Dr. Sheila Pontis is an Imagination Coach and interdisciplinary design professor. She works at the intersection of imagination, inner-growth, and education. Her current research focuses on the development of experiential curricula, pedagogical strategies, and interventions to empower learners from the inside out to harness their ability to imagine and address problems more creatively. She teaches imagination workshops for educators and the general public. To find out more visit: sheilapontis.com And to learn more about your mental blocks, complete the Re-Learn to Imagine Challenge: sheilapontis.com/imagine_challenge/
A post by Sheila Pontis
The pace of global change has only grown in recent years, spiraling uncertainty about the present and future. Discouraging news reported daily increases feelings of anxiety, making people feel lonelier and unhappier. We struggle to be optimistic and imagine positive futures or paths forward different from what we know (Mulgan, 2020). In this context, both emotional well-being and imagination are strongly connected, suggesting a symbiotic relationship in which both constructs are critical for challenging dominant social views and surfacing unconventional, positive alternatives. An integrated approach can lead to stronger emotional well-being habits that can help individuals and society harness the potential of imagination to make change in their lives and the outside world.
Before exploring this approach in depth, let’s establish what we mean by “emotional well-being” and “imagination,” as some confusion surrounds these terms.
What is emotional well-being?
Recently, multiple efforts in research, the private sector, and governments (e.g., VanderWeele et al., 2025; Waldinger & Schulz, 2023) have been focused on promoting emotional well-being as the foundation of societal flourishing. Emotional well-being is defined as “a multi-dimensional composite that encompasses how positive an individual feels generally and about life overall” (Park, et al., 2023:16). It is composed of hedonic well-being, which refers to positive emotions like happiness, optimism, and satisfaction, and eudaimonic well-being, which involves personal growth, goals, and purpose of life. Unfortunately, pervasive pessimism and hopelessness about the future contribute to people’s poor mental health. An approach to promoting emotional well-being, focused on the deliberate cultivation of imagination, could lead to more transformative results.
What is imagination?
Imagination is the human capacity to construct mental representations of things, events, or concepts that are not present to the senses (Gotlieb et al., 2018; Kind, 2022). We engage in imaginative thought every day, both intentionally and unintentionally, individually and collectively. Broadly, there are two types of imagination. Reproductive or imaginal imagination (Ricoeur, 2016) is the most familiar type, as we use it to learn things about the world (Kind, 2022). These ideas are constrained by reality and based on direct experiences or on things that we have seen before.
In contrast, productive or imaginative imagination refers to ideas generated from things or situations not experienced or perceived (Ricoeur, 2016); these ideas are not constrained by reality, like dreams or fictional stories. By practicing productive imagination, we can transcend reality or escape the world (Kind, 2022). Building on Ricoeur’s work (2016), outputs of productive imagination reveal people’s creative potential, deliberate actions, and cognitive achievements because they are not straightforward descriptions of the world.
Everyone can imagine; it can be fun, freeing, and hopeful. However, culture, social constructs, and education systems significantly influence our imaginative behaviors (Mulgan, 2020). Norms and conventions establish which types of ideas are considered “right” and “expected”, and which are judged to be “wrong” or “out of place.” Often, rewards are given to those who follow the norms, reinforcing the status quo, and social punishments are dealt to those who do not follow conventions. For instance, in many settings, after a certain age and in specific roles, playing or daydreaming is considered inappropriate. As a result, our imagination has become constrained and underdeveloped, with most ideas being permutations of what we have already seen and known.
The good news is that, as a skill, imagination can be taught, developed, and improved (Kind, 2022).
How do these constructs relate?
Imagination and emotional well-being are deeply intertwined. On the one hand, imagination has a strong impact on our health (Fancourt & Finn, 2019), personal growth, and emotions (Tan et al., 2021). On the other hand, positive emotions broaden our cognitive flexibility, encouraging new patterns of thought that enhance imagination, while negative emotions constrain thinking, narrowing our perspectives (Fredrickson, 2001). This creates a vicious cycle, where difficulty with productive imagination makes us more unhappy. The following three areas illustrate this symbiotic connection in more detail.
Shared Cognitive Processes. The Default Mode Network – also called the imagination circuit – is a brain region which is active when our attention is focused inwards, like during self-reflection and daydreaming. It plays an important role in both the experience of emotional well-being (Shi et al., 2018) and the act of engaging in imaginative thought (Abraham, 2016), in particular, social-emotional imagination (reflecting and connecting with feelings of oneself and others) and time-travel imagination (constructing events across time and space) (Gotlieb et al., 2018). Multiple cognitive processes and behaviors that are associated with this network are also related to both constructs. This suggests that enhancing one activity would also boost the other one.
Key Role in Optimistic Futuring. We spend most of our time mentally travelling through time and thinking about the future (Fowler et al., 2024), but our tendency is to imagine apocalyptic scenarios – e.g., worse pandemics – or negative situations rooted in current trends – e.g., AI takes over humanity. In this context, nurturing both positive emotions and the ability to envision life in fresh ways would bring hope and increase happiness (Quoidbach et al., 2009). Equipping people with the tools and confidence to dream up and plan a wide variety of uplifting scenarios would help them feel more optimistic. Similarly, cognitive techniques that support thinking about brighter futures can also be beneficial in positive psychotherapy.
Higher Quality Social Connections. Cultivating social relationships is a determining factor for emotional well-being, with the quality of those relationships having the greatest influence: fun, supportive relationships improve well-being, while untrustworthy ones destroy it (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023). The practice of imagining shared future experiences with other people (i.e., collaborative imagination) can foster higher quality social cohesion and increase people’s empathy toward others (Fowler et al., 2024). This suggests that imagination could help bring people closer and improve the quality of relationships.
Boosting From the inside out
Imagination and emotional well-being literature share similar boosting techniques and interventions. However, they are often discussed independently. In an effort to synthesize existing learnings, the following five suggestions can help establish the pillars of an integrated approach:
1. Embrace your own journey
Both Sheldon & Lyubomirsky (2019) and Amabile (1996) have stressed the need for intrinsic motivation to successfully engage in cognitive and behavioral changes, like promoting positive emotions and nurturing imagination. People should be willing to think in different ways and challenge their beliefs and worldviews (Plucker & Dow, 2010). That is, intentional buy-in is a must.
2. Know who you are
Self-discovery through metacognition can help improve people’s awareness, observation, and ability to regulate their own thinking (Flavell, 1979). This sense of reflectiveness would better prepare people to internalize new optimistic habits and imagination strategies, and be deliberate on when to use them. Furthermore, the more people know about themselves, the easier they would identify their personal mental blocks, self-imposed constraints, and other internal factors (Von Oech, 2008) that prevent them from dreaming and imagining. Similarly, people would have more tools to manage stress and negative emotions, like frustration, if they cannot generate an original idea.
3. Be in the here and now
Present-moment awareness helps people be more flexible and be open to consider new perspectives (Langer, 1989), as well as experience less anxiety and more positive emotions (Weinstein et., 2009). Through mindfulness people can exercise self-control, as it can produce altered states of consciousness like those experienced using drugs like LSD (Houston, 1973), which increase the number of associations and range of ideas (Kaufman et al., 2010). For instance, meditation is one way to be more present and get people’s minds into a cognitive state that is more conducive to imagining.
4. Choose your own adventure
Multiple techniques drawn from creativity literature are available to nurture imagination, including pretend play, associative thinking, empathy, divergent thinking, and mind-wandering. However, these are not "one-size-fits-all.” Like with activities used to boost well-being, people should select relevant and appropriate imagination-increasing strategies that best respond to their needs, interests, and personality (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2019). For instance, some people find meditation effective to connect with their imagination (e.g., Zedelius & Schooler, 2020), but others may not experience the same benefits or have interest in that technique. As with happiness-increasing interventions, being able to draw from an assortment of options could also help stimulate imagination.
5. Be deliberate & stay focused
Effortful and continuous practice helps people be more in control of their cognitive abilities (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2019; Amabile, 1996). Additionally, consistent practice over time is essential to achieve better results for both imagination and well-being. Repetition breaks with ingrained cognitive habits and sustained effort helps establish new ones.
These suggestions could be applied in the workforce or higher education, impacting the individual and the collective. For example, imagination training rooted in emotional well-being throughout college could offer a welcome approach to support students in today’s world. Similarly, integrating such training in all areas of society has the potential to make people more optimistic, happier, and less stressed, thus fostering the confidence to take risks, embrace their own unconventional views, and imagine more positive futures. These are just a few broad applications in which the symbiotic imagination-emotional well-being relationship could be leveraged. However, these also illustrate the multiple untapped opportunities for interdisciplinary research that could lead to a healthier and more creative society.
References
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