Orthodox psychology imagination creative activity. Types and processes of imagination

We call creative activity such activity of a person that creates something new, no matter whether it is created by creative activity, some thing of the external world or a certain construction of the mind or feeling, living and manifesting itself only in the person himself. If we look at the behavior of a person, at all his activities, we can easily see that in this activity two main types of actions can be distinguished. One type of activity can be called reproducing, or reproductive; it is connected in the closest way with our memory; its essence lies in the fact that a person reproduces or repeats previously created and developed methods of behavior or resurrects traces of previous impressions.

It is easy to understand what great significance this preservation of his former experience has for the whole life of a person, how much it facilitates his adaptation to the world around him, creating and developing permanent habits that are repeated under the same conditions.

The organic basis of such reproducing activity or memory is the plasticity of our nerve matter. Plasticity is the property of a substance, which consists in its ability to change and retain traces of this change. Our brain and our nerves, which have great plasticity, easily change their finest structure under the influence of certain influences and retain a trace of these changes if these excitations were strong enough or repeated often enough. In our brain, strong or frequently repeated excitations produce a similar blazing of new paths. Thus, the brain turns out to be an organ that preserves our previous experience and facilitates the reproduction of this experience. However, if the activity of the brain were limited only to the preservation of previous experience, a person would be a creature that could adapt mainly to habitual, stable environmental conditions. Any new and unexpected changes in the environment that were not encountered in the previous experience of a person, in this case, could not cause a proper adaptive reaction in a person.

Along with this function of preserving past experience, the brain has another function, no less important. In addition to reproducing activity, it is easy to notice another kind of this activity in human behavior, namely, combining or creative activity. Any such activity of a person, the result of which is not the reproduction of impressions or actions that were in his experience, but the creation of new images or actions, will belong to this second kind of creative or combining behavior. The brain is not only an organ that preserves and reproduces our previous experience, it is also an organ that combines, creatively processes and creates new positions and new behavior from the elements of this previous experience. If man's activity were limited to a mere reproduction of the old, then man would be a being turned only to the past, and would be able to adapt to the future only insofar as it reproduces this past. It is the creative activity of a person that makes him a being, facing the future, creating it and modifying its present.

This creative activity, based on the combining ability of our brain, psychology calls imagination or fantasy. Usually, imagination or fantasy does not mean exactly what is meant by these words in science. In everyday life, imagination or fantasy is called everything that is unreal, that does not correspond to reality, and that, therefore, cannot have any serious practical significance. In fact, imagination, as the basis of all creative activity, manifests itself equally in all decisively aspects of cultural life, making artistic, scientific and technical creativity possible. In this sense, everything that surrounds us and that is made by the hand of man, the whole world of culture, in contrast to the world of nature, is all a product of human imagination and creativity based on this imagination.

Our everyday idea of ​​creativity also does not quite correspond to the scientific understanding of this word. In the usual view, creativity is the lot of a few selected people, geniuses, talents who created great works of art, made great scientific discoveries or invented some kind of improvement in the field of technology. We readily recognize and easily recognize creativity in the activities of Tolstoy, Edison and Darwin, but it usually seems to us that this creativity does not exist at all in the life of an ordinary person. However, as already mentioned, this view is incorrect. Compared by one of the Russian scientists, how electricity acts and manifests itself not only where there is a majestic thunderstorm and dazzling lightning, but also in a pocket lamp, so it is true that creativity actually exists not only where it creates great historical works, but also wherever a person imagines, combines, changes and creates something new, no matter how small this new thing may seem compared to the creations of geniuses.

If we take into account the presence of collective creativity, which combines all these often insignificant grains of individual creativity, it becomes clear what a huge part of everything created by mankind belongs precisely to the nameless collective creative work of unknown inventors. The vast majority of inventions are made by unknown people. The scientific understanding of this issue leads us, therefore, to look at creativity more as a rule than as an exception. Of course, the highest expressions of creativity are still available only to a few selected geniuses of mankind, but in everyday life around us, creativity is a necessary condition for existence, and everything that goes beyond the limits of routine and contains at least an iota of new owes its origin to the creative process of man.

If creativity is understood in this way, then it is easy to see that creative processes are revealed in all their strength already in early childhood. One of the very important questions of child psychology and pedagogy is the question of creativity in children, the development of this creativity, and the significance of creative work for the general development and maturation of the child. Already at a very early age, we find creative processes in children, which are best expressed in the games of children. All these playing children are examples of the most genuine, most genuine creativity. Of course, in their games they reproduce a lot of what they saw. Everyone knows what a huge role imitation plays in children's games. The child's games very often serve only as an echo of what he saw and heard from adults, and yet these elements of the child's former experience are never reproduced in the game in exactly the same way as they were in reality. The child's play is not a simple recollection of what he has experienced, but a creative processing of the experienced impressions, combining them and building from them a new reality that meets the needs and inclinations of the child himself. Just as precisely, the desire of children to write is as much an activity of the imagination as is play.

It is this ability to create a structure from elements, to combine the old into new combinations, and this is the basis of creativity. With full justice, many authors point out that the roots of such creative combination can be seen even in the games of animals.

The play of an animal is also very often a product of motor imagination.

However, these rudiments of creative imagination in animals could not receive any stable and strong development under the conditions of their life, and only man developed this form of activity to its true height.

Imagination and creativity

2.1 The role of imagination in scientific, technical and artistic creativity

The specialization of different types of imagination is the result of the development of different types of creative activity. Therefore, there are as many specific types of imagination as there are types of human activity; imagination plays an especially important role in scientific and artistic creativity.

Scientific activity cannot be imagined as a mechanical knowledge of certain phenomena of the surrounding world. Scientific research is always associated with the construction of hypotheses, therefore it is unthinkable without creative imagination. The scientist's imagination allows him to build hypotheses, mentally represent and play scientific experiments, search for and find non-trivial solutions to problems. So, for example, in mathematics, at the beginning of the proof of various theorems, one has to meet statements that begin with the words: “let's say that; Let's imagine that." It is they who indicate that the process of mathematical proof begins with a creative representation or imagination. Imagination plays an important role in the early stages of solving a scientific problem and often leads to wonderful guesses.

Unlike scientific thinking, which limits a person's fantasy with the requirements of unconditional reliability, reasonableness, expediency, evidence and logic, in art there are no restrictions either for the imagination or for the mind.

Writers, painters, composers, seeking to depict life in the images of their art, resort to creative imagination. The essence of artistic imagination lies, first of all, in being able to create new images that can be the bearer of ideological content. The special power of artistic imagination is to create a new situation not by violating, but by maintaining the basic requirements of vitality. For example, according to the paintings of I.I. Shishkin, botanists can study the flora of the Russian forest, since all the plants on his canvases are drawn with "documentary" accuracy. But the observance of vitality and reality does not mean photographically accurate copying of what is perceived, because a real artist has a special view of things, therefore the main task of a work of art is to show others what the artist sees, so that others can see it. Creative imagination uses this kind of fantasy, a deviation about some features of reality, in order to give imagery and clarity to the real world, the main idea or plan.

Most often, the creative process in art is associated with active imagination: before imprinting any image on paper, canvas or music sheet, the artist creates it in his imagination, applying conscious volitional efforts to this. Often, active imagination captures the creator so much that he loses touch with his time, his "I", "getting used to" the image he creates.

Some experiences, feelings of people in everyday life may be invisible to the layman's eye, but the artist's imagination, deviating from reality, transforms it, illuminating it brighter and more convexly showing some part of this reality that is especially important for him. To move away from reality in order to penetrate deeper into it and better understand it - such is the logic of creative imagination.

Of particular note is the importance of musical art in the development of creative imagination, because. artistic images, formed with the help of sounds, are characterized by an active and direct impact on the inner world of a person. It can even be argued that the genres of musical art acted as an incentive for the development of creative abilities, a way of influencing the emotional sphere, a factor in the education of human individuality.

Sound, as the basis of musical imagery and expressiveness, is devoid of the semantic concreteness of the word, does not reproduce fixed, visible pictures of the world, as in painting. At the same time, it is organized in a specific way and has an intonational nature. It is intonation that makes music sound art, as if absorbing centuries-old artistic experience. Music also has pronounced national features, manifested in its intonation, melodic, rhythmic structure. This is especially characteristic of folk musical creativity. Since associativity is a characteristic property of creative imagination, music can evoke in the listener a variety of emotional, figurative, visual, semantic, motor associations, memories of something experienced.

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Of course, it is impossible to understand the nature of creative abilities without understanding the essence of creativity.

Creativity is a human activity aimed at creating some new, original product in the field of science, art, technology, production and organization. A creative act is always a breakthrough into the unknown, a way out of an impasse in such a way that new opportunities for development appear, whether it be one's own, personal development of a person, the development of art, the improvement of production or the sales market.

Creativity is the creation of something new, it is also a mechanism for the development of personality. (Ponomarev Ya.A., 1976)

The creative act is preceded by a long accumulation of relevant experience, which is consolidated in skills, knowledge and skills; formulation of the problem; elaboration of all possible solutions. The accumulation of knowledge and experience can be characterized as a quantitative approach to the problem, when an existing problem is tried to be solved by old traditional methods, with the help of habitual and stereotyped operations of thinking. The creative act itself is characterized by the transition of the number of all kinds of ideas and approaches into their new peculiar quality, which is the true solution to this problem. The famous "Eureka!" Archimedes? The discovery of the law appeared to him as if suddenly, when he was taking a bath. But it was the result of long concentrated reflections on the problem.

Creativity is a historically evolutionary form of human activity, expressed in various activities and leading to the development of the individual. Through creativity, historical development and the connection of generations are realized. It continuously expands the possibilities of a person, creating conditions for conquering new heights.

Creative processes are found already in early childhood - in the games of children, which always represent the creative processing of experienced impressions, their combination and the construction of a new reality from them that meets the needs and inclinations of the child himself. It is the ability to create a structure from elements, to combine the old into new combinations, that is the basis of creativity.

Creativity is not the lot of only a few chosen people, geniuses who created great works of art, made great scientific discoveries or invented some improvement in the field of technology. Creativity exists wherever a person imagines, combines, changes and creates something new, no matter how small this new thing may seem. A huge part of everything created by mankind belongs to the unification of many grains of individual creativity.

The creative activity of L.S. Vygotsky defines it as “a person’s activity that creates something new, whether it is created by creative activity, some thing of the outside world, or a well-known construction of the mind or feeling that lives and is found only in the person himself.”

L.S. Vygotsky says that all human activity can be divided into two types, which have their own characteristics: reproducing, or reproductive, and combining, or creative.

Reproducing activity is the preservation of the previous experience of a person, ensuring its adaptation to the usual, stable environmental conditions. This activity is based on the plasticity of the human brain, which is understood as the ability of a substance to change and retain traces of this change.

The result of creative or combining behavior is not the reproduction of impressions or actions that were in the experience of a person, but the creation of new images or actions. The brain not only preserves and reproduces the previous experience of a person, but it also combines, creatively processes and creates new positions and new behavior from the elements of this previous experience. Creative activity makes a person “a being turned to the future, creating it and modifying its present”.

It is this creative activity, based on the combining ability of the brain, that is called imagination or fantasy in psychology.

“Every invention,” says Ribot, “large or small, before becoming stronger, being realized in fact, was united only by imagination - a building erected in the mind through new combinations or ratios.

Imagination as the basis of any creative activity is equally manifested in all aspects of cultural life, makes artistic, scientific and technical creativity possible. Therefore, the worldly definition of imagination is not correct, as everything that does not correspond to reality and cannot have any practical serious significance. In this sense, everything that surrounds us and that is made by the hand of man, the whole world of culture, in contrast to the world of nature, is all a product of human imagination and creativity based on this imagination.

Great role in the formation of the creative personality of fine arts. It is unthinkable to imagine fine art without creativity. Everything that a person feels, experiences, everything that excites him can be displayed in lines, spots, color. And for this it is not necessary to be a recognized artist. It is here that you can talk about the value of discoveries for yourself. It is only necessary to show the child how to express himself through visual materials.

Someone loves realistic drawing and he succeeds. And someone will suit an abstract image. "My bad mood" I will leave on paper in the form of angry, sharp, hard lines, figures or gloomy, dark, unattractive colors.

Artistic and creative activity is perhaps the most interesting activity for children of primary school age. It allows the child to reflect in the drawings his impressions of the world around him, to express his attitude towards it. At the same time, artistic and creative activity is of inestimable importance for the comprehensive aesthetic, moral, labor, and mental development of children.

Observations and selection of the properties of objects to be conveyed in the image (shapes, structures, color values, location in space) contribute to the development in children of a sense of form, color, rhythm of the components of an aesthetic sense. A sense of beauty can be formed only when the beauty of an object or phenomenon appears before the children (due to their concrete, figurative thinking) in a concrete expression. On this basis, in the process of visual activity, children develop imagination. The child creates an image not only on the basis of what he directly perceives from the surrounding world. The image of a newly perceived object enters into a relationship with the experience of past perceptions and established ideas. Children, for example, have never seen a fabulous bird, but they could see a wide variety of birds in the surrounding life, in illustrations, listened to fairy tales about magical birds (firebirds, blue birds), examined clay toys, images of various decorative birds on various decorative objects. art. On this basis, the image of an unusual, fantastic bird is formed.

In the work on the image, the child acquires various knowledge, his ideas about the environment are refined and deepened, he masters new visual skills and abilities that expand his creative possibilities, and learns to use them consciously. All this is very significant for his mental development, because each child, creating an image of an object, conveys the plot, includes his feelings in it, an understanding of how it should look. This is the artistic and creative activity of a school-age child, which manifests itself in him not only when he himself comes up with a theme for his drawing, but also when he creates an image on the instructions of a teacher, determining the composition, color scheme, other expressive means, introducing interesting additions, etc.

Describing the imagination of children, L.S. Vygotsky spoke of the need to understand the psychological mechanism of imagination, and this cannot be done without clarifying the connection that exists between fantasy and reality. “The creative activity of the imagination,” writes L.S. Vygotsky, is in direct proportion to the richness and diversity, the previous experience of a person, because this experience is the material from which the constructions of fantasy are created. The richer a person's experience, the more material that his imagination has at its disposal. This idea of ​​the scientist should be emphasized especially, because it is too widely known abroad, and in our country, that the child has a violent, unlimited imagination, is capable of generating bright, inorganic images from the inside. Any intervention of an adult, a teacher in this process only fetters and destroys this fantasy, wealth, which cannot be compared with the fantasy of an adult. At the same time, it is quite obvious that the poverty of the child's experience also determines the poverty of his imagination. As experience expands, a solid foundation is created for the creative activity of children.

The connection between imagination and reality allows us to conclude that the process of children's creativity does not end with the creation of souvenirs and other results of creative activity. They should be used to further enrich imagination and creativity. At the same time, it is important to remember that the child is influenced not only by his works, but also by works created by other children.

A prerequisite for the development of the imagination is creative activity, which cannot lead to success without the work of fantasy.

Visual activity, including drawing, is perhaps the most interesting activity. It allows the child to reflect in pictorial images his impressions of the environment, to express his attitude towards them. At the same time, visual activity is of inestimable importance for the comprehensive aesthetic, moral, labor, and mental development of children. The development of the imagination of younger students is most facilitated by thematic and decorative drawing. Decorative drawing mainly develops reproductive imagination, as children usually study various types of folk paintings (Khokhloma, Gzhel, etc.) in the classroom and recreate them. But still, there are tasks that require creative imagination (for example, appliqué, drawing an ornament, etc.).

Thematic drawing most of all contributes to the development of creative imagination. In thematic drawing, the child shows both artistic and creative abilities. And here, first of all, it is necessary to define the concept of the topic itself. There are general themes (“eternal themes” - good and evil, relationships between people, motherhood, courage, justice, beauty and ugliness), which have many manifestations and provoke creativity, and specific topics, with a clear indication of the place and action that require precise implementation . They help diagnose creative imagination.

Based on the above, the following points can be noted:

The creative process includes three main stages: the accumulation of material, the processing of accumulated material (dissociation and association of impressions) and the combination of individual images, bringing them into a system, building a complex picture.

The accumulation of material includes external and internal perception, which is the basis of creativity. This is what the child sees and hears.

Imagination and creativity are closely related, imagination is formed in the process of creative activity, although creativity cannot be imagined outside the process of fantasizing.

· Creativity without imagination acts as a chain of cause-and-effect relationships, constantly varying and changing.

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Introduction

“It can be assumed that if in the XX century. most of all extolled "reasonable man", then the XXI century. will live under the sign of a “creative person”. (F. Berron)

Leonardo da Vinci, A. Suvorov, A. Einstein, L. Tolstoy, G. Heine, S. Prokofiev, P. Richard, B. Gates, M. Tyson, A. Sviridova, an obscure baker from a nearby bakery and a great many famous and unknown names, representatives of various professions can continue this list - a list of people who have shown a creative approach in any kind of activity and realized their abilities in any field.

As a rule, relatives and friends, bending over the cradle of a baby, catching his first movements and reaction to the world around him, prophesy a great future for the newborn. The fantasy of parents in this area has no boundaries. Here, hypotheses are fruitfully put forward about who is in front of them. Most likely - this is the future great (great): scientist; commander; composer; writer; pop performer; athlete; fashion model; entrepreneur; religious figure, etc. But these assumptions remain only assumptions, nothing more, because. the field of realization of the personality is boundless and implies two extremes of the level of self-realization achieved by a person - this is genius and mediocrity, mediocre and direct personality.

The ability to create - what is it, a given or the result of a person's enormous efforts on the path of development and self-improvement? There is no single answer to this question, and it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to answer it exhaustively.

Imagination plays a special role in the creative process. Imagination and creativity are a derivative of the individual's realization of unique potentialities in a certain area. Imagination is a special form of the human psyche, standing apart from other mental processes and at the same time occupying an intermediate position between perception, thinking and memory. The question of the presence of imagination, creativity and the need for self-realization in a person has been and is relevant from ancient times to our time. Another great English chemist of the XVIII century. J. Priestley, who discovered oxygen, argued that really great discoveries, which “a sensible, slow and cowardly mind would never have thought of,” can only be made by scientists who “give full scope to their imagination.” The role of imagination in scientific creativity was also highly regarded by V. I. Lenin. He wrote: "... it is absurd to deny the role of fantasy in the most rigorous science"

The specificity of this form of mental process lies in the fact that imagination is probably characteristic only of a person and is strangely connected with the activity of the organism, being at the same time the most "mental" of all mental processes and states. The latter means that the ideal and mysterious nature of the psyche is not manifested in anything other than imagination. It can be assumed that it was the imagination, the desire to know and explain it, that drew attention to mental phenomena in antiquity, supported and continues to stimulate it today. However, the phenomenon of imagination remains mysterious even today. Humanity still knows almost nothing about the mechanism of imagination, including its anatomical and physiological basis. Questions about where in the human brain the imagination is localized, with the work of which nervous structures known to us it is connected, have not yet been solved today. At least, we can say much less about this than, for example, about sensations, perception, attention and memory, which have been studied to a sufficient extent.

As objects of research, imagination as a creative process is of interest to such sciences as philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc.

Purpose: to consider imagination as a creative process.

Review the definition of imagination. The main types, functions of the imagination.

Consider creative imagination. Creative propensity.

Chapter 1. Imagination

1.1 Imagination definition

Imagination is a form of mental reflection, which consists in creating images based on previously formed ideas.

The physiological basis of imagination is the formation of new combinations and combinations from already established neural connections in the cerebral cortex. At the same time, simple updating of existing temporary connections does not yet lead to the creation of a new one. The creation of the new also presupposes such a combination, which is formed from temporary connections that have not previously been combined with each other. In this case, the second signal system, the word, is of great importance.

The process of imagination is the joint work of both signal systems. All visual images are inextricably linked with it. The word serves as a source for the appearance of images of the imagination, controls the path of their formation, is a means of holding them, fixing them, replacing them.

In psychology, there are several ways to build images of the imagination:

Agglutination - a combination of qualities, properties, elements of reality that are not connected in reality;

Hyperbolization - a significant exaggeration of the properties of real objects;

Sharpening - highlighting certain signs of reality as especially significant;

Schematization - smoothing out the differences between objects and arbitrary endowing them with a specific image;

Typization is the selection of an essential feature in homogeneous phenomena and endowing it with a specific image. (Kravchenko A.I. "General psychology" M.-2009)

To study the cognitive role of imagination, it is necessary to find out its features. The complexity of identifying the specifics of imagination is due to the fact that it is closely intertwined with all types of cognition. This circumstance is the reason for the emergence of a tendency to deny the existence of imagination as a special form of reflection. To solve this problem, it is necessary to reveal the real nature of imagination.

Let us turn to the definitions that are available in the literature. L.S. Vygodsky notes that the imagination does not repeat in the same combinations and in the same forms individual impressions that have been accumulated before, but builds some new rows from previously accumulated impressions. In other words, bringing something new into the very course of our impressions and changing these impressions so that as a result of this activity a new, previously non-existent image arises, is, as you know, the very basis of the activity that we call imagination.

“Imagination,” writes S.L. Rubinshtein, - is connected with our ability and necessity to create something new. “Imagination is a departure from past experience, its transformation. Imagination is a transformation of the given, carried out in a figurative form. (Rubinstein S.L. "Fundamentals of General Psychology" St. Petersburg. 1998. http://azps.ru/hrest/28/4846617.html)

“The main feature of the imagination process,” writes E.I. Ignatiev, “in a particular practical activity is the transformation and processing of perception data and other material of past experience, resulting in a new idea.”

The same can be read in the "Philosophical Encyclopedia", where imagination is defined as a mental activity that consists in creating ideas and mental situations that have never been directly perceived by a person in general in reality.

As you can see, the ability of the subject to create new images is considered an essential feature of the imagination. But this is not enough, because then it is impossible to distinguish between imagination and thinking. Logical activity, human thinking - a specific form of creating cognitive images through logical inference, generalization, abstraction, analysis, synthesis cannot be simply identified with imagination. The creation of new knowledge and concepts in the field of logical thinking can occur without the participation of the imagination.

Many researchers note that imagination is the process of creating new images, proceeding in a visual plan. This tendency refers the imagination to the forms of sensory reflection. Another trend believes that the imagination creates not only new sensory images, but also produces new thoughts.

Understanding imagination as a process opposite to thinking, and thinking proceeding according to the laws of logic, as uncreative, is unjustified. One of the characteristics of the imagination is that it is associated not only with thinking, but also with sensory data. There is no imagination without thinking, but it cannot be reduced to logic either, since in it (in imagination) the transformation of sensory material is always assumed.

Thus, let us take into account the fact that imagination is both the creation of new images and the transformation of past experience, and the fact that such a transformation takes place in the organic unity of the sensible and the rational.

Imagination plays a huge role in human life. Thanks to the imagination, a person creates, intelligently plans his activities and manages them. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of people's imagination and creativity. Imagination is also of great importance for the development and improvement of man as a species. It takes a person beyond the limits of his momentary existence, reminds him of the past, opens the future. Imagination is the ability to imagine an absent or non-existent object, keeping it in the mind and mentally manipulating it.

With a rich imagination, a person can "live" at different times, which no other creature in the world can afford. The past is fixed in images of memory, arbitrarily resurrected by an effort of will, the future is presented in dreams and fantasies.

Imagination is the main visual-figurative thinking that allows a person to navigate the situation and solve problems without the direct intervention of practical actions. It helps him in many ways in those cases of life when practical actions are either impossible, or difficult, or simply inexpedient or undesirable.

From perception, which is the process of receiving and processing by a person various information entering the brain through the senses, and which ends with the formation of an image, imagination differs in that its images do not always correspond to reality, they contain elements of fantasy and fiction. If the imagination paints such pictures to the consciousness, to which nothing or little corresponds in reality, then it is called fantasy. If, in addition, the imagination is aimed at the future, it is called a dream.

Imagination, more than other cognitive mental processes, is associated with human feelings. One can perceive and think in cold blood, dispassionately, but one cannot imagine in cold blood. Imagination not only arises under the influence of feelings, but itself becomes one of their most powerful sources. Often imaginary situations give rise to feelings in us no less strong than real events. This is a very important property of the imagination, because thanks to it we get the opportunity to assess what significance certain circumstances may have for us. At the same time, this property of the imagination is fraught with the danger of leaving reality, “resettlement” into the world of dreams. (Wenger L.A.; Mukhina V.S. "Psychology" M. "ENLIGHTENMENT" 1988)

1.2 Basic types of imagination

Imagination can be of four main types.

Active imagination - is characterized by the fact that, using it, a person, at his own request, by an effort of will, causes appropriate images in himself. Active imagination can be creative and recreative. Imagination, which is based on the creation of images that correspond to the description, is called recreative. Creative imagination, unlike the recreative one, involves the independent creation of new images that are realized in original and valuable products of activity. (Petrovsky A.V. "General psychology" M.; 1977)

Passive imagination - lies in the fact that its images arise spontaneously, in addition to the will and desire of a person. Passive imagination is divided into intentional and unintentional. A person can cause a passive imagination intentionally: such images, fantasies, deliberately caused, but not connected with the will aimed at bringing them to life, are called dreams. All people tend to dream about something joyful, pleasant, tempting. In daydreams, the connection between fantasy products and needs is easily revealed. But if in the processes of imagination a person is dominated by dreams, then this is a defect in the development of the personality, it indicates its passivity. Passive imagination can also arise unintentionally. This occurs mainly when the activity of consciousness, the second signal system, is weakened, when a person is temporarily inactive, in a semi-drowsy state, in a state of passion, in sleep, in pathological disorders of consciousness. (Petrovsky A.V. "General psychology" M.; 1977)

Productive imagination - differs in that in it reality is consciously constructed by a person, and not just mechanically copied or recreated. At the same time, this reality is creatively transformed in the image.

Reproductive imagination - when used, the task is to reproduce reality as it is, and although there is also an element of fantasy, such imagination is more like perception or memory than creativity. With the process of imagination in the practical activities of people, first of all, the process of artistic creativity is connected. Thus, a direction in art called naturalism, as well as partly realism, can be correlated with reproductive imagination. According to the paintings of I. I. Shishkin, for example, botanists can study the flora of the Russian forest, since all the plants on his canvases are drawn with “documentary” accuracy. The works of democratic artists of the second half of the 19th century I. Kramskoy, I. Repin, V. Petrov, for all their social sharpness, are also a search for a form that is as close as possible to copying reality.

In art, only life can be the source of any direction; it also acts as the primary base for fantasy. However, no fantasy is capable of inventing something that would not be known to man. In this regard, it is reality that becomes the main creativity of a number of masters of art, whose flight of creative imagination is no longer satisfied with realistic, and even more so naturalistic means of imagination. But this reality is passed through the productive imagination of the creators, they construct it in a new way, using light, color, filling their works with vibration of the air (impressionism), resorting to point representation of objects (pointillism in painting and music), decomposing the objective world into geometric shapes ( cubism), etc. Therefore, we encounter productive imagination in art even in cases where the artist is not satisfied with the reconstruction of reality by the realistic method. His world is a phantasmagoria, irrational figurativeness, behind which are quite obvious realities. For example, the fruit of such an imagination is M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", the fiction of the Strugatsky brothers, etc. Turning to such unusual and bizarre images makes it possible to enhance the intellectual, emotional and moral impact of art on a person. Most often, the creative process in art is associated with active imagination: before imprinting any image on paper, canvas or music sheet, the artist creates it in his imagination, applying conscious volitional efforts to this. Often, active imagination captures the creator so much that he loses touch with his time, his "I", getting used to the image he creates.

Less often, passive imagination becomes the impulse of the creative process, since spontaneous images independent of the will of the artist are most often the product of the subconscious work of his brain, hidden from himself. And yet, observations of the creative process described in the literature provide an opportunity to give examples of the role of passive imagination in artistic creation. So, Franz Kafka gave an exceptional role in his work to dreams, capturing them in his fantastically gloomy works. In addition, the creative process, starting, as a rule, with an effort of will, that is, with an act of imagination, gradually captures the author so much that the imagination becomes spontaneous, and it is no longer he who creates images, but images own and control the artist, and he obeys their logic.

The work of the human imagination is not limited to literature and art. To no lesser extent, it manifests itself in scientific, technical, and other types of creativity. In all these cases fantasy as a kind of imagination plays a positive role.

But there are other types of imagination - dreams, hallucinations, daydreams and daydreams. Dreams 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 in a person’s dreams many vital needs are expressed and satisfied, which, for a number of reasons, cannot be realized in real life.

Hallucinations are called fantastic visions, which apparently have almost no connection with the reality surrounding a person. Usually hallucinations are the result of certain disorders of the psyche or the work of the body and accompany many painful conditions.

Dreams, which have already been mentioned above, unlike hallucinations, are a completely normal mental state, which is a fantasy associated with a desire, most often a somewhat idealized future.

A dream differs from a dream in that it is somewhat more realistic and more connected with reality, that is, in principle, feasible. Dreams and dreams of a person take up quite a large part of the time, especially in youth. For most people, dreams are pleasant thoughts about the future. Some also have disturbing visions that give rise to feelings of anxiety, guilt, aggressiveness.

1.3 Functions of the imagination

The mind of a person cannot be in an inactive state, that is why people dream so much. The human brain continues to function even when new information does not enter it, when it does not solve any problems. It is at this time that the imagination begins to work. It has been established that a person, at will, is not able to stop the flow of thoughts, stop the imagination. In the process of human life, imagination performs a number of specific functions:

The first function is to represent reality in images and be able to use them when solving problems. This function of imagination is connected with thinking and is organically included in it.

The second 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, to relieve the tension generated by them. This vital function is especially emphasized and developed in such a direction of psychology as psychoanalysis.

The third function of the imagination is associated with its participation in the arbitrary regulation of cognitive processes and human states. With the help of skillfully created images, a person can pay attention to the necessary events, through images he gets the opportunity to control perception, memories, statements.

The fourth function of the imagination is the formation of an internal plan of action, that is, the ability to carry them out in the mind, manipulating images. The fifth function of the imagination is planning and programming activities, drawing up such programs, assessing their correctness, the implementation process. With the help of imagination, a person can control many psychophysiological states of the body, tune it to the upcoming activity. There are known facts that with the help of imagination, in a purely volitional way, a person can influence organic processes: change the rhythm of breathing, pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature, etc. These facts underlie auto-training, which is widely used for self-regulation .

Chapter 2

2.1 Creative imagination

Creative imagination is a kind of imagination aimed at creating new socially significant images that form the basis of creativity.

Creative imagination obeys certain laws; the connection of various elements in the process of creative imagination is always not mechanical, but structural in nature, subject to the task and creative plan. At the same time, the structural forms in which the work of the imagination of a writer, artist, composer takes place are not invented, but are drawn from the perception and study of reality. Imagination in artistic creativity, of course, also allows for a significant departure from reality, a more or less significant deviation from it. Artistic creativity is expressed not only in the portrait; it includes both a fairy tale and a fantasy story. In a fairy tale, in a fantastic story, deviations from reality can be very great. But both in a fairy tale and in a fantastic story itself, deviations from reality must be objectively motivated by a plan, an idea that is embodied in images. And the more significant these deviations from reality, the more objectively motivated they should be. Creative imagination resorts in a work of art to fantasy, to deviation from certain aspects of reality, in order to give figurative clarity to reality, the main idea or idea, indirectly reflecting some essential aspect of reality. (Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. St. Petersburg, 1998. http://azps.ru/hrest/28/4846617.html)

The following essential aspects of creative imagination can be distinguished (on the example of an artist):

a heightened attitude to reality, expressed in acute observation, leading to the accumulation of material that, when needed, can be used in future creative work. These partial images, which are still accumulating without a definite connection with the idea of ​​the future picture, are simply characteristic or somehow remarkable features of the reality surrounding the artist. But these are still not just photographic sketches: the visual side of the image is immediately, in the process of perception itself, comprehended, vivid images preserved in memory are grouped according to their semantic meaning. Such heightened observation has become the second nature of the artist: he cannot help but observe, he does it constantly, without conscious effort;

the idea of ​​creation at first appears simply as the "idea" of the future picture, as a certain task that the artist has set for himself. This task has not yet been expressed in a definite image, clearly "the figure has not yet been determined"; the artist does not yet have a finished image; for this, further activity of the imagination is necessary;

the search for a solution to the problem and finding a figurative expression of the idea are made in the process of long-term work on the drawing. The required solution is not given immediately, numerous sketches of the drawing still do not satisfy the artist, so much they diverge from the idea;

the appearance of an image coinciding with the idea. The figurative solution of the idea: a) is achieved in the process of work, and not only through mental imagination; b) is revealed to the artist either as a result of new, complementary impressions made, or, as a rule, as a result of one of the successful attempts; c) acts as a bright, vital, definite image, but so far only in the imagination, and not in the drawing: this is a mental image that shows what the drawing should be like;

the transformation of the imagined image into a picture, into a real work of art: seeing the required image with the mind’s eye, the artist corrects the drawing, discarding everything in it that did not correspond to this image, and adding new features that made the figure the way it was revealed to the artist in the mental image.

These aspects of the process of imagination are typical of creativity not only of the artist and representatives of other types of art (composers, writers, artists, etc.), but also of creative imagination and in the field of science and invention.

Creative imagination in these activities is also characterized by the following aspects:

a) the accumulation of the material necessary for creativity (extensive versatile, including special knowledge, extensive practical experience);

b) the emergence of the idea of ​​a scientific discovery or invention, initially in the form of a hypothesis or a technical idea that has not yet found a constructive solution in its most general, fundamental form;

c) attempts to solve the problem in specific experiments or constructive tests;

d) during these attempts the transformation of the initial general idea into a specific solution (the transformation of a hypothesis into a theory, a fundamental idea into a specific design of the invention), the realization of the theory in experiments confirming it, the idea of ​​the invention in a specific machine.

2.2 Development of abilities for creative imagination. Solving creative problems

The psychology of creativity manifests itself in all its specific forms: inventive, scientific, literary, artistic, etc. What factors determine the possibility of creativity of a particular person? The possibility of creativity is largely provided by the knowledge that a person has, which is supported by the corresponding abilities, and is stimulated by the purposefulness of a person. The most important condition for creativity is the presence of certain experiences that create the emotional tone of creative activity.

The problem of creativity has always been of interest not only to psychologists. The question of what allows one person to create, and deprives another of this opportunity, worried the minds of famous scientists. For a long time, the view about the impossibility of algorithmization and teaching the creative process dominated, which was substantiated by the famous French psychologist T. Ribot. He wrote: “As for the “methods of invention”, about which much scientific reasoning has been written, they do not really exist, since otherwise it would be possible to fabricate inventors in the same way as mechanics and watchmakers are now fabricated. ". Gradually, however, this view began to be questioned. In the first place came the hypothesis that the ability to be creative can be developed. Thus, the English scientist G. Wallace made an attempt to investigate the creative process. As a result, he managed to distinguish four stages of the creative process:

1. Preparation (the birth of an idea).

2. Maturation (concentration, "pulling" of knowledge directly and indirectly related to a given problem, obtaining missing information).

3. Illumination (intuitive grasp of the desired result).

4. Verification.

Another scientist - G. S. Altshuller - developed a whole theory of solving creative problems. He distinguished five levels of creativity:

First level. Problems are solved by using means directly intended for these purposes.

Second level. It requires a mental enumeration of only a few generally accepted and obvious solutions. The object itself does not change in this case. The means of solving such problems are within the limits of one narrow specialty. Tasks require some modification of the object to obtain the desired effect. The enumeration of options in this case is measured in tens. At the same time, the means of solving such problems belong to one branch of knowledge.

Third level. The correct solution of problems is hidden among hundreds of incorrect ones, since the object being improved must be seriously changed. Techniques for solving problems have to be sought in related fields of knowledge.

Fourth level. When solving problems, the improved object changes completely. The search for solutions is carried out, as a rule, in the field of science, among rare effects and phenomena.

Fifth level. Problem solving is achieved by changing the entire system, which includes the object being improved. Here the number of trials and errors increases many times, and the means of solving problems of this level may be beyond the capabilities of today's science. Therefore, first you need to make a discovery, and then, based on new scientific data, solve a creative problem.

According to Altshuller, one of the important methods for solving creative problems is to transfer them from higher levels to lower ones. For example, if tasks of the fourth or fifth level are transferred to the first or second level by means of special techniques, then the usual enumeration of options will work. The problem is to learn quickly, to narrow the search field, turning the “difficult” task into an “easy” one.

Thus, despite the apparent ease, arbitrariness, unpredictability of emerging images, 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 analysis and synthesis. Ultimately, the processes of imagination consist in the mental decomposition of the original ideas into component parts (analysis) and their subsequent combination in new combinations (synthesis), i.e., they are of an analytic-synthetic nature. Consequently, the creative process relies on the same mechanisms that are involved in the formation of ordinary images of the imagination.

Chapter 3

3.1 Creative process. Intention

Creativity is the activity of a person or a group of people to create new original socially significant values.

The creative process begins with an idea. The latter is the result of the perception of life phenomena and their understanding by a person on the basis of his deep individual characteristics (degree of giftedness, experience, general cultural training). The paradox of artistic creativity: it begins with the end, or rather, its end is inextricably linked with the beginning. The artist "thinks" as a viewer, the writer as a reader. The idea contains not only the attitude of the writer and his vision of the world, but also the final link in the creative process - the reader. The writer at least intuitively "plans" the artistic impact and post-reception activity of the reader. The goal of artistic communication through feedback affects its initial link - the idea. The process of creativity is permeated with counter lines of force: going from the writer through the idea and its embodiment in a literary text to the reader and, on the other hand, from the reader, his needs and receptive horizon to the writer and his creative idea.

The idea is characterized by unformed and at the same time semiotically unformed semantic certainty, outlining the outlines of the theme and idea of ​​the work.

In the idea “it is still unclear through the magic crystal” (Pushkin), the features of the future literary text are distinguished

The idea is first formed in the form of intonation "noise", embodying the emotional and value attitude to the topic, and in the form of the outlines of the topic itself in a non-verbal (intonation) form.

The idea is inherent in the potential for symbolic expression, fixation and embodiment in images.

3.2 Artistic creation - the creation of an unpredictable artistic reality

Art does not repeat life, but creates a special reality. Artistic reality may be parallel to history, but it is never its cast, its copy.

“Art differs from life in that it always avoids repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke three times and three times, causing laughter, to be the soul of society. In art, this form of behavior is called “cliché.” Art is a recoilless tool, and its development is determined by the dynamics and logic of the material itself, the previous fate of the means that require finding (or prompting) every time a qualitatively new aesthetic solution. Art, at best, is parallel to history, and the way of its existence is the creation of a new aesthetic reality each time "(Borev Yu.B. "Aesthetics" 2002)

3.3 Predisposition to creativity

Considering the process of artistic creation, psychology cannot ignore its psychological aspects.

Artistic creativity is a mysterious process. At one time, I. Kant said: “... Newton could present all his steps, which he had to take from the first beginnings of geometry to his great and deep discoveries, not only to himself, but also to everyone else, and destined them for succession; but no Homer or Wieland can show how complete fantasies and at the same time ideas rich in thoughts appear and combine in his head, because he himself does not know this and, therefore, cannot teach this to anyone else. So, in the scientific field, the greatest inventor differs from the miserable imitator and student only in degree, while he differs specifically from the one whom nature has endowed with the ability to fine arts ”(Kant. vol. 5. pp. 324--325).

Pushkin wrote: “All talent is inexplicable. How does the sculptor in a piece of Carrara marble see the hidden Jupiter and bring it to light, crushing its shell with a chisel and hammer? Why does a thought leave the poet's head already armed with four rhymes, measured by slender monotonous feet? “So no one, except the improviser himself, can understand this speed of impressions, this close connection between one’s own inspiration and an alien external will ...” (A.S. Pushkin. Egyptian Night, 1957).

Some theorists believe that artistic genius is a form of mental pathology. So, C. Lambroso believed that no matter how cruel and painful the theory that identifies genius with neurosis looks, it is not without serious grounds .... Similar thoughts were expressed by A. Schopenhauer, he believed that genius is rarely found in alliance with the prevailing rationality; on the contrary, individuals of genius are often subject to strong affects and unreasonable passions. (C. Lambroso "Genius and insanity")

There is a hierarchy of value ranks that characterizes the degree of a person's predisposition to artistic creativity: ability - giftedness - talent - genius.

According to I. W. Goethe, the genius of an artist is determined by the power of perception of the world and the impact on humanity. The American psychologist D. Guilford notes the manifestation of six abilities of the artist in the process of creativity: fluency of thinking, analogies and contrasts, expressiveness, the ability to switch from one class of objects to another, adaptive flexibility or originality, the ability to give the art form the necessary outlines.

Artistic talent presupposes keen attention to life, the ability to choose objects of attention, fix these impressions in memory, extract them from memory and include them in a rich system of associations and connections dictated by creative imagination.

Many are engaged in activity in this or that form of art, in this or that period of life, with greater or lesser success. An artistically gifted person creates works of sustainable significance for a given society for a significant period of its development. Talent generates artistic values ​​that have enduring national and sometimes even universal significance. A master of genius creates the highest human values ​​that are significant for all time.

imagination creative mental

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, we can say the following: imagination in its own, completely specific sense of the word can only be in a person. Only a person who, as a subject of public practice, really transforms the world, develops a true imagination. With a rich imagination, a person can live in different times, which no other living being in the world can afford. Imagination is a special form of the human psyche, standing apart from other mental processes and at the same time occupying an intermediate position between perception, thinking and memory. It can be assumed that it was the imagination, the desire to understand and explain it, that drew attention to psychic phenomena in antiquity, supported and continues to stimulate it today. Imagination is the main driving force of the human creative process and plays a huge role in all of his life. This is because all life activity is to some extent connected with creativity, starting with cooking and ending with the creation of literary works, paintings, inventions.

Imagination is closely connected with creativity, and this dependence is inverse, i.e. it is the imagination that is formed in the process of creative activity, and not vice versa. Creativity is not a free play of the imagination that does not require much and sometimes hard work. On the contrary, everything new, significant, remarkable was created by great labor. Discoveries in the field of science and technology (Popov, Zhukovsky, Pavlov, Michurin and others), great works in the field of literature and art (Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Repin, Surikov, Tchaikovsky and others) were created as a result of enormous labor. The essence of artistic imagination lies, first of all, in being able to create new images capable of being a plastic carrier of ideological content. Imagination is a conscious process at its core. The ability to figuratively predict the results of one's own actions gives direction to creative imagination. Imagination deepens a person's knowledge of the world, helps to establish new properties of objects and connections between them.

The flight of fantasy in the creative process is provided by knowledge, supported by abilities, stimulated by purposefulness, accompanied by an emotional tone. In any kind of activity, creative imagination is determined by how it can transform reality, burdened with random, insignificant details. Imagination is a very valuable mental process, because it is largely thanks to it that masterpieces of art and invention have been created that people have the opportunity to be inspired, enjoy and use.

Bibliography

1. Kravchenko A.I. "General psychology" M., "Prospect" 2009.

2. Wenger L.A.; Mukhina V.S. "Psychology" M., "Enlightenment" 1988.

3. Petrovsky A.V. "General psychology" M., "Enlightenment" 1977.

4. Rubinstein S.L. "Fundamentals of General Psychology". St. Petersburg, 1998. (http://azps.ru/hrest/28/4846617.html)

5. Borev Yu.B. "Aesthetics" M., 2002.

6. Vygotsky L S. "Development of higher mental functions" M., 1960.

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Introduction

1. Imagination: essence and types

2. Imagination and creativity

2.1 The role of imagination in scientific, technical and artistic creativity

2.2 Development of the imagination of children in the process of creative activity

2.3 Brainstorming as a form of creative imagination

Conclusion

List of used literature


Introduction

Imagination in its very specific sense of the word can only be in a person. Only a person who, as a subject of public practice, really transforms the world, develops a true imagination.

With a rich imagination, a person can live in different times, which no other living being in the world can afford. The past is fixed in memory images, and the future is represented in dreams and fantasies.

Imagine what would happen if a person did not have imagination. We would lose almost all scientific discoveries and works of art, images created by the greatest writers and inventions of designers. Children would not hear fairy tales and would not be able to play many games. And how would they be able to assimilate the school curriculum without imagination?

Thanks to the imagination, a person creates, intelligently plans and manages his activities. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of the imagination and creativity of people.

Imagination takes a person beyond the limits of his momentary existence, reminds him of the past, opens the future. Along with a decrease in the ability to fantasize, a person's personality becomes impoverished, the possibilities of creative thinking decrease, and interest in art and science fades.

If you deprive a person of fantasy, progress will stop, therefore imagination is the most necessary ability of a person.

Taking into account the relevance of this problem, what importance imagination has in a person’s life, how it affects his mental processes and states, we will define the purpose of this work, which is to study imagination and creativity, as well as the issue of their relationship.

The work consists of an introduction, two parts, a conclusion and a list of references.


1. Imagination: essence andkinds

Imagination is a form of mental reflection, which consists in creating images based on previously formed ideas. It is a reflection of reality and serves as a means of its knowledge.

Thanks to the imagination, a person creates, intelligently plans and manages his activities. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of the imagination and creativity of people. Imagination takes a person beyond the limits of his momentary existence, reminds him of the past, opens the future. Possessing a rich imagination, a person can “live” in different times: the past is fixed in memory images arbitrarily resurrected by an effort of will, the future is represented in dreams and fantasies.

A feature of imagination as a process is the formation of visual images of objects that were not previously perceived by the subject. Any imagination generates something new, changes, transforms what is given by perception. These changes and transformations can be expressed in what a person, based on knowledge and experience, imagines, i.e. will create for himself a picture of what he himself has never actually seen. For example, a message about a flight into space encourages our imagination to draw pictures of a fantastic life in its unusualness in weightlessness, surrounded by stars and planets. The factor stimulating the activity of the imagination is the various connections of phenomena, events, objects. They are capable of causing a free play of associations.

The attitude of a person to the process of imagination directly determines the existence of different levels of imagination. Let's give a classification of some forms of imagination.

At the lower levels, the change of images occurs involuntarily, which is performed under the influence of little-conscious needs, drives and tendencies, regardless of any conscious intervention of the subject. In the highest forms of imagination, in creativity, images are consciously formed and transformed in accordance with goals. Using them, a person, at his own request, by an effort of will, causes himself the corresponding images of a person’s creative activity. This form of imagination is called active.

Imagination can also be: active, passive, productive (transformative) and reproductive (reproducing).

Active Imagination is characterized by the fact that, using it, a person, at his own request, by an effort of will, evokes in himself the corresponding images. Creative active imagination - independent creation of new images in relation to the subject. It manifests itself in the products of activity, embodied in practice. images passive Imaginations arise spontaneously, in addition to the will and desire of a person.

Productive imagination differs in that in it reality is consciously ascertained by a person, and not simply mechanically copied or recreated. But at the same time, in the image it is still creatively transformed. AT reproductive the task of imagination is to reproduce reality as it is, and although there is also an element of fantasy, such imagination is more like perception or memory than creativity.

Distinguish also imagination recreating and creative.

In the first case, this is the reconstruction of given images. It takes place in those cases when a person, according to one description, must imagine an object that has never been perceived before. The basis for the recreative imagination is knowledge. For example, a person has never seen the sea, but after reading a description of it in a book, he can imagine the sea in more or less vivid and complete images. The re-creative imagination creates what is, what exists, and as it exists. There should not be a departure from reality in it, otherwise it will not serve the goals of knowledge that it faces - to expand (based on the translation of descriptions into visual images) the circle of human knowledge about the world around. Thanks to the recreative imagination, a person can only imagine distant countries, in which he has never been, and long-past historical events, and many objects that he has not had the chance to encounter in reality, using only one description.

The second is expressed in the independent development of the latest images. Creative imagination is the independent creation of new images in the process of creative activity, whether it be art, science or technical activity. Writers, painters, composers, in an effort to reflect life in the images of their art, resort to creative imagination. They do not just copy life photographically, but create artistic images in which this life is truly reflected in its most striking features, in generalized images of reality.

Discoveries, inventions, the creation of works of art, literature - all this is a creative activity, which is a social necessity. Creative imagination is much more complicated than recreative one: it is one thing to imagine a drawing of a machine and quite another to make it.

Allocate such forms of imagination, such as dreams, drowsy states, dreams, hallucinations, daydreams.

Dreams can be classified as passive and involuntary forms of imagination. It is known that in a person's dreams many vital needs are expressed and satisfied, which, for a number of reasons, cannot be realized in life. Hallucinations are called fantastic visions that have no connection with the reality surrounding a person. Usually they are the result of certain disorders of the psyche or the work of the body - they accompany many painful conditions. Dreams, unlike hallucinations, are a normal state of mind, and are a fantasy associated with desire.

A special place in the imagination is occupied by a dream, which acts as a real or abstract possibility of the desired future. A dream differs from a dream in that it is more realistic and more connected with reality.

It has been established that people dream so much because their mind cannot be unemployed, it continues to function even when no information enters the human brain, when it does not solve any problems. It is at this time that the imagination begins to work. In addition, it was revealed that at will a person is not able to stop the imagination or stop the flow of thoughts.


2. Imagination and creativity

Imagination is closely connected with creativity, and this dependence is inverse, i.e. It is imagination that is formed in the process of creative activity, and not vice versa. Thus, creative imagination is a kind of imagination directed at the creation of new images, which forms the basis of creativity.

The peculiarity of creative imagination lies in the fact that it is a conscious process in its basis. The ability to figuratively predict the results of one's own actions gives direction to creative imagination.

The flight of fantasy in the creative process is provided by knowledge, supported by abilities, stimulated by purposefulness, accompanied by an emotional tone. In any kind of activity, creative imagination is determined by how it can transform reality, burdened with random, insignificant details.

2.1 The role of imagination in scientific, technical and artistic creativity

The specialization of different types of imagination is the result of the development of different types of creative activity. Therefore, there are as many specific types of imagination as there are types of human activity; imagination plays a particularly important role in scientific and artistic creativity.

scientific activity cannot be imagined as a mechanical knowledge of certain phenomena of the surrounding world. Scientific research is always associated with the construction of hypotheses, therefore it is unthinkable without creative imagination. The scientist's imagination allows you to build hypotheses, mentally represent and play scientific experiments, search for and find non-trivial solutions to problems. So, for example, in mathematics, at the beginning of the proof of various theorems, one has to meet statements that begin with the words: “let's say that; imagine that." It is they who indicate that the process of mathematical proof begins with a creative representation or imagination. Imagination plays an important role in the early stages of solving a scientific problem and often leads to wonderful guesses.

Unlike scientific thinking, which limits a person’s fantasy to the requirements of unconditional reliability, reasonableness, expediency, evidence and logic, in art there are no limits to the imagination or the mind.

Writers, painters, composers, seeking to reflect life in the images of their art, resort to creative imagination. The essence of artistic imagination lies, first of all, in being able to create new images that can be the bearer of ideological content. The special power of the artistic imagination is to create a new situation not by violating, but by maintaining the basic requirements of vitality. For example, according to the paintings of I.I. Shishkin, botanists can study the flora of the Russian forest, since all the plants on his canvases are drawn with "documentary" accuracy. But the observance of vitality and reality does not mean photographically accurate copying of what is perceived, because a real artist has a special view of things, therefore the main task of a work of art is to show others what the artist sees, so that others can see it. Creative imagination uses this kind of fantasy, a deviation about some features of reality, in order to give imagery and clarity to the real world, the main idea or plan.

Most often, the creative process in art is associated with active imagination: before imprinting any image on paper, canvas or music sheet, the artist creates it in his imagination, applying conscious volitional efforts to this. Often, active imagination captures the creator so much that he loses touch with his time , his "I", "getting used" to the image he creates.

Some experiences, feelings of people in everyday life may be invisible to the layman’s eye, while the artist’s imagination, deviating from reality, transforms it, illuminating it brighter and more convexly showing some part of this reality that is especially important for him. To move away from reality in order to penetrate deeper into it and understand it better - such is the logic of creative imagination.

Of particular note is the value musical art in the development of creative imagination, because artistic images, formed with the help of sounds, are characterized by an active and direct impact on the inner world of a person. It can even be argued that the genres of musical art acted as a stimulus for the development of creative abilities, a way of influencing the emotional sphere, a factor in the education of human individuality.

Sound, as the basis of musical imagery and expressiveness, is devoid of the semantic concreteness of the word, does not reproduce fixed, visible pictures of the world, as in painting. At the same time, it is organized in a specific way and has an intonational nature. It is intonation that makes music sound art, as if absorbing centuries of artistic experience. Music also has pronounced national features, manifested in its intonational, melodic, rhythmic structure. This is especially characteristic of folk musical creativity. Since associativity is a characteristic property of creative imagination, music can evoke in the listener a variety of emotional, figurative, visual, semantic, motor associations, memories of something experienced.


2.2 Development of imagination in children in the process of creative activity

Creativity can and should be taught to everyone. Especially if this work was started at a younger school age. What are these features of creative activity?

1) the creative process involves the independent transfer of knowledge and skills to a new situation.

2) Vision of a new function of an already familiar object.

3) Seeing new problems in familiar situations.

4) Vision of the structure of the object to be studied.

All these features of creative activity are inextricably linked with imagination, since creative activity involves the promotion of different approaches, solutions, consideration of the subject from different angles, the ability to come up with an original, unusual way of solving.

Naturally, the child creates something subjectively new, that is, something new for himself, but this is of great social importance, because in the course of it the abilities of the individual are formed.

In the learning process, recreating imagination is of great importance, because without it it is impossible to perceive and understand educational material.

Teaching promotes the development of this kind of imagination. In addition, the younger schoolchild's imagination is more and more closely connected with his life experience, and it does not remain a fruitless fantasy, but gradually becomes an incentive to activity. The child seeks to translate the thoughts and images that have arisen into real objects.

There are no people incapable of creativity! There are people who do not strive for creativity. To develop the ability for creativity inherent in every child, to educate in him the qualities necessary for him to succeed in various types of activity both as a performer and as a creator, as real life requires, means to educate a generation that will overcome the inertia of forms and methods of work.

2.3 "Brainstorming" as a form of creative imagination

Generating valuable ideas is a creative and completely unpredictable process. Brainstorming is a technique for stimulating creativity and productivity, based on the assumption that in the usual methods of discussing and solving problems, the emergence of innovative ideas is prevented by control mechanisms of consciousness that fetter the flow of these ideas under the pressure of habitual, stereotypical forms of decision-making. That is, it is a procedure for group creative (creative) thinking, a means of obtaining a large number of ideas from a group of people in a short period of time.

Properly organized brainstorming includes three mandatory steps:

1. Statement of the problem. Preliminary stage. At the beginning of the second stage, the problem should be clearly formulated. There is a selection of participants in the assault, the definition of the leader and the distribution of other roles of the participants, depending on the problem posed and the chosen method of conducting the assault.

2. Generation of ideas - the main stage, on which the success of the entire brainstorm largely depends. Therefore, it is very important to follow the rules for this stage: do not make any restrictions on the number of ideas; a complete ban on criticism and any (including positive) evaluation of the ideas expressed, since the evaluation distracts from the main task and destroys the creative mood; unusual and even absurd ideas are welcome.

3. Grouping, selection and evaluation of ideas. This stage is often overlooked, but it is the one that allows you to highlight the most valuable ideas and give the final result of the brainstorming. At this stage, unlike the second, the assessment is not limited, but, on the contrary, is welcomed. Methods for analyzing and evaluating ideas can be very different. The success of this stage directly depends on how “equally” the participants understand the criteria for selecting and evaluating ideas.

A team of several specialists and a moderator participate in the brainstorming. Before the brainstorming session itself, the facilitator makes a clear statement of the problem to be solved. During the brainstorming session, the participants express their ideas for solving the problem, both logical and absurd.

In the process of brainstorming, as a rule, at first the solutions are not very original, but after some time, typical, template solutions are exhausted and unusual ideas begin to appear among the participants. Then, when all ideas are expressed, they are analyzed, developed and selected.

As a result, the most effective and often non-trivial, creative solution to the problem is found.


Conclusion

Summing up the above, we note that imagination is one of the most important aspects of our life. The importance of imagination in human life and activity is very great. Without imagination, progress would not have been possible either in science, or in art, or in technology. Not a single school subject can be fully assimilated without the activity of the imagination.

In connection with the features and causes of occurrence, they distinguish: involuntary and arbitrary imagination; in connection with the characteristic features of imaginary representations, as well as tasks, they distinguish: recreating, creative imagination, human dreams, etc.

Imagination is the basis of the creative process. Creative abilities are not limited to knowledge, skills and abilities, although they are manifested and developed on their basis. Creativity is a quality of a person that exists only in relation to a certain activity. There are several forms of communication between imagination and reality:

1) Imagination is always created from events experienced by a person, that is, from previous experience. Consequently, the creative activity of the imagination depends on the previous experience of a person, and the more diverse the experience, the richer the imagination.

2) Imagination has direction. That is, we create goals and motives that the activity of the imagination pursues.

3) Imagination has an emotional connection.

Having traced the connection between imagination and reality, we can list the conditions necessary to start the creative process:

Availability of sufficient prior information. It is necessary to understand the essence of the task at hand, to be fluent in the basic concepts, to know the main characteristics of the object or phenomenon that interests you.

The presence of emotional interest in solving the problem.

Having a strong and controlled imagination. It is believed that it is thanks to the play of the imagination, fantasy, that a person is able to dismember and reconnect acquired and previously known data in a new way.


List of used literature

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4. Petrovsky, A.V. Psychology / A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky. - M.: Academy, 2000. - 512 p.

5. Rubinstein S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology / S.L. Rubinstein. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2000. - 720 p.

6. Kholopova, V.N. Music as a form of art: Textbook / V.N. Kholopov. - St. Petersburg: Lan, 2000. - S.150-154.