on the level of knowledge, but also on the stylistic features of the description.

Studies have shown that it is easier for a person to recreate an image with a synthetic description, and the image itself will be more correct.

Creative imagination- this is a kind of imagination, during which a person independently creates new images and ideas that are valuable for other people or for society as a whole and which are embodied (“crystallized”) into specific original products of activity. Creative imagination is a necessary component and basis of all types of human creative activity. Depending on the subject to which the imagination is directed, they distinguish between scientific, artistic, technological imagination. An example of creative imagination in science, for example, is a kind of image-concept in which a certain concept appears in a visual form. In chemistry, this is the formula of a substance, that is, a specific image in the form of a picture gives a complete characteristic of a given substance, indicates the order of bonds between atoms in a molecule and the structure of their arrangement in space. In physics, it is a visual model of the structure of an atom; in biology, it is a model, an image of a protein molecule, etc.

Images of the creative imagination are created through various techniques, intellectual operations. In the structure of the creative imagination, two types of such intellectual operations are distinguished. The first is the operations through which ideal images are formed, and the second is the operations on the basis of which the finished product is processed. One of the first psychologists to study these processes was T. Ribot. In his book Creative Imagination, he identified two main operations: dissociation and association. Dissociation is a negative and preparatory operation, during which the sensually given experience is fragmented. As a result of such preliminary processing of experience, its elements are able to enter into a new combination.

Dissociation- a spontaneous operation, it manifests itself already in the perception. Association- the creation of a holistic image from the elements of the isolated units of images.

Traditionally distinguished operations of creative imagination, or the so-called algorithms of imagination, were observed: agglutination, hyperbolization, sharpening, schematization, typification. Important conditions for creative imagination are its purposefulness, that is, the conscious accumulation of scientific information or artistic experience, building a certain strategy, foreseeing the expected results; prolonged "immersion" in the problem.

Of greatest interest is the work of E. Bleuler "Autistic Thinking" (1927), which provides a detailed and deep analysis of passive imagination. In the following years (30-60s), only a few studies appeared, which obviously reflects a certain decrease in interest in the study of this mental function. Recently, in connection with the development of psychology, the situation begins to change, but the unresolved problems of the significance of the pathology of the imagination in the pathogenesis of neuroses, neurotic states and psychosis remain relevant.

Imagination, as you know, is closely related to creativity (this will be discussed in more detail below). And oddly enough, this relationship is inverse, i.e. it is the imagination that is formed in the process of creative activity, and not vice versa. The specialization of various types of imagination is the result of the development of various types of creative activity.

there are others kinds of imagination... These include:

· dreams,

· hallucinations

· daydreams

· dreams.

Dreams m Can be classified as passive and involuntary forms of imagination. Their true role in human life has not yet been established, although it is known that many vital needs are expressed and satisfied in a person's dreams, which, for a number of reasons, cannot be realized in life.

Hallucinations they call fantastic visions that apparently have almost no connection with the reality surrounding a person. Usually, they, as a result of certain disorders of the psyche or the work of the body, accompany many painful conditions.

Daydreaming, unlike hallucinations, is a completely normal mental state, which is a fantasy associated with desire.

A dream they call the form of special internal activity, which consists in creating an image of what a person would like to accomplish. A dream differs from a dream in that it is somewhat more realistic and is more connected with reality, i.e. in principle feasible. Dreams take up a fairly large part of a person's time, especially in adolescence, and for most people they are pleasant thoughts about the future, although some also have disturbing visions that give rise to feelings of anxiety and aggressiveness. The process of imagination is rarely immediately realized in the practical actions of a person, therefore a dream is an important condition for the implementation of a person's creative powers. The need for a dream is that, being initially a simple reaction to a highly exciting situation, it then often becomes an internal need of the individual. The dream is very important even in primary school age. The younger the dreaming child, the more often his dreaming not so much expresses his direction as creates it. This is the formative function of dreams.

Question 46. Definition, types, functions of imagination. The role of imagination in solving cognitive and personal problems. Development of imagination. Imagination and creativity.

Imagination is a mental process of creating new images, ideas and thoughts based on existing experience, by restructuring a person's ideas.

Imagination closely related to all other cognitive processes and occupies a special place in human cognitive activity. Thanks to this process, a person can anticipate the course of events, predict the results of his actions and deeds. It allows you to create programs of behavior in situations characterized by uncertainty.

From a physiological point of view, imagination is a process of formation of new systems of temporary connections as a result of complex analytical and synthetic activity of the brain.

In the process of imagination, the systems of temporary nerve connections seem to disintegrate and combine into new complexes, groups of nerve cells are connected in a new way.

Physiological mechanisms of imagination are located in the cortex and deeper parts of the brain.

Imagination Is a process of mental transformation of reality, the ability to build new holistic images of reality by processing the content of the existing practical, sensory, intellectual and emotional-semantic experience.

Types of imagination

On the subject - emotional, figurative, verbal and logical

By modes of activity - active and passive, intentional and unintentional

By the nature of the images - abstract and concrete

According to the results - recreational (mental reproduction of the images of objects that are in reality) and creative (creation of images of objects that do not exist at the present time).

Types of imagination:

- active - when a person, by an effort of will, evokes the appropriate images. Active imagination is a creative, re-creating phenomenon. Creative active imagination arises as a result of labor, independently creates images that are expressed in original and valuable products of activity. This is the foundation of any creativity;

- passive - when images arise by themselves, do not depend on desires and will and do not come true.

Passive imagination happens:

- involuntary imagination ... The simplest form of imagination is those images that arise without special intention and effort on our part (floating clouds, reading an interesting book). Any interesting, fascinating teaching usually evokes a vivid involuntary imagination. One type of involuntary imagination is dreaming ... N.M.Sechenov believed that dreams are an unprecedented combination of experienced impressions.

- arbitrary imagination manifests itself in cases when new images or ideas arise as a result of a special intention of a person to imagine something definite, concrete.

Among the various types and forms of arbitrary imagination, one can distinguish re-creating imagination, creative imagination and dream. Recreational imagination occurs when a person needs to recreate a representation of an object as closely as possible corresponding to its description. For example, when reading books, we imagine heroes, events, etc. Creative imagination is characterized by the fact that a person transforms ideas and creates new ones not according to the existing model, but independently outlining the contours of the image being created and choosing the necessary materials for it. Creative imagination, like recreational imagination, is closely related to memory, since in all cases of its manifestation, a person uses his previous experience. A dream is a kind of imagination that consists in creating new images on your own. At the same time, the dream has a number of differences from the creative imagination. 1) in a dream, a person always recreates the image of what he wants, in a creative not always; 2) a dream is a process of imagination that is not included in creative activity, i.e. not giving an immediately and directly objective product in the form of a work of art, scientific discovery, etc. 3) the dream is always aimed at future activities, i.e. a dream is an imagination directed towards a desired future.

Imagination functions.

In human life, imagination performs a number of specific functions. The first of them is to represent reality in images and be able to use them, solving problems. This function of imagination is connected with thinking and is organically included in it. The second the function of the imagination is to regulate emotional states. With the help of his imagination, a person is able to at least partially satisfy many needs, relieve the tension generated by them. This vital function is especially emphasized and developed in psychoanalysis. The third the function of imagination is associated with its participation in the arbitrary regulation of cognitive processes and human states, in particular perception, attention, memory, speech, emotions. With the help of skillfully evoked images, a person can pay attention to the necessary events. Through images, he gets the opportunity to control perception, memories, statements. Fourth the function of imagination is to form an internal plan of actions - the ability to carry them out in the mind by manipulating images. Finally, the fifth function is planning and programming activities, drawing up such programs, assessing their correctness, and the implementation process. With the help of imagination, we can control many psychophysiological states of the body, tune it to the upcoming activity. There are also known facts indicating that with the help of imagination, by a purely volitional way, a person can influence organic processes: change the rhythm of respiration, pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature.

Imagination carries the following functions (as defined by R.S. Nemov):

- representation of reality in images;

- regulation of emotional states;

Arbitrary regulation of cognitive processes and human states:

- formation of internal action plan;

- planning and programming activities;

- psychophysiological management the state of the body.

The role of imagination in solving cognitive and personal problems.

Imagination is closely related to thinking:

Like thinking, it allows one to foresee the future;

Imagination and thinking arise in a problem situation;

Imagination and thinking are motivated by the needs of the individual;

In the process of activity, imagination appears in unity with thinking;

Imagination is based on the choice of an image; thinking is based on the possibility of a new combination of concepts.

The main purpose of fantasy is to present an alternative to reality. As such, fantasy serves two main purposes:

It stimulates creativity, allowing you to create something that does not yet exist (yet), and

It acts as a balancing mechanism of the soul, offering the individual a means of self-help to achieve emotional balance (self-healing). Fantasy is also used clinically; the results of projective psychological tests and methods are based on fantasy projections (as is the case in TAT). In addition, in various psychotherapeutic approaches, fantasy is assigned the role of an exploratory or therapeutic agent.

Development of imagination

It is very difficult to determine any specific age limits that characterize the dynamics of the development of imagination. There are examples of extremely early development of the imagination. For example, Mozart began composing music at the age of four, Repin and Serov were already good at drawing at the age of six. On the other hand, the late development of the imagination does not mean that this process in more mature years will be at a low level. History knows cases when great people, for example Einstein, did not have a developed imagination in childhood, but over time they began to speak of them as geniuses.

Despite the difficulty of determining the stages of development of human imagination, certain patterns can be identified in its formation. So, the first manifestations of imagination are closely related to the process of perception. For example, children at the age of one and a half years are not yet able to listen to even the simplest stories or fairy tales, they are constantly distracted or fall asleep, but they are happy to listen to stories about what they themselves have experienced. In this phenomenon, the connection between imagination and perception is quite clearly visible. The child listens to the story of his experiences because he clearly represents what is being discussed. The connection between perception and imagination remains at the next stage of development, when the child begins to process the impressions received in his games, modifying previously perceived objects in his imagination. The chair turns into a cave or plane, the box turns into a car. However, it should be noted that the first images of the child's imagination are always associated with activity. The child does not dream, but embodies the processed image in his activity, even though this activity is a game.

An important stage in the development of imagination is associated with the age when the child masters speech. Speech allows the child to include in his imagination not only specific images, but also more abstract ideas and concepts. Moreover, speech allows the child to move from expressing images of imagination in activity to their direct expression in speech.

The stage of mastering speech is accompanied by an increase in practical experience and the development of attention, which allows the child to more easily single out individual parts of the object, which he already perceives as independent and with which he increasingly operates in his imagination. However, the synthesis takes place with significant distortions of reality. Due to the lack of sufficient experience and insufficient criticality of thinking, the child cannot create an image close to reality. The main feature of this stage is the involuntary nature of the appearance of images of the imagination. Most often, images of imagination are formed in a child of a given age involuntarily, in accordance with with the situation he is in.

The next stage in the development of imagination is associated with the emergence of its active forms. At this stage, the imagination process becomes arbitrary. The emergence of active forms of imagination is initially associated with motivating initiative on the part of an adult. For example, when an adult asks a child to do something (draw a tree, build a house with blocks, etc.), he activates the imagination process. In order to fulfill the request of an adult, the child must first create, or recreate, in his imagination, a certain image. Moreover, this process of imagination by its nature is already arbitrary, since the child is trying to control it. Later, the child begins to use voluntary imagination without any adult participation. This leap in the development of imagination is reflected, first of all, in the nature of the child's play. They become focused and story-driven. The things surrounding the child become not just stimuli for the development of objective activity, but act as material for the embodiment of the images of his imagination. A child at the age of four or five begins to draw, build, sculpt, rearrange things and combine them in accordance with his idea.

Another major shift in imagination occurs at school age. The need to understand the educational material causes the activation of the process of recreational imagination. In order to assimilate the knowledge that is given at school, the child actively uses his imagination, which causes the progressive development of the ability to process images of perception into images of the imagination.

Another reason for the rapid development of imagination during school years is that in the learning process, the child actively receives new and versatile ideas about objects and phenomena of the real world. These representations serve as a necessary basis for imagination and stimulate the creative activity of the student.

The degree of development of the imagination is characterized by the brightness of the images and the depth with which the data of past experience are processed, as well as the novelty and meaningfulness of the results of this processing. The power and liveliness of imagination is easily appreciated when the imagination is a product of improbable and bizarre images, for example, by the authors of fairy tales. Poor development of imagination is expressed in a low level of processing of ideas. Weak imagination entails difficulties in solving mental problems, which require the ability to visualize a specific situation. With an insufficient level of development of the imagination, a rich and emotionally versatile life is impossible.

People differ most clearly in the degree of brightness of the images of the imagination. If we assume that there is a corresponding scale, then on one pole there will be people with extremely high indicators of the brightness of imaginary images, which they experience as a vision, and on the other pole there will be people with extremely pale ideas. As a rule, we find a high level of development of imagination in people engaged in creative work - writers, artists, musicians, scientists.

Significant differences between people are revealed in relation to the nature of the dominant type of imagination. Most often, there are people with a predominance of visual, auditory or motor imagery. But there are people who have a high development of all or most types of imagination. These people can be classified as the so-called mixed type. Belonging to one or another type of imagination is very significantly reflected in the individual psychological characteristics of a person. For example, people of the auditory or motor type very often dramatize the situation in their thoughts, imagining a non-existent opponent.

The development of the imagination in the human race, considered historically, follows the same path as that of the individual. Vico, whose name deserves to be mentioned here because he was the first to see the use of myths for the study of the imagination, divided the historical path of mankind into three successive periods: divine or theocratic, heroic or fabulous, human or historical in the proper sense; moreover, after one such cycle has passed, a new one begins

- vigorous activity (D. in general) stimulates the development of imagination

Development of various types of creative activity and scientific activity

The use of special techniques for creating new products of the imagination as a solution to problems - agglutination, typification, hyperbolization, schematization

- agglutination (from lat. agglutinatio - gluing) - combining separate parts or different objects into one image;

- accentuation, sharpening - underlining in the created image of some detail, highlighting a part;

- hyperbolization - displacement of an object, a change in the number of its parts, a decrease or increase in its size;

- schematization - highlighting the characteristic that is repeated in homogeneous phenomena and its reflection in a specific image.

- typing - highlighting the similarity of objects, smoothing out their differences;

Active connection of feelings and emotions.

Imagination and creativity.

The leading link is the dependence of imagination on creativity: imagination is formed in the process of creative activity. The imagination necessary for the transformation of reality and creative activity was formed in the process of this creative activity. The development of the imagination took place as more and more perfect products of the imagination were created.

Imagination plays a particularly important role in scientific and artistic creativity. Creativity without the active participation of the imagination is generally impossible. The scientist's imagination allows him to make hypotheses, mentally imagine and play scientific experiments, search for and find non-trivial solutions to problems. Imagination plays an important role in the early stages of solving a scientific problem and often leads to wonderful guesses.

The study of the role of imagination in the processes of scientific and technical creativity is carried out by specialists in the psychology of scientific creativity.

Creativity is closely related to all mental processes, including imagination. The degree of development of imagination and its features are no less important for creativity than, say, the degree of development of thinking. The psychology of creativity manifests itself in all its specific forms: inventive, scientific, literary, artistic, etc. What factors determine the possibility of human creativity? 1) a person's knowledge, which is supported by the appropriate abilities, and is stimulated by purposefulness; 2) the presence of certain experiences that create the emotional tone of creative activity.

The English scientist G. Wallace made an attempt to investigate the creative process. As a result, he managed to identify 4 stages of the creative process: 1. Preparation (the birth of an idea). 2. Maturation (concentration, "gathering" of knowledge, directly and indirectly). 3. Illumination (intuitive grasp of the desired result). 4. Verification.

Thus, the creative transformation of reality in the imagination obeys its own laws and is carried out in certain ways. New ideas arise on the basis of what was already in the mind, thanks to the operations of synthesis and analysis. Ultimately, the processes of imagination consist in the mental decomposition of initial ideas into their component parts (analysis) and their subsequent combination in new combinations (synthesis), i.e. are analytical and synthetic in nature. Consequently, the creative process relies on the same mechanisms that are involved in the formation of ordinary images of the imagination.

Imagination can manifest itself in different ways. You can understand this more deeply by getting acquainted with the basic types of imagination.

Depending on on the severity of activity there are two types of imagination: passive and active.

Passive imagination characterized by the creation of images that are not subsequently embodied in practical deeds, activities. The created images replace real life activity with fantasies, dreams, etc.

Depending on from volitional efforts passive imagination can be either intentional or unintentional.

Intentional (voluntary) passive imagination(dreams) are images of fantasy, consciously evoked, but not associated with the will, aimed at translating them into reality. Unintentional (involuntary) passive imagination Is the spontaneous creation of new images. It occurs when the activity of consciousness, the second signaling system, is weakened, for example, in a half-asleep state, in a state of passion, in a dream (dream), with pathological disorders of consciousness (hallucinations), when reading books, etc.

Active imagination associated with the implementation of specific practical activities. Starting to do something, we present an image of the result, methods of activity, etc. Active imagination is more directed outward: a person is centered primarily on external objects (on a situation, other people, business) and to a lesser extent on internal subjective experiences, thoughts, etc. Often an active imagination is stimulated, task-directed, and always controlled by will. However, active imagination is not necessarily only specific deeds - it can also be observed in communication (a striking example is the manifestation of empathy - the ability to understand another person, imbued with his thoughts and feelings, compassion, rejoice with him, empathize).

Depending on from the nature of the created image active imagination can be recreational or creative .

Recreational imagination Is a representation of something new for a given person, based on a verbal description or a conventional image of this new (drawing, map, notes, etc.). It is widely used in various activities during training.
Creative imagination Is the creation of new images without relying on a ready-made description or conventional image. This is an independent creation of new images (writing a novel, a piece of music, etc.).

Creative imagination is a kind of imagination in the course of which a person independently creates new images and ideas that are valuable to other people or society as a whole and which are embodied (“crystallized”) into specific original products of activity. Creative imagination is a necessary component and basis of all types of human creative activity.

Dream - an image that reflects the desired future for a person.

The role of dreams in life for a person can hardly be overestimated. She is future-oriented, makes life exciting and rewarding. Although a dream does not imply an immediate achievement of a real result, as well as its complete coincidence with the image of the desired, but at the same time it can become a strong motivating and meaning-forming main active and creative life of a person.

Ways to create new images. The creation of images of the imagination goes through two main stages.

1. The first stage of the formation of images of the imagination is characterized by analysis impressions received from reality or representations formed as a result of previous experience. During this analysis, there is object abstraction, i.e. it appears to us to be isolated from other objects, while abstraction of parts of the object also occurs.

2.With these images, further transformations two main types. First, these images can be delivered in new combinations and connections... Secondly, these images can be completely new meaning... In any case, operations are performed with abstracted images that can be characterized as synthesis. The forms in which the synthesizing activity of the imagination is carried out is extremely diverse. Let's take a look at some of them.

Agglutination- "gluing" various qualities that are not found and are not combined in everyday life, that is, the creation of a new image by attaching parts or properties of one object to another in the imagination (An example is the classic character of fairy tales, a man-beast or a man-bird, the image of a winged man in the drawings of North American Indians, dragons, a hut on chicken legs, centaur: the body of a bull, neck and head - the upper part of the human body; mermaid: hair - algae, the body and head of a woman, tail - fish Agglutination is widely used in art and technical creativity (car -amphibian and hovercraft).

Increase (hyperbola) or decrease (litota) of an object or its parts... Using this method, various literary characters and works of art were created. From childhood, they enter our life and forever remain with us as something of their own, dear, inextricably linked with the ideas about the Motherland of the paintings of V.M. Vasnetsov's "Alyonushka", "Three heroes" and as a form of imagination exaggerated "Ivan Tsarevich on the gray wolf."

The following fairy-tale characters can serve as an example: Dwarf Nose, Boy - with - finger, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Thumbelina girl. This technique is widely used in folk tales, epics, when the hero is portrayed as a mighty addition, with superhuman strength, which allows him to fight a whole enemy army "above a standing forest, slightly below a walking cloud."

Hyperbole and litota are widely used in poetry and prose (for Nekrasov - "a little man with a fingernail", for Gogol - "a rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper", etc.). The images of giants and midgets in the novel by J. Swift "Gulliver's Travel" are constructed in hyperbole and littote.

Hyperbolization can also be achieved by changing the number of parts of the object (multi-armed Buddha, one-eyed cyclops, dragon with seven heads).

The most significant ways of processing representations into images of the imagination, following the path of generalizing essential features, are schematization and accentuation.

Schematization. In this case, the individual views merge, the differences are smoothed out. The main features of similarity are clearly worked out, i.e. an image of something in a generalized form. This is any schematic drawing. Schematization is manifested in national ornaments and patterns of embroidery, carving, painting. By the ornament that adorns some thing: a spinning wheel, a vase, a bowl, a pot, a book, an icon, etc., one can determine the camp, where it was created, and even the time of its creation.

In the ancient Egyptian ornament we see lotus flowers, papyrus, in ancient Greek - broken at right angles lines and elements of flora and fauna, in Russian - ligature (a skillful combination of letters), fantastic animals and birds, figurines of people.

Schematization can take place under various conditions:

1. It can arise as a result of incomplete, superficial perception of the object. In this case, the representations are schematized in a random way, among them secondary details are sometimes distinguished, accidentally discovered during the perception of the object. As a result, distortions arise that lead to the creation of images of the imagination, perversely reflecting reality. A similar phenomenon is common in children.

2. The reason for schematization in the case of a sufficiently complete perception of the object may be the forgetting of any insignificant details or parts. In this case, essential details and features come to the fore in the view. At the same time, the idea loses some individuality and becomes more generalized.

3. The reason for schematization can be a conscious distraction from the non-essential, or secondary, aspects of the object. A person consciously directs his attention to the essential, in his opinion, features and properties of an object and, as a result, reduces representations to a certain scheme.

Typing. It is characterized by the allocation of the essential, repeated in homogeneous facts in some respects and their embodiment in a specific image. For example, there are professional images of a worker, doctor, engineer, etc. Artists, writers, sculptors rely on it to a greater extent, reflecting the typical, highlighting a significant repetition of properties, qualities, phenomena in a single one.

Accentuation is to emphasize the most essential, most important, typical features of the image. As a rule, this method is used when creating artistic images. A classic example is caricature, caricature. The main feature of such processing of perception images into images of the imagination is that, reflecting real reality and typing it, an artistic image always gives a broad generalization, but this generalization is always reflected in a specific image. Moreover, the processing of representations when creating a typical image is not accomplished by mechanical addition or subtraction of any features. The process of creating a typical image is a complex creative process and reflects certain individual characteristics of the person who creates this image.

Imagination processes, like memory processes, can vary in degree arbitrariness , or premeditated . Extreme cases of involuntary imagination are dreaming , in which images are born unintentionally and in the most unexpected and bizarre combinations. Involuntary in its basis is also the activity of the imagination, which unfolds in a half-asleep, drowsy state, for example, before falling asleep.

Free imagination is of much greater importance to humans. This kind of imagination manifests itself when a person is faced with the task of creating certain images, outlined by him or given to him from the outside. In these cases, the process of imagination is controlled and directed by the person himself. At the heart of this work of the imagination is the ability to arbitrarily evoke and change the desired representations.

Among the various types and forms of arbitrary imagination, one can distinguish recreational imagination, creative imagination and dream.

Recreational imagination manifests itself when a person needs to recreate the representation of an object, as fully as possible corresponding to its description. We encounter this kind of imagination when we read descriptions of geographical places or historical events, as well as when we get to know literary characters. It should be noted that the recreational imagination forms not only visual representations, but also tactile, auditory, etc. drum beat, gunpowder smell.

Most often, we are faced with the recreational imagination, when it is necessary to recreate a representation from a verbal description. However, there are times when we recreate the idea of an object not using words, but on the basis of diagrams and drawings. In this case, the success of recreating the image is largely determined by the person's ability to spatial imagination , that is, the ability to recreate an image in three-dimensional space. Consequently, the process of recreational imagination is closely related to a person's thinking and memory.

The next kind of arbitrary imagination is creative imagination ... It is characterized by the fact that a person transforms ideas and creates new ones not according to the existing model, but independently outlining the contours of the created image and choosing the necessary materials for it. Creative imagination, like recreational imagination, is closely related to memory, since in all cases of its manifestation, a person uses his previous experience. Therefore, there is no hard boundary between the recreational and creative imagination. With a recreational imagination, the viewer, reader, or listener must, to a greater or lesser extent, replenish the given image with the activity of his creative imagination.

A special form of imagination is dream ... The essence of this type of imagination is the independent creation of new images. At the same time, the dream has a number of significant differences from the creative imagination. First, in a dream, a person always creates an image desired future , whereas in creative images the desires of their creator are not always embodied. In dreams, what attracts a person, to which he aspires, finds its figurative expression. Secondly, a dream is a process of imagination that is not included in creative activity, that is, it does not immediately and directly provide an objective product in the form of a work of art, scientific discovery, technical invention, etc.

The main feature of a dream is that it is aimed at future activities, that is, a dream is an imagination aimed at a desired future. Moreover, several subtypes of this type of imagination should be distinguished. Most often, a person makes plans for the future and in his dream determines the ways to achieve what he has planned. In this case dream is active, voluntary, conscious process.

But there are people for whom the dream acts as a substitute for activity. Their dreams are only dreams. One of the reasons for this phenomenon, as a rule, lies in the failures in life that they constantly suffer. As a result of a series of failures, a person refuses to fulfill his plans in practice and plunges into a dream. In this case, the dream appears as a conscious, arbitrary process that has no practical end. It should be noted, however, that this type of dream cannot be regarded only as a negative phenomenon. The positive meaning of a dream of this type is to ensure the safety of the mechanisms of regulation of body systems. For example, failures in practical activity in most cases contribute to the formation of a negative mental state, which can be expressed in an increased level of anxiety, a feeling of discomfort, or even depressive reactions. In turn, a negative mental state acts as one of the factors that cause difficulties in the socio-psychological adaptation of a person, the formation of maladaptive disorders and premorbid characteristics of any disease. In this situation, the dream can act as a kind of psychological defense that provides a temporary escape from the problems that have arisen, which contributes to a certain neutralization of the negative mental state and ensuring the safety of regulation mechanisms with a decrease in the general activity of a person.

It should be noted that these types of dreams are active, voluntary and conscious mental processes. However, imagination can exist in another - passive form, which is characterized by an involuntary play of the imagination. An example of such involuntary imagination, as we have already said, is sleep.

If voluntary, or active, imagination is intentional, that is, it is associated with the volitional manifestations of a person, then passive imagination can be intentional and unintentional. Intentional passive imagination creates images that are not associated with will. These images are called daydreams ... In dreams, the connection between the imagination and the needs of the individual is most clearly revealed. It is easy to predict what a person will dream about, anxiously awaiting a significant event for him. People tend to dream about the pleasant, tempting. But if dreams begin to replace activity and prevail in the mental life of a person, then this already indicates certain disorders of mental development. The predominance of dreams in the mental life of a person can lead him to a separation from reality, withdrawal into a fictional world, which, in turn, begins to slow down the mental and social development of this person. So, a schoolboy, not preparing for classes and receiving unsatisfactory marks, can create an illusory, fictitious life for himself, where he succeeds in everything, where everyone envies him, where he occupies a position that he cannot hope for now and in real life.

Unintentional passive imagination it is observed with a weakening of the activity of consciousness, its disorders, in a semi-drowsy state, in a dream, etc. The most indicative manifestation of passive imagination is hallucinations, in which a person perceives non-existent objects. As a rule, hallucinations are observed in some mental disorders.

Thus, when classifying the types of imagination, they proceed from two main characteristics. This is the degree of manifestation of volitional efforts and the degree of activity, or awareness (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2.Types of imagination

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… ... 3

1.Kinds of active imagination …………………………………. ……………… 4

1.1. Recreational imagination ……………………………………………… 5

1.2. Anticipatory imagination ………………………………………… ..7

1.3. Creative imagination ………………………………………………… .9

2. Passive imagination …………………………………………………… 11

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… .14

List of used literature …………………………………………… ... 15

Introduction

Imagination is a special process of the human psyche, which stands apart from other mental processes and at the same time occupies an intermediate position between perception, memory and thinking. The specificity of this process lies in the fact that imagination, as an ideal process, gives rise to the ideal - an image that is something that does not exist in reality. Imagination, apparently, is characteristic only of humans, in any case, there is no convincing evidence of its presence in animals. Imagination is connected with the activity of the organism, with the physiological processes taking place in it, and from this point of view it is not much different from other mental processes. At the same time, imagination is the most “psychic” of all human mental processes. This means that in nothing else, except imagination, the purely ideal, mysterious nature of the human psyche is so clearly manifested. It can be assumed that it was the imagination, the desire to understand and explain it (at least in the form of dreams or hallucinations) that attracted the attention of scientists to mental phenomena in antiquity, supported and continues to maintain interest in human psychology today. As for the secrets of this phenomenon, they, in particular, consist in the fact that a person's imagination can arise unexpectedly, spontaneously, give birth in the form of images to something that has no analogues in the world. Now we can give a formal definition of imagination. We will understand it as a mental process that generates images in conditions where nothing corresponding to them affects the sense organs.

Several types of imagination can be distinguished, among which the main ones are - passive and active... The passive, in turn, is divided into arbitrary(daydreaming, daydreaming) and involuntary(hypnotic state, dreaming fantasy). Separately distinguish and consider such types of imagination as dreams, hallucinations, dreams and dreams.

1. Types of active imagination

Active imagination includes artistic, creative, critical, recreational and anticipatory ... Close to these types of imagination is empathy- the ability to understand another person, imbued with his thoughts and feelings, compassion, rejoice, empathize.

1.1. Recreational imagination

But figurative recreation depends not only on the ability to recreate imagination, on the level of knowledge, but also on the stylistic features of the description.

Studies have shown that it is easier for a person to recreate an image with a synthetic description, and the image itself will be more correct.

1.2. Anticipatory imagination

Anticipatory imagination underlies a very important and necessary human ability - to anticipate future events, to foresee the results of their actions, etc. Etymologically, the word "foresee" is closely related and comes from the same root with the word "see", which shows the importance of understanding the situation and transferring certain elements of it to the future on the basis of knowledge or prediction of the logic of the development of events.

Anticipatory imagination is intrinsically connected with the structure of any human activity. Animals have more primitive and simple forms of this kind of imagination. The roots of anticipatory imagination go to the sphere of vital adaptive mechanisms of the brain, which are based on the principle of anticipatory reflection of reality, that is, adaptation to future events that have not yet occurred. Without these mechanisms, not a single living creature could exist for a minute. This is a universal phenomenon of life, which largely determined all forms of adaptive behavior of living matter. The highest manifestation of this principle is the activity of anticipatory imagination in its specific human forms: dreams, anticipation of an event, foreseeing the consequences of one's actions, etc.

Like other types of imagination, anticipatory draws "building" materials from the reserves of memory, from the knowledge of the past and the present, from the understanding of the logic of the development of certain events. Thanks to anticipatory imagination, a person organizes his activities, proceeding not only from his personal experience, but using the experience of other people and all of humanity.

In a new and unknown situation, a person cannot but resort to trial and error. Anticipatory imagination helps to mentally do a series of actions, explore the proposed behaviors, possible consequences, on the basis of which a person can slow down and postpone some and activate other actions. A person does not need to jump from the twentieth floor to find out how dangerous such a fall is. On the contrary, the idea of one's own fall from a height and the fear associated with it (which, by the way, is a very frequent motive of dreams), as well as an imaginary picture of possible consequences - damage, injury, fractures, death, etc. - keep many people from the temptation to climb trees and roofs, and cause a seemingly unfounded fear of heights.

Thus, thanks to this ability, a person can see with his “mind's eye” what will happen to him, to other people or things around him in the future. F. Lersh called this the Promethean (looking ahead) function of the imagination, which depends on the magnitude of the life perspective: the younger a person, the more and brighter the forward orientation of his imagination is presented. In older and old people, the imagination is more focused on the events of the past. This imaginative situation can be described as an “as if” situation. Taking a certain social or personal role in such a situation, a person checks the reliability of his knowledge about himself, as well as about his "ecology", that is, about the immediate environment and people around him. The hypotheses put forward are tested in practice. Some of them are discarded as inadequate and inconsistent with reality, others, confirmed by experience, are recognized as correct, and new ones are built on their example.

The success of forecasting, the correspondence of the expected results to the actual ones will depend on how objective the material of the anticipating imagination is and corresponds to reality. The degree of likelihood of the assumption will depend on the extent to which the hypothesis takes into account the known factors and laws of nature and human society, and also whether this hypothesis contradicts the established laws. Enhancing the function of active imagination can be especially useful for a person looking for a solution to a scientific problem.

1.3. Creative imagination

Dissociation- a spontaneous operation, it manifests itself already in the perception. Association- the creation of a holistic image from the elements of the isolated units of images.

2. Passive imagination

Passive imagination is governed by two principles.

Conclusion

According to psychologists, all great creations or inventions require a sudden switch, shift or shift of attention and address a question or area that has not been studied before or even aroused little interest in them.

“The time has come” - it means that the processes that give rise to ideas, images, actions in the imagination have come to their end. And now the seemingly well-known situation looks in a completely different light, and the solution of the problem, which seemed logically impregnable, becomes really possible.

Such situations, about which people did not suspect or regarded them as inaccessible or similar, lead to an extreme sharpening of imagination, perception, give rise to sudden insights, an unexpected ability to spontaneously correct decisions.

Thus, one of the compensatory mechanisms - the activation of the imagination, used by a person in conditions of insufficient stimulation, at a certain stage can acquire a positive value. At the same time, it must be stated that in an environment of significant restriction of stimulation, it is mainly the activation of not active, but passive imagination that occurs.

Thus, imagination plays an important role on early stages of studying scientific Problems and often leads to wonderful guesses. However, after they were noticed, some patterns were guessed and studied under experimental conditions, after the law was established and tested in practice. Associated with previously discovered theses, cognition is entirely transferred to the level of theory, strictly scientific thinking. An attempt to fantasize at this stage of the study of the issue can lead to nothing but mistakes. The development and education of fantasy is an important condition for the formation of a young person's personality.

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