Using the Imagination
For many people, the concept of imagination is simply something that everyone does now and then in between periods of logical or problem solving thought or when it is not being replaced by what the person might be watching on the TV set.
So intimating that there is a certain way of using imagination to bring more of the good things into our lives is sure to get many people reaching for the "back" button or walking away from the computer or handheld device they are using to read this article.
But there is actually a right way and a wrong way to use the power of imagination that can actually create better or worse results that a person may be seeing in their lives.
How Imagination Can Be Harnessed for Good
Everyone has an imagination, but it's how that imagination is used to best effect that can determine how a person's results in life pan out for them.
Much of what we imagine is determined by what we are seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing from the world around us.
If we are reading a book, then the imagination is hard at work creating a vivid picture of what the book is describing. 
We take the written word and formulate pictures and sounds in our minds according to how we personally interpret the words written on the page.
Words can describe a face, but two different people reading exactly the same description will imagine complete different looking faces.
This is why books are such a powerful way of developing the imaginative faculty. But they can only develop the imaginative function of the brain so far. To take the next step in this ability's development, we need to look within.
When we move away from any kind of artificial imaginative triggers emanating from the external world and start to switch on our true creative mental powers of imagining, we can actually start to create new ideas that weren't there before.
With practice and regular use, this facility can be strengthened and grown to great effect with benefits in the form of attracting new ideas that can later be put into practice and become reality.
Television Dulls Imagination
Watching television overloads the sensory input of the brain and almost completely displaces the need for the imagination to create anything, because the visual/audio capability of that medium has already done it all for us.
This actually dulls the imaginative faculty over time, especially when a person watches many hours of TV every day. It literally saps the creative ability of its power and dulls the thought processes. In extreme cases, it can leave people feeling disorientated and unable to make decisions for themselves.
The effects soon wear off when the TV is switched off and the person starts doing different things, but the negative effects are certainly cumulative and can dull a person's creative thinking ability over time. If a person desires to develop their ability to imagine new things and create new ideas, the television will have to go!
What Can You Imagine?
Assuming a person has taken the initiative and turned their back on the mind sapping television set and is actively seeking answers from within, then there are certain ways of using the mental capabilities to advance the imaginative skills.
Images in the mind can be created almost to order as long as the person knows what it is that they want to achieve.
It really boils down to knowing what they really want. Not what do they think they can have or get, but actually setting out a definite goal to aim for.
At the early stages of this kind of exercise, because mental exercise is actually what it is, it is not so important to know how that goal is going to be achieved. It is only important to know and firmly believe, without a shadow of a doubt that the goal will be achieved.
Once a definite goal has been established, all it takes is to find some "quiet time" where there will be no disturbances for a reasonable period of time and then to relax the body and mind through meditative induction. This is quite easy to do, although it gets easier with practice so don't be concerned if it doesn't come on the first few attempts.
Meditation
It's best to be sitting or lying down on a comfortable chair or sofa or bed and then to start consciously breathing very slowly, deeply and deliberately, while allowing all thoughts to clear from the mind.
This takes some practice, because a normally busy mind is often reluctant to give up this often chaotic and frenetic mental activity. Practice makes perfect and a state of mental quietness will come eventually.
Once this state has been reached, then focus on the goal and only on the goal. See it as it is a reality, like it has already happened and is being enjoyed in the present, in the now. As this goal is focused upon for a reasonable length of time, the imagination will start to percolate up ideas.
They may be fleeting and often difficult to see how they can have any bearing on the goal. They may not come right away but come later as hunches, or intuitive feelings about certain things.
Hunches
But the important thing is to remember them if possible and take note of these hunches, because they will lead to the goal in some way or another.
They may lead to a certain situation or person or people who will have some bearing on how that goal will be reached.
This is the true use of the imagination to bring about or attract good situations into a person's life because the solutions to problems, answers to questions and ways around obstacles will be coming from within. This makes them unique and free from the burdened reality that we live in, which often sends us the wrong answers or solutions and is responsible for creating the obstacles that we are often faced with.
Often, relying on the conscious, logical mental faculties to find solutions to problems can get in the way of, or throw up inferior solutions to those that would make a big impact on our lives. The ideas that come from within are free from the shackles of a reality that is often stunted, limited and lacking in the necessary energy to take us to where we really want to be.
There are many theories as to why creative, imaginative thought that comes from deep within the person's psyche has so much more potential power than the ideas that are borne of looking at what we can see with our own eyes. Some say that when we use our inner selves as the source of our ideas, we are in contact with God, or a higher intelligence that guides us.
Some believe we are touching a collective intelligence that we are all unconsciously hooked up to. Others still believe we are all imbued with an imprint of all the collected knowledge that has ever been accumulated and that we can tap into this source through mental skills that were lost in the millennia of time but are now being rediscovered.
Whatever the correct answer is to the source of this power, the fact remains that it is real and usable by anyone who has the will, determination and faith to tap into it and use it for their own good and the good of others.