Introduction
Imagination

The imagination, the senses and the body are interdependent. The imagination is the capacity to make images. Our imaginations make us human and they toil every millisecond of our lives. Only the imagination can interpret what our senses relay to our bodies. It is imagination that enables us to perceive. Effectively, nothing in the world exists for us until we can perceive it. Our capacity to imagine is both imperfect and glorious, and only the paying of attention can improve it.

The imagination may be mocked as reality's understudy: 'that child has an over-active imagination' or 'you're just imagining things!' However it is only imagination that can connect us to reality. Without our ability to make images we would have no means of accessing the outside world. Our imaginations are the nearest we can get to reality. The senses crowd the brain with sensations, the imagination sweats to organise these sensations as images and then perceives meanings in these images. We forge the world within our heads, but it is never the real world; it is always an imaginative creation.

The imagination is not a fragile piece of Dresden porcelain, but rather a muscle that develops itself only when properly used. It was a popular eighteenth-century view that the imagination was an abyss that might swallow the unwary. The mistrust of the imagination persists, but to shut down the imagination, even if possible, would be like refusing to breathe for fear of catching pneumonia.